It warms the cockles of my nerdy heart that so many people are talking about a 3,000 year old poem, so I thought I’d share a few books that are helping me think about The Odyssey in fresh ways (which isn’t easy to do with something that’s been around for millennia). If you’re interested in what I thought about the movie and how it compares to these books, I go a little deeper in my most recent Substack post.

Critics praised this 2017 translation by Emily Wilson, a classics scholar and the first woman to translate The Odyssey into English, for its vibrant, contemporary language that still remained faithful to the original Greek text. As she writes it, the journey is a rollicking adventure that’s easy to get caught up in, even if some of the modern slang can be a bit jarring. Christopher Nolan has cited Wilson’s translation as a reference for his movie, but Wilson was not entirely impressed with his screenplay.

Still, thanks to Wilson’s word choices and rich characterizations, Odysseus is truly a “complicated man,” as she states in the opening lines. He’s wily, crafty, clever, and charming. He’s also kind of a jerk. For example, when Odysseus and his sailors are trapped in a Cyclops’s cave, Odysseus tricks the Cyclops into thinking his name is “No Man” so the creature’s neighbors don’t come to help when the creature calls out, “No man is hurting me.” It’s kind of a Bugs Bunny trick. But later, after Odysseus returns to Ithaca to clear out the suitors from the palace, he also murders twelve enslaved women because they were serving the suitors, which was literally their job. It’s a rough scene, and scholars have debated its meaning for years.

Wilson’s translation also shines a light on Penelope’s long, painful struggle to keep Ithaca running under pressure to abdicate—and her cleverness in tricking the suitors into waiting. Her arrow-shooting contest is meant to make sure Odysseus is who she thinks he is, because after 20 years, she’s too smart and careful to be tricked by some doofus claiming to be her husband.

If you’d like more of Penelope’s story, check out The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood.

Stuck in Hades, Penelope speaks directly to the reader, and she’s a little testy. She never got her due for running Ithaca while the wealthiest men of the kingdom pressured her to hand it over. And she mourns the twelve enslaved women who were actually her spies helping her to keep abreast of any plots to overthrow her or harm her son.

The women themselves speak as a collective “we” in alternate chapters, sometimes singing sea shanties, sometimes offering alternate versions of Odysseus’s adventures (my favorite was the Cyclops as a one-eyed tavern owner who threw Odysseus out when he became belligerent and he embellished the story to save face). In one chapter, they put Odysseus on trial for his lies and crimes, which is kind of satisfying for those on the he’s-a-jerk wagon.

Overall, it’s a unique and interesting book, if not the most compelling read. It isn’t as immersive as I like a novel to be, coming across more like a screed or collection of concepts tossed together. The concepts are cool (there’s one about Penelope as the leader of a goddess cult, but it only lasts a few pages) and the book is short, so it’s worth a peek.

For a reimagining of The Odyssey that I really loved, read Circe by Madeline Miller.

This is a beautiful, creative reinterpretation from the perspective of a minor character with big impact. Circe is the daughter of a titian and a naiad who reject her because they think she’s powerless. But she’s feisty and independent-minded, and by disobeying Zeus she ends up banished to a rock in the middle of nowhere. Far from the petty intrigues of Olympus, she forges a simple life where she can allow her powers to grow, but her peaceful solitude is destroyed when sailors crash on her shores, assault her, and eat all her food. What’s a witch to do?

I found this story of a woman coming into her power engaging from start to finish. It was especially cool to read her version of what happens to Odysseus after he leaves her island. Instead of a conquering hero returning home, she thinks of him as a madman who doesn’t know how not to destroy everything he touches. While he was with her, she knew he was trouble, but she wanted this charming, unpredictable charlatan anyway. But after he leaves, she understands him differently. Hers is a compassionate (yet also annoyed) view that interprets the events of The Odyssey anew. It’s one of those books that asks what it is about this story that has kept us fascinated all these many, many years.