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Odyssey and Nolan's Film

1:15:19 recording · EN · 3 speakers

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Brief overview

The Odyssey is Homer's tale of Odysseus's cunning homecoming, its monsters mirroring Greek anxieties about the Mediterranean.

  1. Cunning, not strength, defines OdysseusHe is a second-division king from a poor island who out-thinks everyone: the horse, the false name, the escape under the sheep.
  2. His crew destroy their own homecomingThey open Aeolus's bag believing it holds treasure, and they eat the sun god's cattle after being told twice not to.
  3. The monsters carry colonists' real fearsTom argues Polyphemus, the Laestrygonians and Scylla reflect Greek settlers pushing into Sicily and the western Mediterranean.
Executive Summary AI
  • The episode opens with Russell Crowe reading the first lines of the Odyssey in Daniel Mendelsohn's translation, a poem Tom ranks beside Homer's Iliad, composed in the 8th or 7th century BC, and the Bible as a building block of Western culture.1:27
  • Tom explains the timing: Christopher Nolan's film of the Odyssey is out on the 17th of July, already trailing controversies, and the show will run a bonus episode with Daniel Mendelsohn, though Tom has wanted to tell this story since the podcast began.7:04
  • Odysseus, son of Laertes and king of the small, poor island of Ithaca, feigned madness to avoid the war, was rumbled when an ambassador put the baby Telemachus in front of his plough, sailed with 12 ships, devised the Trojan horse, and wants only to get home to Penelope.11:20
  • In the Cyclops's cave Odysseus gives Polyphemus three cups of Maron's undiluted wine, calls himself Ootis, meaning no one, blinds him with a sharpened club and escapes under the sheep, but taunts him from the ship and reveals his name, drawing the curse of Poseidon.29:16
  • After Aeolus's bag of winds, the Laestrygonians, Circe's year, the ghosts of the underworld, Scylla and the slaughtered cattle of the sun, Odysseus drifts nine days and nine nights as the only survivor of twelve ships and washes up on Calypso's island.1:08:42
Key Quote
“It's in one level a very simple story, a man trying to get back home.”
— Tom6:32
Key Quote
“You made it sound like Inception or something.”
— Dominic6:38
Key Quote
“my name is Ootis, which means in Greek, no one.”
— Tom29:16