Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Odysseys / Odyssey Iceberg (Special Mention)

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Screenshot from the 2026 Nolan Odyssey film trailer (fair use)

 

 

TOP 10 ODYSSEYS / ODYSSEY ICEBERG (SPECIAL MENTION)

 

Sing, Muse, of the special mentions for my Top 10 Odysseys.

I’ve counted out my Top 10 Odysseys, the top ten odysseys to be found within the Odyssey.

That is, the demarcations or parts, narrative or thematic, identified within the fundamental continuity of the Odyssey, such as the standard demarcation of the Telemachy, the first four books with Odysseus’ son Telemachus as protagonist, from the balance of the Odyssey – with the latter also often divided into two parts, his wanderings and his homecoming (or more).

So yes, another of my mostly tongue-in-cheek top tens where I look at demarcations or parts within what is the fundamental continuity of the Odyssey – you could think of it as my Odyssey iceberg.

But as usual, wait – there’s more! There’s my typical twenty special mentions I like to have for my top ten lists, and yes, we’re in wild-tier here, at the bottom of or below the iceberg. We’re not talking the odysseys within the Odyssey itself, but increasingly weird and wild odysseys interpreting or reinterpreting the Odyssey

Except for my first special mention…

 

(1) EPIC CYCLE / TROJAN CYCLE

 

Not an odyssey within the Odyssey, but instead what the Odyssey itself was within – the larger mythos of the Trojan War.

What often surprises people about the Iliad and Odyssey is how small a timeframe of the events of the Trojan War or aftermath they actually narrate.

The Trojan War lasted ten years but the Iliad only shows a few weeks of the final year of the war – and even then does not depict the Trojan Horse or fall of Troy, contrary to popular belief from adaptations such as the film Troy.

The Odyssey is somewhat better. Yes, it ultimately does narrate the events of its ten year duration for Odysseus’ homecoming from Troy, although again the actual events depicted in it are the last few weeks of the final year – with everything before that being told by the characters, primarily Odysseus himself when it comes to his fantastic voyage, to other characters.

What follows from that is the other thing that often surprises people about the Iliad and Odyssey is that they are only two books, albeit the two books that survived intact, from the epic “cycle” of poetry in oral tradition for the larger mythos of the Trojan War.

One suspects that the Iliad and Odyssey were superior in quality to the other books, hence their survival, but six other books are usually identified for all eight books of Epic Cycle:

  • Cypria – the Trojan War before the Iliad
  • Aethiopis – the Trojan War after the Iliad to the death of Achilles
  • Little Iliad & Iliupersis – the Trojan Horse and fall of Troy
  • Nostoi – the return of other Greek heroes from Troy
  • Telegony – sequel to the Odyssey

Speaking of which…

 

(2) TELEGONY

 

The sequel to the Odyssey (not attributed to Homer), the original text of which was subsequently lost as in did not survive except in fragments or commentary.

It takes up after Odysseus has returned to Ithaca and “comprises two distinct episodes” – “Odysseus voyage to Thesprotia, and the story of Telegonus”, Odysseus’ son with Circe. You could argue that it draws from elements or hints within the Odyssey, such that is an odyssey inherent within the Odyssey.

The first is presumably to make the sacrifices to appease Poseidon as instructed by the underworld shade of Tiresias in the Odyssey, such that it might have been dubbed the Tiresiad. Predictably given his track record in the Odyssey, Odysseus shacks up with the Thesprotian queen Callidice and they have a son, Polypoetes.

The second deals with his son with Circe, Telegonus, having grown to adulthood. Telegonus seeks out Odysseus as his father but ironically slays Odysseus instead by the kind of mistaken identity common in classical mythology – and fulfilment of prophecy, although I think it was stretching Tiresias’ prophecy that death would come to Odysseus “out of the sea” for Telemachus to use a supernatural spear tipped with the poisonous sting of a stingray.

“As Odysseus lies dying, he and Telegonus recognize one another, and Telegonus laments his mistake”. Telegonus then makes it weirder by bringing his father’s corpse, Odysseus’ widow Penelope, and Odysseus’ other son Telemachus back to Circe in Aeaea. Circe makes it even weirder by making them all immortal swingers who shack up with each other – Telegonus marries Penelope and Telemachus marries Circe.

 

(3) CULT OF ODYSSEUS

 

Like all good Greek heroes, Odysseus had a cult dedicated to him. There’s evidence suggesting a cult dedicated to him in – where else? – Ithaca, with “public games called the Odysseia” and “a designated public gathering place or a sanctuary, known as the Odysseion”

 

(4) AENEID

 

The Roman Odyssey or Virgil’s Odyssey – essentially imperial propaganda for Augustus, seeking to outdo the Iliad and the Odyssey by combining both.

After fleeing the falling Troy with family and companions, Trojan hero and legendary founder of Rome, Aeneas, has his own odyssey to Italy, matching many of the same beats from the Odyssey including his own prophetic visit to the underworld. In Italy, he fights his own version of the Iliad but founding a kingdom rather than destroying one.

Bonus points for name-dropping Odysseus (in his Latin name Ulysses) – and with snark to boot.

