[Gilbert Cruz]: Which of us has not longed sometimes to be reunited with someone that we love or been frightened and at a loss or or felt like you were being swept away by forces outside your control that there's there's so much in these works that that I think can draw people in and they're a reason why they've survived this long. It's because they keep speaking to people.

[Gilbert Cruz]: I'm Gilbert Cruz and this is the book review for the New York Times. Christopher Nolan's new film, The Odyssey, is hitting theaters soon, and you still have time to read. Or, uh, maybe skim the 3,000-year-old poem it is based on. Or maybe you have read the Odyssey, but it's been so long that you cannot tell your Urillicus from your Tmicus. That is where we come in. Later in the show, the Times is Tony Scott is going to join us for a deep dive into all the different types of stories contained within this sprawling tale. But first, we are going to explore the Odyssey's themes, characters, and cultural context with Placist and author Medeline Miller. Meline holds masters in classics from Brown University and has taught Latin and Greek to high school students for more than a decade. But you probably know her from her best-selling novels, The Song of Achilles and Cersei, which reimagine the ancient source material in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Meline Miller, thank you for being here.

[Madeline Miller]: Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Uh, so Madeline, you are the author of two best-selling books based on characters from these epics written by Homer. They have lived inside of you for a very long time. Have you been prepping for this Odyssey summer?

[Madeline Miller]: I mean, only my whole life, of course. I am just I'm always so thrilled because the the tradition of retelling these stories, revisiting them is basically unbroken since they were first created. And so I'm always excited when there is a new adaptation, a new retelling, um a new perspective on these stories because that's how they keep living is through people reimagining them.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Tell me about you and your relationship to the Odyssey. How many times have you read it? When was the first time you read it?

[Madeline Miller]: I my very very first readings of both the Iliad and the Odyssey came sort of listening to them because my mother who also loved classics uh would read me bedtime stories from selections from the Iliad and the Odyssey uh when I was a child and I absolutely fell in love with them. I loved the fantastical elements, of course, but part of what I loved back then is what I still love today, which is how incredibly real they felt. Even though there are six-headed monsters and cyclopes and all of that, that ultimately these stories are incredibly human and they are about flawed characters who experience great loss, who try and fail and try again, who get angry and make mistakes. and all of that was just utterly gripping to me. So, as soon as I could read them for myself, I immediately began kind of doing that.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Did you remember at that young age when your mother was reading your selections from the Odyssey? Do you remember the parts that stuck the most? There are all these little mini stories inside of the Odyssey. What really stuck with you?

[Madeline Miller]: All right. Well, I'm going to say something that's maybe a little bit of a faux paw, which is that I love the Iliad Moore. Oh, what are you doing here? But that is because I think and and this is a very broad generalization, but I think that the Iliad is a little bit more of a young person's story. And I think that the Odyssey is a little bit more of an older person's story because it is about longing to go back home after you have been adventuring and lost in the world. And now as an older person, um I can appreciate the Odyssey a lot more. But, you know, I I I think it's the type of work that the more you read it, the more you experience it, and the older you get, the richer it feels. And every time I come back to the Odyssey, I find something something new in it.

[Gilbert Cruz]: I um sort of crashed reading a young reader version of the Odyssey to my son. It's a Puffin Classic, so I think a British edition and translation, and I finished reading it to him literally last night. It was still a little intimidating for me. There's so many characters, so many names of places, so many incorrect ways to pronounce all of those characters and all of those place names. You've walked a lot of people through this. What do you tell people right at the beginning? This is what the Odyssey is about.

[Madeline Miller]: I think the first thing that I I always recommend to people who are new or who may have bogged down and I think in this case you're doing everything right is that these were stories and poems that originally came out of oral tradition. They were performed they were experienced as listeners as an audience who were on the edge of their seat at these adventures. And so I love the audio book for these as as a way to get into them or a wonderful parent who's reading to you. uh that also works because I think that that will also help with the names. You'll hear someone else saying them and you can also kind of let them go by. I think the other thing it's really important to remember is that this was a story that to the ancients was wellknown and so there's a lot of kind of side characters that show up and a lot of backstory that shows up. Agamemnon comes on, the leader of the Greek forces at Troy, and complains a bunch about his wife um and his situation, which is sort of meant to be a comparison to Odysius and his wife and his situation. Now, the ancients would have known exactly who Agamemnon was, exactly who his wife Clyde was and how that connected to the whole story. Readers coming into it may not know that. And I think it's okay to just kind of roll with it if you want to go and start with the Iliad. Um, I highly recommend that. Based on the trailer, it seems like they may even be bringing in pieces from the Iliad. So, starting with a little bit of Iliad might might not be the worst idea, but all these characters, Agamemnon, Achilles, who are kind of shadow characters, and of course, Helen, who is the stated cause of the Trojan War, all of that is sort of lurking in the background of the Odyssey. I don't think you need any of that.

