Joyce Carol Oates Slams Emily Wilson's 'Odyssey' Review
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- Joyce Carol Oates launched a pointed social media defense of Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' against Emily Wilson's scathing London Review of Books review
- Emily Wilson, whose translation of Homer is widely considered the most popular, wrote that she 'would be ashamed to have written any part of this script'
- Oates accused Wilson of 'dismissal & haughty superiority' and said she 'speaks in the crude language of MAGA folks' attacking someone 'with ideas that differ from hers'
- Oates argued that 'all translations are, presumably, subjective & not equivalent to the original text' and that a translator 'beholden to a text' should be 'a wee bit more thoughtful & respectful' of reinterpretations
- Oates defended Nolan's right to reimagine Homer, quoting Book 9 to argue Odysseus displays 'swaggering male braggadocio' and that Nolan's vision adds 'conscience & remorse' the epic lacks
- Oates recommended Daniel Mendelsohn's translation over Wilson's, arguing that critics calling Nolan's dialogue too modern would equally attack any 'poetic' translation as 'too elevated'
- Oates predicted the film 'will not be considered a great classic' but insisted 'whatever Nolan did, it would disappoint hordes of people,' and also recommended the 1997 Francis Coppola-produced miniseries starring Armand Assante
Why it matters: With a National Book Award winner accusing a leading Homer scholar of conducting a 'MAGA folks'-style attack on creative work, the exchange crystallizes a growing public tension between academic gatekeepers and filmmakers adapting canonical texts — a spat now playing out across social media and print criticism around a $640M-grossing studio tentpole.