 

(5) DIVINE COMEDY

 

Dante out-Virgils Virgil, with his epic fantasy voyage through the afterlife, starting of course with the most famous (and fun) of its three parts, Inferno – the characteristic katabasis of heroes or poets into the underworld, or Hell in Dante’s case, with Virgil as his guide no less.

 

(6) ON THE CAVE OF THE NYMPHS IN THE ODYSSEY

 

From a few lines in Book 13 describing a cave on Ithaca, this is sadly not a raunchy romp involving the titular nymphs but an exegesis of those lines by Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry as an allegory of the cosmos and soul.

 

(7) THE AUTHORESS OF THE ODYSSEY / HOMER’S DAUGHTER – NAUSICAAD

 

Sing, muse!

Some readers have been intrigued, as I have been, by the higher prevalence for female characters in the Odyssey has a higher prevalence for female characters than its Homeric counterpart of the Iliad, perhaps not surprisingly for the former’s theme of homecoming or return from the latter’s war. The Odyssey’s protagonist Odysseus is strikingly dependent on the help of women for his homecoming, indeed without whom he would not have been able to return home – or not had a home to which he could return.

Such was the prevalence of female characters in the Odyssey, particularly when compared to the Iliad, that there’s something of a fringe theory – originating with nineteenth century English novelist Samuel Butler – that the “Homer” who wrote the Odyssey was a woman. Butler opined that it was a Sicilian woman, hence setting much of the Odyssey’s fantastic voyage in Sicily – and inserting herself in the Odyssey as Nausicaa, one of the women whose help was critical to Odysseus’ homecoming.

Butler “described his evidence for this in The Authoress of the Odyssey (1897) and in the introduction and footnotes to his prose translation of the Odyssey (1900).”  Not surprisingly, Robert Graves picked up this ball and ran with it in his book Homer’s Daughter.

Which in a very real sense would make it Nausicaa’s Odyssey – or as I would dub it, the Nausicaad.

 

(8) FOLK ODYSSEY – HOMECOMING HUSBAND

 

We think of the Odyssey as a literary work, but it originated as a folk odyssey – a composition of bardic oral poetry, which probably varied somewhat between performances, and which was subsequently transcribed from one of its extant versions.

No doubt it has a number of folklore motifs throughout it, but a predominant one as classified in the Folklore Index (or Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index named for its authors) is The Homecoming Husband (ATU 974). Although that just prompts to mind the classic recurring subject of Playb0y cartoons for a husband coming home to apprehend his adulterous wife in flagrant delicto with the absurd excuse or explanation as the punchline – “Now you grab the choking victim like this…”

 

(9) LITERARY ODYSSEY – TWENTY READINGS

 

But yes, the folk Odyssey became a literary Odyssey – and an odyssey of literary theory.

There’s an intriguing book by literary theorist Nuria Perpinya, The Crypts of Criticism: Twenty Readings of the Odyssey, which offers up the titular twenty readings of the Odyssey by various theories of literary criticism – Freudian, Marxist, and so on.

 

(10) GEOGRAPHIC ODYSSEY – HOMER’S ITHACA

 

And then there’s the geographic Odyssey – the geography of the Odyssey, given the various named points of Odysseus’ wanderings and Ithaca itself for that matter.

This has arguably been the most fascinating odyssey within the Odyssey, certainly when it comes to speculation as to its locations, and essentially the subject in one way or another for (almost all) the balance of my special mentions.

Although there is a modern Ithaca, traditionally accepted to be Odysseus’ island kingdom, alternative locations have been speculated or theorized.

And then you get to the wider geography of the Odyssey. I tend to subscribe to the speculation or theory that the geography of the Odyssey is mythic – that is, otherworldly or locations in the mythic imagination rather than reality, albeit with some correlation or overlap.

However, there has been speculation about real world locations for the Odyssey, virtually since Homer’s ancient contemporaries onwards – although coinciding with such expressions of skepticism as that by the geographer Eratosthenes (as reported by Strabo, one of those who offered the most detailed list of real world locations): “You will find the scene of Odysseus’ wanderings when you find the cobbler who sewed up the bag of winds”.

 

(11) WESTERN ODYSSEY

 

Go west, young man!

Perhaps the most common geographic Odyssey, both in ancient tradition and in modern opinion, placing the locations of Odysseus’ wanderings in the central or western Mediterranean, particularly around Italy – with Scylla and Charybdis for example traditionally being identified as the Straits of Messina between Sicily and the Italian mainland.

There’s also something of a double entendre here for the place of the Odyssey, and the Iliad for that matter, as a foundational text of Western literary culture.

 

(12) CELTIC ODYSSEY

 

Yes, this is a fringe theory but it’s too fun not to include here. Britain associated itself with Troy through Brutus, a descendant of Aeneas, as legendary king and founder of Britain, indeed with his name as the origin of the name of Britain.

Dutch writer Iman Wilkens took that a step further in his 1990 book, Where Troy Once Stood: The Mystery of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey revealed, to propose that Troy itself was in England and that the Trojan War was fought between rival Celts. It was then the Celts, as the Sea Peoples, who brought the Homeric epics with them to the Mediterranean.

Accordingly, the Odyssey was in the Atlantic – for example with Scylla and Charybdis located at St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall.