[Madeline Miller]: because what the Odyssey really is at its heart is the story of this man who has been very famous and extremely successful. He has been lauded and praised. He's won a lot of loot. He's seen a lot of things. He's done a lot of things, a lot of which were not so honorable. And yet all this while he's longing for home. He's longing for his wife and his son who he doesn't know because he's been gone for 20 years. And he's longing to get back and and live a different kind of life than the life he's been living. And and I think that that if you can just stay focused on that, the the sort of the triad at the center of the story, which is Penelopey, the brilliant strategist wife who is every bit Odysius's equal, the son Tmicus and Odysius. You can kind of let the Agamemnon Achilles parts go by. But if you are a completist, a little bit of Iliad will help you with that.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Yeah, there is a way that modern audiences, whether they're audiences of film and TV or audiences who read books, have been trained to have to know all the backstory. We have all these series and we have prequels and we have prequels and we have sequels and it's like I need to know all the lore before I get into this. But what you're saying is do that if you want. Go with God or go with the gods. But you know, this is actually a very simple story at its core.

[Madeline Miller]: It is. It really is. And and you know, so many of the characters that you meet along the way, Odysius is also meeting for the first time. And so he'll introduce you to them. You know, you'll you'll get to hear who Cersei is because you'll see Odysius meet her and you'll get to experience his interaction with Calypso and the King of the Winds and and all of those things. you'll see play out. And so I really think that the that the Odyssey is the ancient epic where you need the the least amount of backstory.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Now, this story is not just old. This collection of stories, these characters have been around for quite a while. H how long?

[Madeline Miller]: Um well, you I I think you said uh about 3,000 years. That That's about right. Before the Iliad and the Odyssey existed as written texts, they existed as sung and performed oral tradition. So it's hard to kind of reach back into the past and find out exactly, but usually kind of 700 or so is the date where these things started to really coalesce as sort of the the poems we we know today. But these were very much evolving works because the stories were being told and retold before an audience. And I think that what you have to imagine is that the bards of course would be responding to the audience. So, if the audience was really loving the cannibals tearing apart Odysius's men, like add a few more dactilic examiners onto that part, like they're really enjoying it. Or if like people are, you know, turning pale and starting to throw up, then maybe cut that part a little bit. And so so you can imagine that that they would have been they would have been adjusting on the fly to who the audience was and that different versions would have been created and existing and then at some point they were all kind of brought together and scholars became very interested in sort of creating a correct version.

[Gilbert Cruz]: So hopefully everyone's aware at this point that the Odyssey is named after its main character Odysius. We have to talk about him. Tell me about tell me about this complicated man. Tell me tell me how people then uh regarded him and how we've been meant to think about him over all these centuries.

[Madeline Miller]: So Odysius has run a really successful PR campaign um over the centuries uh because people absolutely adore him and I I understand why. I mean he's clever. He's a survivor. He's very interesting. You never are quite sure what he's going to do. He has these incredible escapes and of course he has a great wife. Um so there's a reason why why we love him. But the ancients had a much more mixed view of him. We see him lose his temper. Um all of his men die. Some of that is clearly their fault. You know they do eat the cattle of the sun which they're not supposed to do and they've been warned and he trying to warn them they do it anyway. But there are moments where he kind of abandons them. like he knows that he's approaching a possible dangerous land and he sets his ship outside the harbor where it's safe and he just lets his men set their ships inside the harbor and they're going to get destroyed. So, you know, there are moments where as a leader you think, hm, I I would wish for a different leader if I were one of his his sailors. I mean, his name itself comes from the Greek word for hated. There's a little bit of a gap between what we in the modern world think of as a hero and what the ancients thought of as a hero.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Yeah. What is that gap? I mean, he's a guy who does some not great things to his men in this book.

