Last weekend, several of us braved the brutal Mumbai rains and the even more brutal Mumbai traffic to catch Christopher Nolan’s new movie ‘The Odyssey’. As rare as going to the movies has become, this was an Odyssey in itself. But the director’s track record makes it all worthwhile. This one though might be Nolan’s most criticised one. But the subject despite being an adaptation by the direct was the real draw – an epic that’s three thousand years old. This piece is about a father reading Homer’s Odyssey to his three-year-old toddler.
“The Odyssey is not, strictly speaking, a children’s book. The poem’s structure can confound even an adult reader. It does not open with “Once upon a time,” but rather in medias res, as a committee of gods discusses a war that the author expects you to know about already. By the time the story gets to Odysseus’s plight—Homer assumes you’ve heard of him, too—his journey unravels like a Quentin Tarantino film: It starts near the end and then shifts back and forth in time. Some parts of the plot are also not especially kid-appropriate. Characters trip on drugs. A giant’s eye gets poked out with a red-hot stake. Odysseus is unfaithful to his wife. Goodnight Moon this is not.
Nevertheless, I have spent the past several months reading The Odyssey to my toddler. Part of my motivation is high-minded. Homer’s fingerprints are all over other epic tales: Classic characters who owe a debt to Odysseus include Dorothy on the yellow-brick road, Huck Finn floating on a raft, and Bilbo outsmarting Smaug in Middle-earth. This poem “is the ur-text,” Christopher Nolan, who directed the film adaptation of The Odyssey that is coming out this week, told The New York Times recently. Why not start with the source material? But also, I’m doing this because, some questionable content aside, The Odyssey is a great yarn. My son is young, but he’s not too young to appreciate bloody battles, man-eating monsters, and a side quest to hell.
I eased in gently at first. Before reading the full epic, I introduced my son to the story of the Trojan War with picture books produced for children, including The Adventures of Odysseus. The illustrations showed him fleets of Greek ships sailing for Troy to recover Helen, and men being transformed into livestock. They taught him that a Cyclops has only one eye and that Sirens are alluring but dangerous.
When he seemed ready for the real thing, I chose the 2025 translation by Daniel Mendelsohn who teaches a Homer seminar at Bard College. His language is luscious, full of detail, and lots of fun. (He describes Charybdis, for example, as being “like a seething cauldron / That bubbles up to the brim when it’s set on a roaring fire.”) When I read it aloud, my voice falls into a rolling cadence that propels the story forward. This is by design: Mendelsohn aims to replicate Homer’s original meter, which makes his version ideal for performance.
Mendelsohn also retains Homer’s repetitious epithets for characters that some modern translations—written for the silent reader of the 21st century—have slimmed down. We hear many times that Penelope is a “clear-thinking woman,” and that Athena is the goddess “of the bright owl-eyes.” When read aloud, the repeated descriptors serve as reminders to the listener of who each character is and the role they play. Which is especially helpful when that listener is someone who still takes afternoon naps.”
The father writes about how his son has since started making connections with The Odyssey to other books he reads now. “I’ve loved helping him make these connections: As he gets older, I hope he’ll take solace in knowing that the newer stories he enjoys today are connected in a chain of humanity stretching back thousands of years. I have always found that link to the past reassuring.
For now, though, I’m delighting in how The Odyssey has unlocked my son’s imagination—something that the other, more kid-friendly books we’ve read together haven’t been able to accomplish.
The weekend after we read about Scylla, I took my son for a walk along a nearby river that passes through steep banks with cliffs above. At one point, he stopped and squinted toward a crevice high in the rock. “That’s where Scylla lives,” he announced. He lifted a stick and a stone from the ground: his sword and shield. “I’m Odysseus,” he shouted, and sprang up the bank. “Let’s get her!” A few months later, he used life-size chess pieces at an outdoor brewery to reenact the sacking of Troy. After finishing the battle with the help of a knight—the Trojan horse, he explained—he shoved a bishop standing in for Paris and wrapped his arms around the queen, who represented Helen. “I’m Menelaus,” he said, the name rolling off his tongue thanks to all the times he’s heard me read it to him. “Paris stole my wife.””
In a world where reading itself has become a rare habit, this piece shows the importance even if the subject matter might seem a bit out of whack for the reader’s developmental level. For the stories stay with us even if we only fully comprehend them much later in life.
If you want to read our other published material, please visit https://marcellus.in/blog/
Note: The above material is neither investment research, nor financial advice. Marcellus does not seek payment for or business from this publication in any shape or form. The information provided is intended for educational purposes only. Marcellus Investment Managers is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and is also an FME (Non-Retail) with the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) as a provider of Portfolio Management Services. Additionally, Marcellus is also registered with US Securities and Exchange Commission (“US SEC”) as an Investment Advisor.