Which brings me to…

 

(13) ATLANTIC ODYSSEY

 

You don’t have to subscribe to fringe theories that Troy and the Trojan War were in Britain to propose that at least some of the locations in the Odyssey were in the Atlantic.

Some ancient traditions proposed this. Apollodorus of Athens proposed all the wanderings were in some sort of mythic realm in the Atlantic. Strabo similarly proposed that Phaeacia and Calypso’s island Ogygia were in the Atlantic, as did Plutarch for Ogygia.

That probably influenced modern authors to propose Atlantic locations, some even proposing as far afield as North America, Caribbean, and South America – I particularly like one theory that has the Amazon as the river Acheron in the underworld.

 

(14) BALTIC ODYSSEY

 

Go north, young man?

And then there’s the fringe theory of Felice Vinci, who proposed the Baltic Sea and northern Europe as the setting for the Odyssey.

Funnily enough, there seem to be hints of this in Nolan’s film – some of which seems closer to a Baltic setting than a Mediterranean one.

 

(15) ARABIAN ODYSSEY – SINBAD

 

No, I’m not proposing a fringe theory for Homer’s Odyssey in the Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf or Red Sea, perhaps even involving a circumnavigation of Africa, although any of those would be awesome.

I’m proposing that the legendary voyages of Sinbad are effectively an Arabian Odyssey – I believe the influence of the Odyssey on the tales of Sinbad is generally acknowledged, even to the extent that some of the former reappears in the latter.

 

(16) AMERICAN ODYSSEY

 

I stand by my quip that the Second World War is the American Iliad and the Cold War is the American Odyssey.

However, that quip might well be made for American history elsewhere – Vietnam as Iliad (albeit in defeat rather than victory) and post-Vietnam history, the First World War as Iliad and the Lost Generation as Odyssey, the Civil War as Iliad and the American West as Odyssey…

That last leads me to the American West as a comparable setting to the Mediterranean for an adaptation of the Odyssey. Dare I propose an Australian odyssey along similar lines, an outback odyssey perhaps?

Arguably, Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey film was an American Odyssey along those thematic post-war lines, while O Brother Where Art Thou was more explicitly an American Odyssey, albeit set in the American South rather than the West.

Finally, I’d argue that the United State is the most Odysseyan modern nation, perhaps even the most Homeric one. No, I will not elaborate…

 

(17) APOCALYPTIC ODYSSEY

 

Okay, yes, this was partly me wanting to combine my two favorite classical works of mythic literature – Homer’s Odyssey and the Book of Apocalypse.

But it’s more than that – I’m joking and I’m serious.

Firstly, it wouldn’t take too much to adapt the Book of Apocalypse to tell it as the Odyssey (or vice versa) – just have St John as Odysseus, Patmos as Calypso’s island of Ogygia, the supernatural visions as mythic wanderings, and so on.

Secondly, there have been serious arguments for Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey as literary models for the Gospel of Mark, albeit as something of a fringe theory by Dennis MacDonald.

Thirdly, it wouldn’t take too much to adapt the Odyssey to a post-apocalyptic setting – Odysseus as Mad Max, perhaps? Indeed, there’s something of a parallel with Max losing his crew (the Main Force Patrol, particularly Goose) and Pursuit Special vehicle, ending up a wandering stranger.

 

(18) SPACE ODYSSEY

 

Well, this one was obvious, wasn’t it – what with the subtitle of the film and book series (written by Arthur C. Clarke) of which the best known is the original Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey?

However, this goes beyond the metaphorical use of odyssey in that film (whether for space exploration or the arc of human evolution) to space as a potential setting for an SF adaptation of the Odyssey. Indeed, the French-Japanese animated series Ulysses 31 did just that.

 

(19) FUNK ODYSSEY

 

I couldn’t resist this one, what with Jamiroquai borrowing from 2001: A Space Odyssey for the title of his (best) album, 2001: A Funk Odyssey.

There’s also the play on phonetic resonance between folk odyssey and funk odyssey. However, it’s more than just a play on similar sounding words – the folk odyssey of oral poetry was a funk odyssey, in that it was bardic performance. That’s right – the original Odyssey was…a musical? Where are the modern musical Odyssey adaptations – the rock operas and rap concept albums?

Yes – they had better feature an adaptation of John Denver’s Calypso – “aye Calypso, I’ll sing to your spirit” (even if it was more for Jacques Cousteau’s ship).

And yes – I know there are classical operas adapted from the Odyssey.

 

(20) NYMPHODYSSEY

 

As usual, I like to reserve my final (twentieth) special mention for my kinky (or kinkier) entry, so I give you…the Nymphodyssey!

Except…the original Odyssey is, was, and has always been something of a nymph odysseyt. I mean, Odysseus spends eight of his ten years of odyssey-ing shacked up with literal nymphs Calypso and Circe. (Now, if there was only some way to get a menage a trois with both of them…)

And there’s hints at more – Nausicaa for example – as well as a distinct s€xual subtext throughout the Odyssey, particularly in female figures such as the Sirens.

It doesn’t take too much to write the Odyssey with that subtext made explicit. The Roman writer Ovid essentially did – focusing on his romantic involvements with Circe and Calypso, and recasting him as, in Harold Bloom’s phrase, “one of the great wandering womanizers”.