[Madeline Miller]: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, in the ancient world, Hero met someone who was a warrior who had extraordinary physical prowess and who oftentimes changed the course of the way things went. Um, they were distinguished. they probably had a lot of loot um and they were respected in their sort of warrior circle. Uh today when we use the word hero, we tend to think about someone who's virtuous, who's a moral exemplar. I would not call Odysius a moral exemplar. And so I think sometimes people in the modern world sort of look and they expect kind of a hero the way we talk about heroes today. He is not that kind of hero for sure. Uh but I I think that's what makes him so interesting is that he's very flawed. So in that sense, he is very modern. There's this incredible moment after he's pulled this unreal trick with the Cyclops where he has told the Cyclops that his name is no one, right? And so when he finally stabs out the Cyclops's eye, the Cyclops screams, "No one's hurting me. No one's hurting me." And so therefore, you know, people ignore him and don't don't help him. And then Odysius gets away, gets on the ship, he's sailing away, and he's like, by the way, it was me, Odysius, from Ithaca, who did this to you. And you're just like, why Odysius? He couldn't help himself. And I love that moment because it feels so real to his character. It feels so human. This is a man who has sought excellence and who has sought fame and reputation his whole life. And of course, he can't let it go. What a trick.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Of course, that's the moment that dooms Adysius because when he, you know, pokes out the eye, the Cyclops's dad gets really mad. And guess what? The dad is a god. And he is a big god. He is Poseidon. He is the god of the sea. And from that moment on, Poseidon has it in for him. He wrecks Odysius's plans to get home over and over and over again. The gods in the Odyssey are...

[Gilbert Cruz]: agree.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Why? What's their deal? Why are they so why are they so mean?

[Madeline Miller]: Um, such an interesting question and and I think there are so many different ways to answer it and um I think partially they represent sort of the uncertainty of the heroic world where you know things can turn at a at a moment's notice. You know these are extremely dangerous voyages. Of course, it makes sense that the sea god would be a major antagonist because, you know, it personifies the terrors of these incredibly long voyages that they were making through uncertain lands. So, I think partially it just shows the harshness of of the world that they were in. But I also think that there is to some extent that the gods represent an exaggerated sense of what sort of the worst of mortals can be at times. Um, and their cruelty is just part of the challenge that we all have to get by. We have to do the best we can and make the sacrifices, but still sometimes we might just run a foul of a god. So, I think that that some of that was just, you know, people trying to understand their world, a very challenging world that they lived in. Part of what is so resonant is that we still experience those that great uncertainty and that fear and the worry about what will happen to us and will anyone care if we get sent down to the underworld suddenly. Um all those all those fears that the ancients had I think we still very much have.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Coming up, Meline Miller's recommendations for the books that pair best with the Odyssey.

[Gilbert Cruz]: So, Poseidon, the sea god, the father of the Cyclops, Polyphimist, does a lot, but I'm curious if you had to point to one or two examples of the gods just being particularly vengeful in the Odyssey. What what pops to mind?

[Madeline Miller]: Um, one of the great moments, this isn't necessarily vengeful, but one of the wonderful moments uh is is Calypso. She is a beautiful goddess and Odysius has shipwrecked on on her aisle and she's taken him in and fallen in love with him and the two have become lovers and then she doesn't want to let him go. And so for seven years, he spends the majority of his time of the 10 years it takes him to get back home with Calypso. And she's in love with him, but he wants to get back home. And eventually the gods have to intervene and send someone down to talk to Calypso and say, you know, you got to let him go. This is we can't do this anymore. And she gives this really wonderful speech where she says, you know, this is so unfair because the male gods do this all the time. And you're on my case because I'm a goddess doing what you guys do all the time. It's a really interesting speech, but it also shows that the gods are are inherently selfish.

