Is it time to finally read The Odyssey?

If you’ve never read the 2800-year-old epic (or only skimmed it in high school), here’s how to get into it.

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is about to surf the wine-dark sea into theaters everywhere, and between its star-studded cast and ecstatic early reviews, it’s likely to be a blockbuster. So if you’ve never read the 2800 year old poem on which it’s based — or you skimmed it in the 10th grade and haven’t thought about it since — is this the time for you to finally read it?

There’s a strong argument to be made that the answer is yes, because The Odyssey is an absolute blast to read. It’s funny, gripping, and sexy, an epic adventure with a human heart. If you’re willing to deal with the fundamental strangeness that comes with reading a text so old, you’ll come away from The Odyssey with a new understanding of how and why the West tells its stories.

How The Odyssey invented the asshole trickster hero

The genius of The Odyssey is that it’s both a family story and an adventure. Clever Odysseus is trying to make his way back to his wife and kid after 10 years at war, but at every turn, he’s beset by angry gods, jealous nymphs, or world-shaking storms. What we see of Odysseus’s home life is tender and sweet, and the voyage is thrilling, but Odysseus is the real secret weapon here.

Odysseus is one of those guys who’s super smart but, unfortunately, knows it, so as soon as he’s talked his way out of one jam, he can’t help but talk himself right into another. He defeats a Cyclops by using the admittedly very funny gambit of giving his name as No Man, so that the Cyclops’s pained shrieks of “No Man is killing me!” fail to summon any of his fellow one-eyed monsters to his aid. But, then, Odysseus is arrogant enough to yell his real name at the fiend he just maimed so he can get proper credit for his feat — and is shocked that doing so comes back to haunt him. It’s hard not to root for Odysseus to get home, but you also have to admit that he bears a lot of responsibility for his own problems.

That storytelling tool — someone clever and charming enough to get out of every sticky situation but hubristic enough to keep making it worse for themselves, too — is so satisfying to read that it birthed an archetype. You see Odysseus in Ferris Bueller, in Bugs Bunny, in Don Draper, in Marty Mauser. Trickster heroes who infuriate allies and antagonists alike all owe a debt to Odysseus, who showed the West what a powerful narrative engine such figures are.

Just as powerful is Odysseus’ quest to find his way home, which is so human and relatable that it’s become the basis for many of our go-to adventure stories. Dorothy wants to get back to Kansas, Robinson Crusoe........

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