And yes – there’s already adult film versions of Nolan’s film because of course there are.

 

Top Tens – Poetry & Literature: Top 10 Literature (Special Mention) (14) Thomas Keneally – Schindler’s Ark

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Cover of the paperback edition I own (fair use)

 

 

(14) THOMAS KENEALLY –

SCHINDLER’S ARK (1982)

 

“Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire”.

 

I assume this needs no introduction, given its adaptation by Steven Spielberg as Schindler’s List – a film often “listed as one of the greatest films ever made”.

The only introduction might be to its original title as published by Aussie author Keneally – Schindler’s Ark. I like to quip that the change to Schindler’s List was because viewers wouldn’t be able to grasp the ark in the title as metaphor from Noah’s ark and instead be looking for a literal ark, the Ark of the Covenant from Spielberg’s film Raiders of the Lost Ark – “where’s the Ark?!”

“Schindler’s Ark is a historical fiction” – the historical part being the actual people and events, particularly the titular Oskar Schindler, its “unlikely hero…saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust”, the fictional part being the “dialogue and scenes added by the author where exact details are unknown”.

Top Tens – Poetry & Literature: Top 10 Literature (Special Mention) (13) Luke Rhinehart – The Dice Man

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Harper Collins 50th anniversary edition (fair use)

 

 

(13) LUKE RHINEHART –

THE DICE MAN (1971)

 

“Anybody can be anybody.”

A novel by George Cockcroft under the pen name – or perhaps persona as the novel’s protagonist – Luke Rhinehart, a psychiatrist who gives himself up to literally living his life by the roll of a die, somewhat like Batman villain Two-Face with the flip of a coin but even more so. It’s a wild ride and is generally regarded as a black comedy cult classic.

Arguably something of a one-book wonder, as his other books never replicated the cult status or commercial success of The Dice Man – and indeed, he revisited the same premise in a number of his other books. However, he did write a more conventional novel which I’m going to shout out here – Long Voyage Back in 1983, still one of my favorite post-apocalyptic books set after a nuclear war.

Top Tens – Poetry & Literature: Top 10 Literature (Special Mention) (12) John Steinbeck – The Grapes of Wrath

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2006 Penguin classics edition (fair use)

 

 

(12) JOHN STEINBECK –

THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1939)

 

Okies on a road trip to California! Also, a proposed contender for the Great American Novel – not bad for a novel that is arguably the ultimate road movie plot. Not so sure about that weird breast-feeding scene at the end, though.

Oh, who am I kidding? I’d have all road movies end with weird breast-feeding scenes – and start with them or have them throughout, really.

The Grapes of Wrath is summed up in its famous quote of Highway 66 as “the mother road” of an almost chosen people to a half-promised land in California:

“Highway 66 is the main migrant road, 66 – the long concrete path across the country, weaving gently up and down on the map, from the Mississippi to Bakersfield – over the red lands and the gray lands, twisting up into the mountains, crossing the Divide and down into the bright and terrible desert, and across the desert to the mountains again, and into the rich California valleys, 66 is the path of a people in flight, refugees from dust and shrinking ownership, from the desert’s slow northward invasion, from the twisting winds that that howl up out of Texas, from the floods that bring no richness to the land and steal what little richness is there. From all of these the people are in flight, and they come into 66 from the tributary side roads, from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads. 66 is the mother road, the road of flight.”

Steinbeck was a quintessentially Californian writer, which makes it perhaps stranger that he has always struck me as a Biblical writer, albeit in a secular sense. By that, I’m talking Old Testament, where God’s wrath is always just around the corner and anything good only happens, if at all, on payment or penalty of sacrifice – in blood, sweat, or tears (or some combination of all or any of them).

It reminds me of an old gag about the punchline if Hemingway told the joke why the chicken crossed the road – to die, in the rain – although Steinbeck would probably have it lay an egg first.

“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.”

Many have noted the Biblical or Christian imagery in The Grapes of Wrath – that breast-feeding scene replicates a pieta for one – from the title onwards.  Yes, I know the title is from The Battle Hymn of the Republic, but those in turn refer to the Book of Apocalypse with “the great winepress of the wrath of God”.

“John Steinbeck’s works have become popular school study media and are still read today, traumatizing generations of American teens” – particularly The Grapes of Wrath, although schools tend to skip in-depth discussion of that breast-feeding scene.

Top Tens – Poetry & Literature: Top 10 Literature (Special Mention) (11) F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby

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Original cover art of the first edition in 1925 – “Celestial Eyes” by Francis Cugat (public domain image), used in subsequent editions

 

 

(11) F. SCOTT FITZGERALD –

THE GREAT GATSBY (1925)

 

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning —

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

 

Ah, yes – the orgastic future, because if there’s one thing I want my future to be, it’s orgastic. Also, those lines pretty much sum up The Great Gatsby.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald – the quintessential novelist of the Jazz Age (which he named as such), who wrote the quintessential novel of the Jazz Age with The Great Gatsby. Ironically for a novel that revolved around the titular character throwing lavishly expensive parties, it didn’t throw any parties of its own – it was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. However, it received generally favorable reviews, while both it and Fitzgerald’s reputation have continued to rise – “with The Great Gatsby, emerging as a strong contender for the Great American Novel”.