[Gilbert Cruz]: It's a very interesting almost proto feminist speech about sort of a double standard that Calypso is very correctly pointing out. But we also, you know, she's been in entrapping our hero when he wants to go. Um, and she offers him immortality if he stays with her and he turns her down. And it's I think it's one of the most amazing passages in the piece because he wants to go back home that that's more important to him than than immortality. and she says, "You know, I'm prettier than your wife and she's getting she's going to get old." And he says, "I know, but I want to go home." And that, I think, really sets us up to to really care about Odysius. And he clearly wants the human life and and he yearns for the connections he already has with other humans, not this connection with the gods. And I think that's so it's so meaningful and resonant and shows that there that maybe there's something missing about the gods. It doesn't matter how beautiful they are and how wealthy they are and what they can give you. What matters is the connections you have.

[Gilbert Cruz]: and yet at the same time he has just experienced seven years of making love with a goddess. So he does not hold back in his trip.

[Gilbert Cruz]: complicated man. I was struck by the moment when Adysius finally is dropped off in Ithaca by some very nice people who take him on a boat. Um and uh they do him a solid and then they start to go home and Poseidon is still quite angry and he essentially ends their lives.

[Madeline Miller]: Yes, it is a shocking moment and I think it represents the the work's real um conflicted sort of attitude towards um whether or not good deeds are rewarded or punished. And I think that um it comes down kind of sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. And that's sort of a theme oftenimes in the ancient stories is that is that the gods are are really merciless and that that their agenda this sort of goes back to what we were saying is is what matters most.

[Gilbert Cruz]: It's such a chaotic worldview.

[Madeline Miller]: Yes, it is. It really is. In some ways reading it is so unsatisfying because you think how why isn't someone going to speak up for these nice people who followed all the right rules of being good hosts which was considered a really a sacred um responsibility in the ancient world to be a good host. And yet this terrible punishment happens to them. It it it feels um it feels deeply unfair but because it's unfair I mean maybe this is just a dark thing to say it feels very real.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Do you have a favorite god in this story?

[Madeline Miller]: I love the lesser gods because I find the greater gods absolutely terrifying and so I'm always interested in in the the lesser gods and and the nymph characters in particular. So this is a very predictable answer given my the books I've written. But I I do love Cersei.

[Gilbert Cruz]: I didn't see that one coming.

[Madeline Miller]: Um I find her a gripping character and I love I love the witchcraft element. So, I I would always go with the lesser gods or or the demigods as opposed to the major gods. I'm I'm too frightened of them.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Let's talk about Cersei. You were able to take one of these lesser gods who has the big scene in the Odyssey. Odysius and his men come to her island. She turns them into pigs. Some other stuff happens. And you saw that and you said, "I like this lady. I can take this. I can use this. I can turn this into something. I could explore her backstory. I can explain why she is so suspicious of outsiders on her island. I could spin out what we know about her and Odysius and and their son um and turn it into a novel that is is now beloved."

[Madeline Miller]: I think I was really um initially drawn to her because I was so frustrated by by the portrait of her. Uh I felt it was so boring. And Odysius, who is supposed to be the most curious man in ancient literature, never even asks her why she's turning men into pigs. Seems like a key question. Um, and I was like, come on, we don't know anything about her. Why is she doing this? How'd she learn witchcraft? Where she get, you know? So, I had all these questions. And I think that always is is the start for me. Um, what's amazing about the Odyssey is there literally every character could be a novel. That's that's the brilliance of this incredible epic work is that it's so large. It's so large and so detailed and so exciting and it has all these just expansiveness to it that um that I think all the characters can be uh can have their own they could have their own odyssey about them.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Did you ever think about one of those other characters? Was there ever a world in which the book was going to be Calypso and not Cersei?

[Madeline Miller]: No, there wasn't. It was always Cersei for me. I I just You know, you love a I love a witch. I

[Gilbert Cruz]: Who doesn't?

[Madeline Miller]: Right. the the witchcraft element was really fascinating to me because it is not divine power. It's really its own type of thing and it seems to come not from sort of the way divine power comes which is like just you're born with it but it comes from a sort of craft and study and knowledge.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Do you think there are a ton of people who have read Cersei and have not read the Odyssey?

[Madeline Miller]: Well, you know, I always have my my Latin teacher agenda. So, I'm always thrilled if someone uh reads Cersei or Song of Achilles and then decides to read The Ali or the Odyssey. That is that is always a huge honor for me. Um but I also understand that there are sometimes roadblocks to picking these stories up that they can feel alienating or they can feel fusty and old or they can feel inaccessible because of all the names or because of sort of the backstory that the ancients would have taken for granted but which we don't necessarily have. So, I also really hoped that my books could be a way in.

