I haven’t seen Christopher Nolan’s Hollywood retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey yet because I’m homebound with a broken leg. But then again, neither had all the faultfinders tearing their hair out in advance of the film’s première — outraged over what they claim are the epic poem’s “historical inaccuracies” — so I feel just as qualified to muse on it as they are.

The controversy around this film is frankly mystifying to me. I grew up on the Greek classics. When I moved to Greece as a child, reading Greek mythology became my favourite way of improving my language comprehension. Later, I studied the classics in ancient and modern Greek and continue to hold a profound reverence for them.

But never once have I felt a sense of ownership over these stories or had any fixed ideas of how they should be told. Once art is released into the world, it belongs to all of us. It can be interpreted and reinterpreted in countless ways.

I think Homer would be tickled pink to know that 3,000 years after he first composed The Iliad and The Odyssey, we’re still discussing, debating and........

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