“F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic social critique, in which the American Dream of Rags to Riches is portrayed as a noble illusion and millionaires as self-absorbed, emotionally bankrupt rich b!tches…frank but wistful consideration of idealism vs human nature”.

I’m just going to come out and say it – I like Gatsby, the only character in the book (apart perhaps from narrator Nick Carraway) who has some idealistic belief in anything but himself, even if that belief was misplaced and he effectively sacrificed his life to protect the object of his belief, Daisy Buchanan.

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made”.

Yes, even if Gatsby was a gangster or front-man for gangsters, bootlegging, and moonshine.

Literary critic Edmund Wilson described Fitzgerald’s style: “romantic, but also cynical; he is bitter as well as ecstatic; astringent as well as lyrical. He casts himself in the role of playboy, yet at the playboy he incessantly mocks…(the) gift for turning language into something iridescent and surprising”.

Top Tens – Top 10 Girls of the Odyssey (Special Mention)

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Anne Hathaway as Penelope in the trailer for the Nolan 2026 Odyssey film (fair use)

 

 

 

TOP 10 GIRLS OF THE ODYSSEY (SPECIAL MENTION)

 

Sing, muse, of special mentions for my Top 10 Girls of the Odyssey!

For those who doubted I could find ten girls in the Odyssey for my top ten, I even found enough for special mentions, albeit only twelve and almost entirely in fleeting appearances or mentions in Homer’s Odyssey (so this will be a quick list on the spot with no images except my feature image).

 

S-TIER (GODDESS TIER)

 

(1) HELEN OF TROY

 

Well, obviously, given that she’s second top spot in my Top 10 Girls of Mythology. She does get a reasonably substantial appearance too, having reconciled with Menelaus and returning home with him as queen of Sparta. She and Menelaus are hosts to a visit of Telemachus searching for news of Odysseus.

She gets special mention to herself as she canonically mogs all other girls of the Iliad or Odyssey.

Yes, she’s in the Nolan film, played by Lupita Nyong’o – a casting choice that prompted reasonable responses from everyone and that’s all I’ll say about it.

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

(2) ANTICLEA

 

Odysseus’ mother – he sees her shade in the underworld, much to his sorrow (and hers).

Not in the Nolan film.

 

(3) EURYCLEIA

 

Odysseus’s nurse, one of the remaining loyal servants to him (and recognizes him in disguise from his scar).

She’s in the Nolan film.

 

(4) ARETE

 

Queen of the Phaeacians and mother of Nausicaa – like her husband Alcinous and the rest of the royal household of the Phaeacians, they were gracious hosts to Odysseus and helped him to finally return to Ithaca

Not in the Nolan film.

 

(5) CLYTEMNESTRA

 

Wife of the Agamemnon, who famously killed him on his return, as the shade of Agamemnon tells Odysseus in the underworld as a cautionary warning for the latter’s own homecoming.

She’s in the Nolan film, played by Lupita Nyong’o as Helen’s twin rather than half-sister.

 

(6) CASSANDRA

 

Ill-fated princess of Troy, given the gift of prophecy but cursed that no one would ever believe her – taken captive by Agamemnon and shared his fate.

Not in the Nolan film.

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

(7) HELIADES

 

The daughters of the sun god Helios, tending to his cattle.

Not in the Nolan film, although the cattle were.

 

(8) WOMEN OF THE UNDERWORLD

 

Various shades of famous female figures from classical mythology seen by Odysseus in the underworld.

Not in the Nolan film.

 

(9) POLYDAMNA

 

Egyptian woman who supplied the soothing drug nepenthe to Helen – and Helen gave it to Menelaus and Telemachus.

Not in the Nolan film.

 

(10) CTIMENE

 

Odysseus’ younger sister and princess of Ithaca, mentioned in passing.

Not in the Nolan film.

 

(11) POLYMELE

(12) CALLIDICE

 

Okay – these two special mentions are a bit of a cheat, as they are not in the Odyssey but were added later as shacking up with Odysseus, making them girls of Odysseus rather than girls of the Odyssey.

Polymele is the daughter of the wind god Aeolus (neither of which were in the Nolan film).

Callidice is queen of Thespotria in the Telegony as sequel to the Odyssey.

Top Tens – Top 10 Girls of the Odyssey

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Two women of the Odyssey, in a screenshot from the 2026 Nolan film trailer – the one in the foreground probably needs no introduction, either for her character or her a(fair use)

 

 

TOP 10 GIRLS OF THE ODYSSEY

 

Sing, muse, of my Top 10 Girls of the Odyssey!

As I like to joke, I can find Fantasy Girls in anything. I have my Top 10 Girls of Mythology and my Top 10 Girls of Classical Mythology, so it’s not much of a leap for my Top 10 Girls of the Odyssey and even some special mentions to spare, albeit I’ll admit I needed a little help from my muse to round out my top ten and special mentions.

Although you’d be surprised – the Odyssey has a higher prevalence for female characters than its Homeric counterpart of the Iliad, perhaps not surprisingly for the former’s theme of homecoming or return from the latter’s war. Even setting that aside, the Odyssey’s protagonist Odysseus is strikingly dependent on the help of women for his homecoming, indeed without whom he would not have been able to return home – or not had a home to which he could return. These good girls of the Odyssey as I like to dub them are just over half my top ten.

