I have various translations there are parts that are very beautiful and readable, but it’s so long, and written in a ‘prose-y’ way that’s kind of impenetrable.] I read a lot of the stories within The Odyssey, because they’re in things like Percy Jackson, and those little books of mythology you get as a kid, but I actually started and finished writing without sitting down and reading the whole thing. [ Did you read The Odyssey? And if so, when? Now, the article in which she admitted this has been removed, for obvious reasons, but there are still screenshots floating around, for obvious reasons. the author of a book purporting to “retell”* the Odyssey. So when you first see this book, you’re like, oh, okay, kinda dumb but not too bad, right? But then you learn: I just can't wrap my head round this sheer display of utter stupidity coated with arrogance. It's just unbelievable, really unbelievable. Impress me by reading them all and comparing them, for a start.

Girl, I have sixteen translations of it, and twenty-three of The Iliad, you're not going to impress me with bragging about owning that many translations if you don't read them. 'I'm very rigorous with my research,' indeed! So rigorous you didn't read The Odyssey even though you claim to own several translations. Oh, no, not at all! This chit is a pioneer, so let's wipe other and much better authors out of history.

Or as if Robert Graves, British like this author, didn't write a retelling based on the theory that The Odyssey had a female author. A 'love' they got from, wait for it, children's books and YA retellings like Percy Jackson and The Song of Achilles.Īnd she has the gall to confidently claim that there's been no retelling of The Odyssey that portrays Penelope as complex and not blameless, as if Margaret Atwood were a nobody that never wrote a Penelopiad years before this author was around. Now you understand why I don't read Greek myth retellings anymore even though it's my favourite mythology? Because commercialism, greed, ignorance, and arrogance have brought us this low, to this rock bottom low where it's perfectly acceptable for an author to not read the source of a myth they're retelling, and still proclaim their 'love' for it. Unfortunately for the author, the Wayback Machine exists, and you can read the interview here, judge for yourself. You can see her candid admission in a now deleted interview. It sounds like a joke in poor taste, but it's true. I do not comment on books I haven't read and/or do not plan to read, but for this time I'm going to make an exception because this is just too much and I can't stay silent: This author hasn't read The Odyssey, yet she dared write this retelling of The Odyssey.

The lies we sing to the sea