Want More of the ‘Odyssey’? Read These Books Next
Informative histories, modern retellings and genre-bending homages will take you back to the long road to Ithaca.
Calum Marsh is a reporter and critic who writes about arts, culture and sports. His book “The Glass Box: The Shocking True Story of How CrossFit Broke the Rules, Made Millions, and Changed Fitness Forever” will be published this fall.
The master of the epic blockbuster takes on the granddaddy of all epics with this summer’s “The Odyssey.” Christopher Nolan ’s new film adaptation of Homer’s Ancient Greek saga stars Matt Damon as the wandering hero Odysseus, who must make his way — via many detours — home to his wife and son in Ithaca after helping lead the Greeks to victory in the Trojan War (a campaign covered in Homer’s other much-lauded poem, the “Iliad”).
Hopefully the movie moves you to revisit the original text , a story so rich it has drawn readers for millenniums, via many translations. And if you’re craving even more adventures with Odysseus and company — or if you want some context on the real history of the era, or original takes on classic myths — look no further than these books.
Although we have just missed Bloomsday , any day is a good day to start reading “Ulysses.” Perhaps the most famous reimagining of Homer’s epic, this stream-of-consciousness, modernist novel transposes the hero’s journey from the wine-dark sea to the streets of turn-of-the-century Dublin, ingeniously refracting Homer’s “Odyssey” through the perspectives of the ironic “heroes” Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom. Don’t be put off by its abstruse reputation: “Ulysses” is a deeply pleasurable read — a voyage through the mundane that touches the sublime. Read our review .
The beautiful, vindictive witch Circe plays a small but significant role in the “Odyssey”: transforming sailors into swine, holding them captive on her island and advising the weary Odysseus, who becomes her lover, on how to navigate some of the trials still to come on his journey. Miller’s retelling gives the sorceress the spotlight and puts an enchanting, feminist spin on her story. The book explores Circe’s many adventures beyond Homer’s poem — Athena, the Minotaur, Daedalus, Medea and more all cross her path — and gives her psychological depth that shows her supposed vengefulness in a different light. Read our review .