[Gilbert Cruz]: You know, it's always a joy to see someone realize, wow, this is both such a strange work, but also feels so resonant. Which of us has not longed sometimes to be reunited with someone that we love or been frightened and and at a loss or or felt like you were being swept away by forces outside your control that there's there's so much in these works that I think can can draw people in and they're a reason why they've survived this long. It's because they keep speaking to people.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Uh is your if you don't mind me asking, is your mother still around?

[Madeline Miller]: She sadly is not. Um, but she did get to see both my books come out and uh was was very excited. She actually felt quite embarrassed that she'd read me these stories because she was like, "They're so inappropriate." Um, and and in a way they are. Uh, there, you know, there's plenty of violence. I mean, if you are reading the Iliad in Greek, you are learning a lot of internal organ vocabulary. But I think she really understood her daughter and and that part of what I was connecting to was that was that very human quality. She also took me to Greece, which I could not have written either of these books without without going to Greece and the air and the sun on the water and and all of that. So I'm I'm excited for all the visuals uh whenever that are coming to us. I hope.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Are you going to see the movie?

[Madeline Miller]: I plan to. I plan to. Um I'm very interested to uh hear people's thoughts about it and and to experience it.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Very briefly, what is your understanding of how scholars and classical experts are already thinking of this? You know, you have sort of the segment of people that are already saying, well, that armor is not correct. This is not what they, you know, or this is not what they would have worn or this is not the language that they would have used. I mean, I think uh I think classicists for the most part understand that reception is a wonderful way to keep these stories going. And you know, we can't hurt Homer. Homer's going to be just fine. Um so, and and Homer, you know, himself probably wasn't even one person, right? That these stories came from from probably many different traditions and and bards and maybe there was one person who put it all together, but maybe there wasn't. And the Iliad and the Odyssey themselves have inconsistencies and uh things that are a little bit anneronistic at times. And so and there have been so many different versions of the story told and retold and retold. So if this can reignite some excitement in the humanities and in classics, all the classical scholars I know would be thrilled.

[Gilbert Cruz]: whatever the armor looks like.

[Madeline Miller]: Yeah. It's like how Top Gun increased enrollment in in the Navy. Um, this is going to send young students to enroll in Greek study.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Madeline, we've had a wonderful conversation. We are approaching the end. I cannot let you go. I just can't without asking you for some book recommendations for people who have read the Odyssey or might be planning to do so.

[Madeline Miller]: I am so ready.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Excellent. What do you think are five books that would pair well with the Odyssey?

[Madeline Miller]: All right. Um, the tragedy by Sophocles is called Filictites. There are lots of good translations out there. So definitely that one to give you kind of a different perspective on um on Odysius from the ancient world. I also really recommend I mean this is an obvious answer but the Iliad because Achilles is such a different type of hero. Um Achilles is the opposite of Odysius. As Achilles says in the Iliad, I hate like the gates of death the man who says one thing and hides another in his heart. which of course is the definition of Odysius. I think it will be interesting to look at at a hero who is so whose problem is that he tells the truth too much. Um so I that's an obvious choice. Um I'm going to also recommend uh the Penelope ad which is Margaret Atwood's uh sort of Penelopey's version but also gets into some of the enslaved women that Odysius murders. One of the most disturbing parts of the Odyssey I think. And I'm going to recommend Watership Down. Watership Down goes to show just how powerful Epic is because you can even write it about rabbits and it's still gripping. Um, I also love Watership Down because Watership Down is very much in conversation with the classics. It's really modeled on the Aniid, but the first half of the Aniid is modeled on the Odyssey. So, you could imagine that the first half of Waters Ship Down is kind of like the Odyssey and the second half is kind of like the Iliad. So you get like a little mini Odyssey but starring rabbits instead. Perfect. Um so you know if you if you want a great epic that is very much has classical roots but is not the Odyssey, Watership Downs is the way to go.

[Gilbert Cruz]: That is such a surprising and wonderful recommendation.

