Joyce Carol Oates Panned Emily Wilson’s Odyssey Pan - The Cut

saved Save this article to read it later. Find this story in your account’s ‘Saved for Later’ section. Comment Photo-Illustration: By The Cut; Photos: Getty Images and Universal Pictures Much of the discourse surrounding Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has been racist, boring, and peddled by right-wing freaks. Earlier this week, however, the conversation finally got kind of fun when Emily Wilson, the first woman to translate Homer’s epic into English, panned the movie. It got even more fun on Wednesday, when author and prolific poster Joyce Carol Oates got on X to pan Wilson’s pan. On Monday, Wilson published an essay about the film in the London Review of Books, in which she wrote that The Odyssey features Nolan’s “usual combination of grandiosity and superficiality.” The classicist slammed his race-neutral casting, not for the inclusion of people of color but because they all “play versions of the Black best friend, whose only role in the drama is to provide aid to the white protagonist.” (She later walked back this argument, saying that she “framed it badly.”) “Nolan’s Odyssey lacks many of the elements that make the poem great,” Wilson wrote, adding that the film “has nothing convincing to say” and that the writing is “abysmal.” She also took umbrage with Nolan removing some of the sensory delights from the poem. “There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible,” she wrote. Whether or not you agree with her, you must admit that she’s firing on all cylinders here. Oates entered the mix on Wednesday, writing on X that Wilson’s “tone of dismissal & haughty superiority strike a sour note.” “Rather than disagreeing with interpretations of Homer in a collegial manner, this person, who has benefited enormously from Nolan’s film, speaks in the crude language of MAGA folks attacking someone with ideas that differ from hers,” Oates continued. “One would expect a translator, of all people, beholden to a text, in service to a text, to be just a wee bit more thoughtful & respectful of others who are acting in good faith just as (she would claim) she is.” Shots fired. What’s funny about this whole thing is that Oates doesn’t even ride for the movie like that. The four-time Pulitzer Prize finalist seemingly prefers the 1997 Hallmark Channel version of the story. Last week, she quote-tweeted a clip of Bernadette Peters’s Circe and wrote that it was a “much more interesting interpretation than Nolan” and that “the Circe episode was not very dramatic or engaging in Nolan.” Of course, none of this is that deep. Oates is incredibly online and likely to share her opinion on just about anything that crosses her desk, and this week it was Wilson’s LRB piece. When The Guardian published two articles about her posts, Oates wrote that they were “rummaging through the online Dumpster for something to reprint.” She’s just saying whatever! Moving forward, I’d like all of my discourse to arrive courtesy of brilliant, eloquent women with well-written (if not necessarily strongly held) opinions. I think that would be good for all of us. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us.