{"id":722419,"date":"2026-08-01T08:01:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T08:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/722419\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T08:01:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T08:01:12","slug":"joyce-carol-oates-defends-the-odyssey-after-translators-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/722419\/","title":{"rendered":"Joyce Carol Oates defends The Odyssey after translator’s review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joyce Carol Oates has hit out at a translator who slammed Christopher Nolan\u2019s The Odyssey as “abysmal”.<\/p>\n

The US author, best known for her dark, psychological fiction including the novels Blonde, them, and We Were the Mulvaneys, took to X<\/a> to blast Emily Wilson, who recently slammed Nolan\u2019s blockbuster in a review for the London Review of Books<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Wilson, who translated a 2017 version of Homer\u2019s The Odyssey, claimed that the movie lacked “psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth” and had “nothing convincing to say”.<\/p>\n

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Leonardo Cendamo\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Related: Digital Spy’s The Odyssey review<\/a><\/p>\n

Her words clearly struck a chord with Oates, who wrote on social media: “Rather than disagreeing with interpretations of Homer in a collegial manner, this person, who has benefited enormously from Nolan\u2019s film, speaks in the crude language of MAGA folks attacking someone with ideas that differ from hers.”<\/p>\n

Oates continued: “One would expect a translator, of all people, beholden to a text, in service to a text, to be just a wee bit more thoughtful & respectful of others who are acting in good faith just as (she would claim) she is.”<\/p>\n

In her review, Wilson claimed that the action fantasy film, which stars Matt Damon, Tom Holland, and Anne Hathaway, features Nolan\u2019s “usual combination of grandiosity and superficiality”.<\/p>\n

She also claimed that the film\u2019s vision is “too confused” and accused the characters of being “too underdeveloped”.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/p>\n

Universal<\/p>\n

Related: Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield breaks silence after Amazon drops real-life drama<\/a><\/p>\n

Wilson added: “The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has a convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible.”<\/p>\n

The epic film has set a new record for Nolan after it was revealed it had raked in a whopping $264.1 million globally after its opening weekend.<\/p>\n

According to Variety<\/a>, this figure makes The Odyssey Nolan’s biggest ever global opening, knocking 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises ($249 million) off the top spot. It also surpasses 2009’s The Dark Knight and 2023’s Oppenheimer, which earned $198 million and $180 million, respectively.<\/p>\n

The Odyssey is in cinemas now.<\/p>\n

Visit our Streaming Guide<\/a> now to see at a glance where you can view ALL your favourite shows and movies.<\/p>\n

The new edition of Living Legends, celebrating the global phenomenon of BTS, is here! Buy this ultimate fan guide in newsagents or online<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joyce Carol Oates has hit out at a translator who slammed Christopher Nolan\u2019s The Odyssey as “abysmal”. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[147950,379,238747,381,96,190731,1156,2839,238746,223205,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-722419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-collection-latest-news","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-a99c7a95-e37d-4ae1-b40b-51d7ee526b06","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-gb","tag-movies","tag-shorttitle-joyce-carol-oates-defends-the-odyssey-after-scornful-review","tag-sponsored-false","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}