[Gilbert Cruz]: I'm on it.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Awesome. Well, I'm going to recommend another kind of in that same line which is one of my favorite stories about a longing for notos. It's one of my favorite books of all time actually. It's called It Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maurice Kande. Um, and in it, uh, like Odysius, the character sort of travels through various dangers, meeting various monsters in human form. There's a fantastical element as well, but so much of the story is driven by a longing for homecoming and for for returning that I think it really mirrors the the movement of the Odyssey. the character, the main character is complicated and incredibly intelligent um and really interesting and it just I feel like it just sits alongside the Odyssey uh in such a such a wonderful way.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Those are all fantastic. Thank you. All right, Meline, it is possible that some people will buy the Odyssey in book form and they'll they'll really give it the old college try and they just will not be able to get through it and and that I think that should be okay. But are there other books that you might recommend to those people that would sort of scratch the the Odyssey itch?

[Madeline Miller]: Absolutely. So, first of all, a great place to start is An American Marriage by Tari Jones, which was actually inspired by by the Odyssey and is in conversation with it. You don't have to know anything about the Odyssey. In fact, I'm so embarrassed to admit this, but the first time I read it, I didn't even connect it to the Odyssey cuz I was so gripped by the story. Then I sort of realized belatedly. Um, and I was like, "Oh, of course, of course." And so so um it's also about a husband and wife who are separated and trying to get back to each other and sort of the perils that each of them encounters during that separation. It's fabulous. This is another a little bit um unusual, but one of my favorite books of all time is Buddha in the Attic. And part of what I love about it is that it's written in the first person plural. So it's written as a wei.

[Gilbert Cruz]: There's such a oral quality to it. So I I have to go with that because I think it's one of the most stunning sort of auditory experiences.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Madlin, what a delight you've been. This has been such a great conversation for people who have read the Odyssey, for people who have not read the Odyssey but want to read the Odyssey, this is great.

[Madeline Miller]: It was such a pleasure to be here.

[Gilbert Cruz]: No matter what you're in the mood to read, whether it's science fiction, a romance, a ghost story, Tony Scott, the Times critic at large, joins us to explain how you can find almost every genre in the Odyssey.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Tony Scott, welcome to the book review podcast.

[Tony Scott]: Great to be here, Gilbert.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Tony, you're here to talk about the Odyssey. Of course, uh it's a giant story and you have a new piece where you argue that it's possible that it is all the stories. You write that no matter what I or anyone else might be looking for, we're likely to find it in Homer's 12,19 line poem. Is that the right count?

[Tony Scott]: That's the count in Greek.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Uhhuh. Okay. And you've read a lot of versions. Yes, I've read or read in quite a few versions.

[Gilbert Cruz]: So, there are many different ways to approach the story in terms of the different translations that have been published in English over the years. But even in the story itself, there are a lot of different entry points. There are a lot of different ways in which you can see the Odyssey. You know, I'm very far from a classicist. I'm I'm more of a genre guy myself. And I would love to start with the idea that the Odyssey is a fantasy or or even a science fiction story.

[Tony Scott]: Yeah. Well, if you think about what the Odyssey is, some of it is Odicius and his crew mates having fought the war in uh in Troy, going off to boldly go where no man has gone before. I mean, and in a way, it's the origin of a lot of science fiction because it is this trip beyond the boundaries of the known world to these islands where there are monsters and strange creatures, there are giants, there are cyclopses, there are strange cultures and civilizations that Odysius finds his way into and different kinds of societies. It is a lot like Star Trek in a way. The way that you know the Enterprise would go to a planet and like what are these people? Are these people friendly? Are they mean? What are their ways? What are their habits? We'll greet them and hope that they give us hospitality. And that happens again and again. I love that interpretation. Mary Shelley might disagree. She might say, "No, I am the first science fiction." Fair.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Uh but I do like this interpretation. I think something that is very clear is there is a direct line from the Odyssey to, you know, all of the swords and sandal type fantasy movies that we saw in the 1950s and that we continued to see the idea of people going to a foreign land and as you say fighting monsters or fighting skeletons that come out of the ground or fighting a giant oneeyed man.

[Tony Scott]: A giant oneeyed man. You know, to that point, is there a particular section in the Odyssey that feels overly fantastical that you'd like to to to maybe read out loud?

