I want to watch the Christopher Nolan Odyssey movie when it comes to Japanese cinemas (next month?) but I thought it would be a good idea to read the Odyssey before I watch it, because that’s how I roll — I want my own impressions of a book before some director’s vision erases them. But which book? Smarter folk than I have strong opinions about the different translations, I plumped for the Robert Fagles translation over the Emily Wilson one as it was recommended by my stepmother who is a professional translator don’t you know (of Portuguese and Spanish, but still) and I found I had already downloaded an audio version of it, saved for a rainy day, narrated by Ian McKellan. So that sorted which translation. And I thought it was apt to listen rather than read it, as the 2,700-year-old story began life as an oral tale anyway.
So, I was down for 13 hours of listening to 24 chapters (called “books” in the Odyssey) which tell the story of adventurer Odysseus and his 20-year trek back to his home of Ithaca from defeating the city of Troy. The story doesn’t really get going until Book 9 when Odysseus recounts how he fought the cyclops and in the following chapters where we encounter giants, the sirens, various nymphs, the underworld and the wrath of the gods. I thought the Trojan horse would have played a bigger role, but if it did, I must have drifted off during McKellan’s calming narration. The early chapters’ focus on Odysseus’s son Telemachus seemed a bit tedious and the story felt a bit like just one damn thing after another, but I suppose the son had to be there to set up the theme of revenge — Telemachus witnesses the suitors who infest the family home hoping to woo Penelope, Odysseus’s missus, who thinks she is a widow.
Once Odysseus lands at Ithaca in Book 13, the story really picks up, turning into a thrilling tale of revenge, and finally I could see why it has survived for a couple of millenia, influencing good storytelling ever since. I’m glad I shared the journey.
No. 6 of 24 books I intend to read and review in 2026.
I’m Patrick Sherriff, an Englishman who survived 13 years working for newspapers in the US, UK and Japan. Between teaching English lessons at my conversation school in Abiko, Japan, I write and illustrate textbooks for non-native speakers of English, release Hana Walker mystery novels, short stories, paint, and write essays and Our Man in Abiko, a monthly newsletter highlighting good writing in English, often about about Japan, art, crime fiction and teaching.
Patrick Sherriff 