Homeric Nod Off

“Classics scholar Emily Wilson was in Greece’s Costa Navarino last year when she heard the news that would change her life: Filmmaker Christopher Nolan was planning to release a star-studded adaptation of The Odyssey, the epic poem that Wilson had spent years painstakingly translating from Homeric Greek into English.” A Penn professor thought she’d sell 1,000 copies of her ‘Odyssey’ translation. She sold more than a million this year alone.

+ For those kinds of sales, you’d expect the movie to get a rave review from Emily Wilson. Well, not so much. “It’s a family-friendly audiovisual spectacle, like an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display [Editor’s note: Oooh!] – and with about the same level of narrative and emotional depth.” [Editor’s note: Aaah…]