Of course, Odysseus also faces a few female figures as antagonists or obstacles to his odyssey – whom you won’t be surprised to learn I dub the bad girls of the Odyssey. Interestingly, a couple of my good girls of the Odyssey alternate or switch between being bad girls of the Odyssey.

Such was the prevalence of female characters in the Odyssey, particularly when compared to the Iliad, that there’s something of a fringe theory – originating with nineteenth century English novelist Samuel Butler – that the “Homer” who wrote the Odyssey was a woman. Butler opined that it was a Sicilian woman, hence setting much of the Odyssey’s fantastic voyage in Sicily – and inserting herself in the Odyssey as one of its good girls (and is one of my top ten entries).

Even more so than my Girls of Mythology, this is obviously something of a personal novelty top ten list, lacking the same extent of name recognition or adaptations in popular culture as for girls of mythology in general. I’ve mostly made fair use of their depictions from screenshots of the trailers for Christopher Nolan’s 2026 Odyssey film. However, one major entry was not in the trailers, while the film itself lacked two notable good girl entries, so I have used public domain art or licensed images for those entries.

 

S-TIER (GODDESS TIER)

 

 

Anne Hathaway as Penelope in the trailer for the Nolan 2026 Odyssey film (fair use)

 

 

(1) PENELOPE

 

My queen!

You needn’t have looked so worried, Penelope – of course it was always going to be you in top spot.

Although in fairness, Penelope had a lot to be worried about, what with her husband’s twenty-year absence and keeping those suitors at bay.

The ultimate good girl of the Odyssey, Penelope might be absent from Odysseus’ fantastic wanderings within the Odyssey, for obvious reasons that the whole point of his wanderings was to return home to her, but she is very much present in the prelude with Telemachus (the Telemachy, in Books 1-2 and 4) and for his homecoming in Books 16-24 – indeed, giving Odysseus one final test, literally for their matrimonial bed.

Ultimately, all of Odysseus’ efforts in the Odyssey, even with Athena’s divine intervention, would have been for naught without Penelope’s steadfast fidelity to him and her cunning at holding the line against the suitors.

There was a variant legend that Penelope did sleep with all her suitors, giving birth to the god Pan, but not in my Odyssey – and not my Penelope!

It says something for her desirability that all of Odysseus’ thoughts were getting back to her, even when shacking up with sea nymphs en route (although presumably some of his thoughts were for his kingdom, his son, and his dog) – not to mention those suitors, over 100 in number. Although she was renowned for her beauty – not surprisingly as a cousin of Helen – it was her intellect, rivalling that of her husband, as well as her virtue, definitely exceeding that of her husband, for which it was said she surpassed even Helen.

She was portrayed by Anne Hathaway in the 2026 Nolan film.

 

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

Circe as painted by John William Waterhouse’s Circe Invidiosa in 1892 (public domain image)

 

 

(2) CIRCE

 

Bad girl of the Odyssey turned good for Odysseus – to the extent of even turning back his men she had turned into pigs, the latter one of the most famous and iconic scenes from the Odyssey.

Circe is one of the most famous sorceresses or witches of mythology and literature – daughter of the Titan god of the sun, Helios, and reigning over her island of Aeaea among her bestiary transformed from men.

Such is her enduring allure – an allure I rank in my Top 10 Girls of the Odyssey as second only to Penelope – that it is easy to forget she only has a limited appearance in the Odyssey. She appears in only one book of the Odyssey – Book 10 – and doesn’t even have that book to herself with Odysseus. Her liaison with Odysseus is for only one of ten years of his odyssey and yet has been the source of enduring fascination and influence ever since. Artists and writers have added to that liaison, most notably through adding her son with Odysseus, Telegonus, for whom the epic “sequel” to the Odyssey, the Telegony, was named. Weirdly, that sequel involved Telegonus mistakenly killing his father and even more weirdly, returning to Circe with Penelope and Odysseus’ son Telemachus, whereby Circe makes them all immortal – and most weirdly of all, Telegonus shacks up with Penelope and Circe with Telemachus.

Circe was not quite so seductive in the 2026 Nolan film depicted by Samantha Morton, and did not have any liaison with Odysseus, let alone for a year.

 

 

Calypso as depicted by Charlize Theron in a screenshot from the trailer for the 2026 Nolan film (fair use)

 

 

(3) CALYPSO

 

Good girl of the Odyssey for rescuing him, turned bad girl (of sorts) for keeping him “captive” for seven years after that. One might quibble with the label of captivity where a beautiful sea nymph shares her bed with you every night and offers you immortality, although Odysseus did cry about it a lot.

Calypso is eclipsed as one of Odysseus’ extramarital liaisons in the Odyssey only by Circe – which is quite the striking achievement on Circe’s part, since Calypso also had her own island of Ogygia to match Circe’s Aeaea,  had more of her own book with Book 7 (as well being mentioned in two other books, Books 1 and 7) and accounted for seven of the ten years of the Odyssey as opposed to Circe’s single year.

