Oates Slams Wilson's Nolan 'Odyssey' Review as 'Maga' Talk
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- Joyce Carol Oates criticized classicist Emily Wilson on X for her London Review of Books essay calling Nolan's 'The Odyssey' lacking 'psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth' and having 'nothing convincing to say.'
- Oates accused Wilson of speaking in 'the crude language of Maga folks attacking someone with ideas that differ from hers' and said a translator should be 'just a wee bit more thoughtful and respectful of others who are acting in good faith.'
- Emily Wilson wrote that Nolan's writing was 'abysmal,' with characters lacking convincing motivation, no sex scenes, and food that 'looks horrible,' while conceding the film is 'very good at conveying big bangs and big giants.'
- Wilson's verdict carried unusual weight because Nolan had praised her 2017 landmark translation in an Empire interview, citing its opening line — 'Tell me about a complicated man' — as a reference point for shaping his Odysseus.
- Universal has stressed Nolan was linked to an adaptation long before Wilson's translation was published, disputing claims he had been 'inspired' by it; no royalties from the film have gone to any writer other than Nolan himself.
- Oates had herself implicitly criticized the film last week, calling Andrei Konchalovsky's 1997 Hallmark Channel TV movie a 'much more interesting interpretation' of the Circe–Odysseus dynamic and its Odysseus 'so manly, so fully human.'
- Nolan's The Odyssey has taken $683M globally on a roughly $250M production budget plus about $100M in marketing costs, while UK bookseller TGJones reported a 1,560% rise in Iliad searches this month.
Why it matters: The clash matters most to Universal's Oscar campaign: Nolan's previous film 'Oppenheimer' swept seven Academy Awards and is widely predicted to follow suit in March, so a uniquely credentialed critic publicly calling the new film's writing 'abysmal' and its characters 'underdeveloped' — while Nolan himself had publicly elevated her translation — hands awards-season skeptics a quotable scholarly indictment at the worst possible moment.
