Joyce Carol Oates goes to battle for 'Odyssey,' takes aim at translator Emily Wilsons viral review

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Set us as preferred Days after a classicist who translated Homer’s “The Odyssey” in 2017 eviscerated the Christopher Nolan film based on the poem, Joyce Carol Oates has entered the debate.She’s Team Nolan.The National Book Award-winning author is known for her (sometimes controversial) hot takes on social media, and on Wednesday, she stepped up to the plate in opposition of translator Emily Wilson’s brutal takedown of Nolan’s big-screen adaptation of “The Odyssey.” Nolan had previously said Wilson’s translation inspired him in making the film.

But Wilson wrote that she would be ashamed to have written any part of the script.“Her tone of dismissal & haughty superiority strike a sour note,” Oates said of Wilson’s review in a post on X.“Rather than disagreeing with interpretations of Homer in a collegial manner, this person, who has benefited enormously from Nolan’s film, speaks in the crude language of MAGA folks attacking someone with ideas that differ from hers.”Wilson’s biting missive, published in the London Review of Books this week, went so viral that it reportedly crashed the outlet’s website for a few hours Monday.

The British American classicist’s take on the film was especially notable because, last fall, Nolan quoted Wilson’s translation when telling Empire magazine why he was drawn to the story.“I think it’s the Emily Wilson translation that begins, ‘Tell me about a complicated man,’” he said.

Wilson’s version of “The Odyssey” subsequently spiked in sales.A representative for Audible told The Times on Wednesday that, year over year, purchases of Wilson’s “Odyssey” translation were up by more than 600% across Audible’s U.S., U.K.

and Canadian marketplaces.Daily global title sales rose nearly sixfold during the week the movie premiered.

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