Still, it’s no shame to lose out to a sorceress femme fatale like Circe – and only just, as Calypso has had her own enduring charm and influence ever since, even just her name. Oceanographer Jacques Cousteau named his ship for her, inspiring John Denver’s song of the same name – “Aye Calypso, I’ll sing to your spirit”.

Since Odysseus spends the large majority of the ten years of the Odyssey – seven of the ten years or 70% – with Calypso in her island, most of the Odyssey is Calypso’s odyssey.

Also, she poses perhaps the most substantial temptation to Odyssey not to return home, over and above the longest obstacle to him – and that is her promise of immortality. For the narrative and thematic significance of that alone, she deserves her own place for odyssey within the Odyssey.

She was depicted by Charlize Theron in the 2026 Nolan film, in much the same role as in the original Odyssey.

 

 

Zendaya as Athena in the trailer for Nolan’s 2026 Odyssey film (fair use)

 

 

(4) ATHENA

 

Okay, I know I called Penelope the ultimate good girl of the Odyssey but Athena also vies for that title, with the advantage of being divine – and the closest to a good girl goddess among the Olympian deities. Although on the other hand, Athena loses points because she only rarely appears in her divine female form in the Odyssey.

Even so, Athena plays the decisive moving role in Odysseus’ return and homecoming, effectively as his divine patron – and where he is essentially her champion, embodying the intellectual prowess that was one of her divine aspects.

Yes, he’s on his own in his fantastic voyage from Troy to the cattle of Helios he narrates in Books 9-12, but for all his survival by his own wits, he simply would not have been able to return home without her.

Her decisive moving role in the Odyssey is from the very outset in Book 1, where she successfully petitions Zeus to compel Calypso to release Odysseus from his captivity, albeit captivity with benefits, through to the conclusion in Book 24, where she intervenes to broker peace from blood feud by the families of the slain suitors.

She not only guides and protects Odysseus, but also his son Telemachus through Books 1-3 of the Telemachy.

And she doesn’t stop when Odysseus is back in Ithaca, appearing in almost every book of his homecoming in Books 13-24 to lend him and Telemachus critical assistance to defeat the suitors, again taking human guise when needed.

She was depicted by Zendaya in the 2026 Nolan film, albeit with something of a twist in her tale.

 

 

Nausicaa as painted by Jean Veber in his 1888 painting Ulysses and Nausicaa (public domain image)

 

 

(5) NAUSICAA

 

One of my favorite good girls of the Odyssey – and a critical one in the right place at the right time after Odysseus is shipwrecked (again) on her island, even if she had a little help from Athena.

Nausicaa was princess of the Phaeacians. Guided by a dream sent to her by Athena, she and her handmaidens go to the seashore to wash clothes, awakening a naked Odysseus. While her handmaidens fled at the sight of him, she kept her head when he begged her aid, setting in train the hospitality from her royal household and parents which culminated in her father, King Alcinous, generously giving Odysseus the ships that finally took him home to Ithaca.

“Nausicaä is young and beautiful; Odysseus says she resembles the goddess Artemis…Homer gives a literary account of a love which is never expressed (one of the earliest examples of unrequited love in literature). Nausicaä is presented as a potential love interest for Odysseus: she tells her friend that she would like her husband to be like him, and her father tells Odysseus that he would let him marry her…Nausicaä is also a mother figure for Odysseus; she ensures his return home, and says “Never forget me, for I gave you life”. Odysseus never tells Penelope about his encounter with Nausicaä, out of all the women he met on his long journey home. Some suggest this indicates a deeper feeling for the young woman.”

Some variant legends shipped Odysseus’ son Telemachus with her, which I think I prefer to pairing him off with Circe – while other variant legends did indeed shack her up with Odysseus himself, at least as the father of one of her sons.

And yes, Nausicaa was the character which Butler’s Sicilian woman author of the Odyssey had as a self-insert.

Sadly omitted from the 2026 Nolan film.

 

 

Leucothea, an Etruscan sculpture from Pyrgi, c. 350 BC (Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, Rome), photograph by Olivier for Wikipedia “Leucothea” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

 

 

(6) INO LEUCOTHEA

 

Yes, it’s the last of the good girls of the Odyssey that gave him critical aid in his homecoming.

There was just something about Odysseus that was just catnip for nymphs or goddesses helping him – Athena, Circe, Calypso, and then this one in a blink or you’ll miss it moment.

Ino was a priestess turned queen, turned goddess under her epithet of Leucothea, “white goddess” after her death and transfiguration. She was a goddess of the sea, perhaps even parallel to Amphitrite, but I tend to think her epithet of white goddess evokes her as personification of sea foam.

She saves Odysseus after his ship is destroyed yet again at sea between Calypso and Nausicaa or the Phaeacians – giving him her divine veil that magically takes him to land.

Again sadly omitted from the 2026 Nolan film.

 

 

Mermaids by Jean Francis Auburtin, 1920 (public domain image)

 

(7) SIRENS

 

“I have heard the mermaids singing each to each”.

And now we get to the bad girls of the Odyssey – well, excluding Circe and Calypso when they were bad girls.

You might be surprised I don’t rank the Sirens higher, given that they and their song have become names for irresistible allure. Heck, I’m surprised I didn’t rank them higher. And I would have ranked them higher but for four reasons.

