Monthly Book Chat

Before Christopher Nolan brings The Odyssey to the screen this July, there is no better time to return to Homer’s ancient epic itself: the story of Odysseus, the weary but cunning king of Ithaca, struggling for ten years to find his way home after the Trojan War while his wife Penelope and son Telemachus struggle to preserve his household against those who would consume it.
Composed nearly 2,700 years ago, around the dawn of Greek literature, The Odyssey stands near the foundation of the Western literary imagination, giving us monsters, gods, storms, seductions, disguises, homecomings, and the haunting question of what it means to remain oneself after war, wandering, temptation, and loss.
To read it before the film is to meet the source before the spectacle, to hear the old song in its own voice, to recognize how deeply its images still live in us, and to arrive at Nolan’s version not merely as a moviegoer, but as a fellow traveler on the long road home.