What’s Epic About the ‘Odyssey’? Everything.
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Maurice Shema, the host of a new podcast from Serial Productions, The Marshall Project, and The New York Times. Last year, I spent three months embedded with a Capitol defense team. Their client had been on death row for more than 30 years, and now his execution date had been set. I followed along as the lawyers tried to prove something nobody had successfully done in three decades, that one of Texas' most notorious serial killers was actually innocent. The last 12 weeks. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
So what I'm hearing is we're going to get an ancient Greek translation of From the New York Times. This is the daily on Sunday. And we're going to read it.
And Natalie, do you want to say khairete with us? Okay. All right. One, two, three. Khairete. Should we do it again?
Yeah. Okay, you did more of like a khairete. So should I get, okay, I'm going to do that.
Okay, I will say hello and then you say your line, Madeline.
All right, I will. Khairete. Greetings. This is the daily speech of the Gray Lady.
I'm Natalie Kittroweth.
The news from the city of Five Boroughs on the day of Helios, the sun god.
I was trying to sound like a news, like, you know. Yes, I like that. I was trying to match Natalie's.
Yes.
Christopher Nolan's new movie, The Odyssey, is coming out in theaters this Friday. And it's going to be a big cinematic event. In fact, it already is a big event. Nolan's version of Homer's 3,000-year-old epic tale is generating a ton of excitement, much-spirited discussion, and somehow, before it's even been released, backlash. So today, to prepare us all for this upcoming spectacle, I talk with two people who've produced critically acclaimed and widely read interpretations of The Odyssey. Emily Wilson, who translated The Odyssey and is the very first woman to do so, and Madeline Miller, author of Circe and Song of Achilles, two best-selling novels inspired by Homer's poems. It's Sunday, July 12th.
Emily, Madeline, hello. Hello. Hello. I am so happy to have you both here. Happy to be here.
Yes, definitely.
This is going to be like the most exciting thing I do for a very long time. It is really making me love my job that we get to do this together. So we have you both gathered here in order to talk about something that really fascinates me, has fascinated me for a long time, which is the Odyssey. And We want to prepare people for this movie in a way that I think only the two of you can. But first, for people who may not remember the plot of The Odyssey, I am going to attempt a quick recap. The very, very short version is that it's the story of a man, Odysseus, who is trying to get home. He fought in the Trojan War for 10 years, and then he spends 10 years working his way across the beautiful but also very scary Mediterranean Sea in order to get to the island of Ithaca.
which he is the king of and where his wife, Penelope, and son, Telemachus, are waiting for him. It is all very dramatic because there are a bunch of suitors trying to get Penelope to betray Odysseus and marry one of them. And it is famously extremely difficult for him to actually get there, to get to Ithaca. There is sex and murder along the way. There are fantastical creatures, vengeful gods, helpful gods... awesome gods. The whole point of it is that he is really smart and really resourceful and he gets home eventually, not because he's the strongest dude in the world and really good at war, but because he essentially outsmarts his enemies. Emily, I hope I did an okay job with that. Very self-conscious doing it in front of you.
What was it about that story that first got you, that hooked you?
So going back to childhood, I mean, my first exposure to a version of that story was when, as for many people, was when I was a little kid and I got to be in a school play. I got to play Athena. I thought, this is such an exciting story about goddesses. And there were these kick-ass goddesses. Who doesn't love stories with gods, with giants? Yeah. The possibility of being eaten alive. That's exciting. And these questions about whether forces that are more powerful than you might be plotting and you're in the midst of these mysterious plots and you don't know where you are in the world.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–6:36
2
What is Christopher Nolan’s movie 'The Odyssey' and why is it a cultural event?
6:36–33:43
3
How does Emily Wilson describe her approach to translating the Odyssey into English verse?
33:43–39:36
4
Why did Emily Wilson choose iambic pentameter and preserve the poem’s rhythm?
39:36–52:37