[Tony Scott]: A very brief section, just a few lines from book 10, where they're on this island called Lestreonia, and the Lestreonians are among the more outlandish creatures that are encountered here. And here is uh the great battle. This is from Emily Wilson's translation. Hearing the mighty Lstragonians thronged from all sides, not humanlike, but giants with boulders bigger than a man could lift. They pelted at us from the cliffs. We heard the dreadful uproar of ships being broken and dying men.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Those dying men, just to go back to your Star Trek reference, those are the red shirts. The original red shirts.

[Tony Scott]: Exactly.

[Gilbert Cruz]: And there's a lot I have to say. You know, he's he's a Odysius is a is a is a brave captain and a war hero, but he loses so many ships and so many men like, "Hey guys, who wants to go out on a voyage?" You'd see everybody in Ithaca likes. No, sorry. I got a I got a thing. I can't do it. Milk my cow.

[Gilbert Cruz]: All right. So, the Odyssey can be seen as science fiction. Certainly can be seen as fantasy. Can it be seen as a ghost story? It can um because when they sail off to the end of the world to this sort of boundary zone where the living and the dead can commingle and can see each other and Odicius learns a lot of things there. He sees some of the men that he's lost. Um and he sees also the ghost of his own mother. And it's a very it's it's a harrowing and also a very moving scene in the way that ghost stories very often they're scary but they also have this undercurrent of emotion of grief or of longing. So this again in the Wilson translation is Odysius recounting his encounter with uh the ghost of his mother. He says then in my heart I wanted to embrace the spirit of my mother. She was dead and I did not know how. Three times I tried, longing to touch her, but three times her ghost flew from my arms like shadows or like dreams. Sharp pain pierced deeper in me as I cried.

[Tony Scott]: It is incredible how this story, maybe it's not incredible because it's one of the greatest stories ever told, but is able to balance these moments of action or fright or great imagination with the the basic emotion of a son. Just wanting more than anything else to see his his deceased mother again.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Yeah.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Okay. Uh the Odyssey, among other things, is also a story about adventures on the high seas. I really uh forgot how much of this was just about boats in storms and boats getting wrecked and boats and boats and boats and boats, boats and boats and boats. I I thought of I I mean as I was reading again I kept thinking of like of Master and Commander, you know, and I'm thinking of like Russell Crowe and you know, nautical writing is its own kind of genre and its own kind of thing. And I love this passage if I could um from the Robert Fitzgerald translation. You can sort of feel the the salt spray. Um, a great wave drove at him with toppling crest, spinning him round. In one tremendous blow, and he went plunging overboard, the oraft wrenched from his grip. A gust that came on howling at the same instant broke his mast in two, hurling his yard and sail far out to lured.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Have you ever been in a storm this intense?

[Tony Scott]: No. When when I when I'm on the boat, it's dead flat calm. That's that's that's when I'll get on the boat.

[Gilbert Cruz]: You sound like you're not interested in having action on the high seas. The Odyssey does have moments of intense action. It is I keep saying a book. Uh, of course, it's not a book. It's an epic poem. When you refer to books, you're really talking about chapters within this long story.

[Tony Scott]: But it is a sequel to a war story.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Yes.

[Tony Scott]: But it has tons of its own action.

[Gilbert Cruz]: It has tons of its own action. some of which is quite gory. The Iliad has the great combat scenes and the great battles. This is more kind of Odicius going handtohand with various monsters and creatures and then at the end he comes back to Ithaca. This is not a spoiler by the way because Homer tells you right at the beginning of the whole story what's what's going to happen. But all of these suitors, there's a bunch of guys who are hanging out at Odysius's house because they think he's dead and they're trying to marry his wife Penelopey and she's putting them off. And so Odysius and his son just slaughter these guys and it's a absolute bloodbath. I mean it really it it reminded me of like Kill Bill, you know? It's it's sort of that. And I'll show you what I mean. This is from the Robert Fagel's translation. But Odicius aimed and shot Antinus square in the throat, and the point went stabbing clear through the soft neck and out, and off to the side he pitched. The cup dropped from his grasp, and the shaft sank home, and the man's life blood came spurting out his nostrils. Thick red jets, a sudden thrust of his foot. He kicked away the table. Food showered across the floor, the bread and meats soaked in a swirl of bloody filth. It's quite bloody to use a modern reference. It is sort of red wedding adjacent if you're familiar with this moment in in Game of Thrones or the Game of Thrones TV adaptation. You have these people that are in your home that you've either invited or who are taking advantage of hospitality and then you lock the doors and wipe them all out.

