Guest commentary: Christopher Nolan tries making a blockbuster worthy of Homer
By Paul J. O’Reilly
“Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven far journeys … longing for his wife and his homecoming.”
So begins Homer’s “Odyssey” (in Richard Lattimore’s translation), the poet recounting Odysseus’ travels back to his wife, kin and homeland after a 10-year battle in Troy. The epic is, above all, a story of homecoming, both in the literal sense of the king’s reunion with his kingdom and spiritually.
To achieve true greatness, Odysseus must also overcome temptation, distraction and his own disordered character and priorities.
Many times over the years, I have had the privilege of teaching “The Odyssey” to college freshmen. As their discussion and the narrative unfold, they discern truths especially relevant at their stage in life: the false promises of vanity, greed, glory, lust — and the enduring value of home and family.
Whether Christopher Nolan’s big-screen adaptation of “The Odyssey” can preserve these timeless themes remains to be seen. Credit the director for an ambitious undertaking: Odysseus’ journey is epic in every sense of the word.
Homer’s opening paean notwithstanding, the king’s heart is not always longing for his suffering wife, Penelope, their beloved Ithaca; or even their effectively fatherless son, Telemachus. Having engineered the conquest of Troy, the king and his men embark on their homeward sail.
A wind carries them, as if by chance, to Ismaros, land of the Kikonians, and Odysseus responds savagely. “I sacked their city and killed their people … taking their wives and many possessions.”
This town holds no tactical or strategic value; nor is Odysseus avenging some evil done to his people. What kind of man, Homer seems to ask, would engage in such an act of wanton piracy? Not one ready to reenter civilized society.
Odysseus and his crew only depart Ismaros when the Kikonians counterattack — a battle that costs the Achaeans many men. Upon their escape, they eventually arrive at the Island of the Cyclops, where Odysseus continues to exhibit astonishingly little prudence or virtue.
Recognizing the one-eyed giant as “monstrous” and “wild, with no true knowledge of laws or any good customs,” his men urge him to put out to sea, but he chooses to linger. “I would not listen to them … not until I could see him, see if he would give me presents.”
Presents? From a lawless brute?
Odysseus knows better than to expect such hospitality. He brings a potent wine, anticipating that he will need to inebriate the monster — another escape would be necessary. And escape he does, thanks to his characteristic guile, but only after six more crewmates pay for his recklessness with their lives.
After a yearlong, adulterous dalliance with the nymph Circe, Odysseus later travels to Hades, the land of the dead. There he meets his mother, Antikleia, who died, he learns, longing for his return.
He also hears of his father’s suffering and of Penelope, who has wasted away her “wretched nights … with weeping,” while 108 suitors clamor for the home and family he has long neglected.
The spirits in Hades celebrate Penelope as a devoted and faithful wife—unlike the many unfaithful spouses, including Odysseus, who populate Homer’s verse. Penelope demonstrates a devotion to marriage that Odysseus only now begins to understand.
On his last stopover, Odysseus visits Scheria, the land of the Phaiakians, not by accident, but at Zeus’ decree. Scheria is one of the few remaining well-ordered societies.
Here, Odysseus discovers the importance of good law and good habits. At last, he longs for home, and Zeus brings him to this oasis of civilization to learn what sort of home to govern.
In their generosity, the Phaiakians deliver Odysseus back to Ithaca, where he dispatches the suitors, restoring his kingdom while, at the same time, being restored to his wife and son.
Heroically, he achieves the goods of family life and the peaceful city, goods that Homer depicts as greater than the glories of war.
Both in ancient societies and our own, such goods can be all too easily overlooked. Sometimes, we need our own corrective journeys of the soul to set our priorities, which is why “The Odyssey” continues to resonate after 28 centuries.
• Paul O’Reilly is the president of Thomas Aquinas College, which offers a program of classical liberal education at its campuses in California and New England. This article is adapted from a longer version that originally appeared in The Daily Signal.