[Tony Scott]: Yeah.

[Gilbert Cruz]: I was reading a young reader version to my son. He looked at me and I could tell in his eyes he was thinking, "Hell yeah." Like, "This is the stuff I've been waiting for."

[Tony Scott]: And it's a father-son moment, you know? Absolutely. Like me and dad.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Definitely. So, the Odyssey clearly has revenge. It has boat stuff. It is a fantastical story. It's an action-packed story. It's a violent story. Uh, is it a sexy story?

[Tony Scott]: Well, yes, it is. as um Odicius, you know, as he's out on the road, this is uh a patriarchal society with some some double standard. So even though Penelope is at home staying absolutely faithful to him, he's uh got a lot of temptations and he he always, you know, there's always an excuse. So there there are a lot of a lot of moments sort of sexy moments and there's there's one in particular when he washes up on the shore of an island and there's Princess Nosa is there and she's doing her laundry with her servants and somehow in the ship in the shipwreck that got him there he's lost all his clothes so he's naked on the beach cuz he's come out of the bushes in his birthday suit and he says now girls this is from Emily Wilson's translation now girls waited a distance here so I can wash my grimy back and rub myself with oil. It has been quite a while since I have done it. Please let me wash in private. I am shy of being naked with you pretty girls with lovely hair.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Why did you read it that way, Tony?

[Tony Scott]: I figure that's how I would have said it. How would you How would you say it if you were in that situation?

[Gilbert Cruz]: I I I cannot imagine ever being in that situation. Um, Adysius does benefit from these patriarchal double standards. He really wants to get home to his wife. That's all he wants to do. And yet, uh, also he can spend some time, you know, making love to goddesses on islands for several years. But he he does get home to his wife and and he's been pining for her all this time. She's been pining for him. Um, there is a sense that that this is also just a good good old love story. It's a beautiful love story and and the way that it happens in the in those last books when he's coming home, he comes back to Ithaca and at first he's in disguise because he sort of wants to see what's going on. He wants partly to see if Penelopey has been true to him. He also doesn't want the suitors to recognize him. And so he and Penelopey have to kind of rediscover each other because it's also this disguise is is kind of a metaphor for the years that have come up between them, the ways that they are strangers to each other after all this time and have to to reestablish this this bond, this intimacy, this this marriage. And it happens in this in a very beautiful way. They have their first night back together as man and wife. And one of the things that happens that I think is so lovely about that is that in their sort of postcoidal glow each one tells each other what's happened in effect retells the whole poem that we've just been reading from each of their points of view. And this is how uh Daniel Mendelson I think very beautifully writes that scene. When the two had taken their pleasure in love's entrancing delights, they took their delight in stories, each telling a tale to the other, she who glowed like a goddess spoke of all she'd endured in these halls, watching that gang of suitors who wreaked so much hellish havoc, and who on her account slaughtered many ahead of cattle and fatted sheep, and drained so much wine from the huge storage jars. While Odysius sprung from Zeus spoke of the woes he'd inflicted on people and those he himself had endured with such great anguish. He told it all and she took delight in listening. Nor did sleep drift upon her eyelids until he had told her everything.

[Gilbert Cruz]: That is beautiful.

[Tony Scott]: Isn't that beautiful?

[Gilbert Cruz]: Tony Scott, you did the work. You read translation after translation. We've talked about this great story as being a story of stories. Maybe all the stories. I'm convinced. I'm going to go back and read it again.

[Tony Scott]: All right. Tell me how it goes.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Sure.

[Gilbert Cruz]: Tony Scott, thank you so much for joining the Book Review Podcast.

[Tony Scott]: Been a pleasure, Gilbert.

[Gilbert Cruz]: The book review is produced by Sarah Diamond, Amy Pearl, and Patricia Sularan. It's edited by Tracy Mumford and mixed this week by Daniel Ramirez. Original music by Dan Powell and Alicia. Special thanks to Dalia Hadad. We want to hear what you think about the show, so send us an email at the book review atny times.com. I'm Gilbert Cruz. Thanks for listening.