Firstly, I just wanted to rank the good girls higher. Secondly, following on from the first reason, they are dangerous, indeed deadly, to those who succumb to their allure – often eating their victims, at least in some subsequent variant legends, although I’m not sure that was the case in the Odyssey. Thirdly, as they appear in Homer, they don’t even have names – it was later writers who gave them names and origins, as well as increasing them in number from the two Sirens in Homer, typically to the usual female trio but occasionally to four Sirens.

Fourthly and finally, it was their song rather than their appearance that was alluring. The s€xy mermaid fishy thing was a much later change from the classical bird thing of their appearance in Homer, evoking the monstrousness of the harpies.

The subject of one of my personal favorite scenes from the 2026 Nolan films, although the Sirens themselves remain mysterious and barely seen.

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

 

Epic screenshot from the epic part of the Odyssey from the trailer for the Christopher Nolan film (fair use)

 

 

(8) SCYLLA & CHARYBDIS

 

The definitive or iconic paired bad girl duo of the Odyssey.

It’s easy to overlook them since both are monstrous and one is a maelstrom, but they are female.

And Scylla at least was originally a beautiful nymph before she was transformed into her monstrous form, in some versions by another entry in my Top 10 Girls of the Odyssey – Circe.

They are there in the 2026 Nolan film – they’re simply too iconic to omit – but without any hint of their female form.

 

 

And we come back full circle to my feature image with which I started – not for Penelope in the foreground but Melantho in the background, portrayed by Mia Goth (fair use)

 

 

(9) MAIDS – MELANTHO

 

I hesitate to call them bad girls of the Odyssey, since the “maids” of Ithaca seem more hapless victims of the suitors first, then of Odysseus ordering their execution as the equivalent of collaborators or traitors (which sadly Telemachus carried out). That’s particularly so as their service was likely involuntary servitude – slaves in other words.

That is why most modern adaptations, including the 2026 Nolan film, omit or spare them that fate. Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad does not spare them this fate – indeed, that’s a large part of why she wrote it – but gives them a much needed and well deserved voice at the injustice of it.

Melantho is the most prominent among them, one of Penelope’s favorite maids who betrayed Penelope’s ruse weaving and unweaving the shroud to the suitors. She is given the epithet Melantho of the Pretty Cheeks. She was portrayed by Mia Goth in the 2026 Christopher Nolan film – there is a hint of her literary fate but she is fortunately spared.

 

 

The nine Muses on a Roman sarcophagus (second century AD), Louvre, Paris – that’s Calliope at the far left on the bottom, holding a scroll (public domain image)

 

 

(10) MUSE – CALLIOPE

 

“Sing, muse”

Yes, who else for my tenth place entry but the muse invoked in the very first line of the poem to tell of Odysseus, as she is in the Iliad to tell of the wrath of Achilles?

She is not named in either poem but is usually identified with Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, often hailed as the greatest of the muses.

Top Tens – Poetry & Literature: Top 10 Literature (Special Mention) (10) P.J. O’Rourke – The Bachelor’s Home Companion

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Cover art of various editions, including the one I own (fair use)

 

 

(10) P.J. O’ROURKE –

THE BACHELOR’S HOME COMPANION (1987)

“Bachelors know all about parties. In fact, a good bachelor is a living, breathing party all by himself. At least that is what my girlfriend said when she found the gin bottles under the couch. I believe her exact words were, “You’re a disgusting, drunken mess.” And that’s a good description of a party, if it’s done right.”

I’ve decided to commemorate P. J. O’Rourke passing away on 15 February 2022 with special mention in my Top 10 Literature, at least until I catch up with all his books. It’s what he would have wanted. Actually, what I think he would have wanted was a raucous, raunchy wake, but it’s the next best thing.

Seriously, though, I enjoyed P. J. O’Rourke as the leading American political humorist and satirist of our time, typically from a self-described “libertarian conservative” perspective – which largely translates as mocking everything and everyone, including himself.

My favorite remains this book that (mostly) steered clear of political humor – as well as my introduction to him. It was a gift for my own bachelor pad and has since become my bible of housekeeping.

Spoiler alert – you do not want this book to be your bible of housekeeping, as funny as it is.

Top Tens – Poetry & Literature: Top 10 Literature (Special Mention) (9) Hunter S. Thompson – Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas

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Iconic cover of the first edition reproduced for its 50th anniversary, featuring the cartoon art of Thompson’s usual collaborator as illustrator, Ralph Steadman. It was a highlight seeing The Simpsons use these cartoon figures in a throwaway visual gag driving away from Vegas as Homer Simpson and Ned Flanders drive to it

 

 

(9) HUNTER S. THOMPSON –

FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (1971)

 

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold…And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats”

One of my favorite opening lines of any book. Also a book that gave me my role model of a lawyer – Dr Gonzo, always referred to as “my attorney”.

And what drugs began to take hold, you ask? Well, take your pick…

“The trunk of the car looked like a mobile police narcotics lab. We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug-collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.”

This was ostensibly to do a story on “assignment for Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption” on a motorcycle race in Las Vegas. What Thompson wrote instead was a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was “aggressively rejected” by the magazine but became the basis for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, including a second trip to Vegas to attend, ironically enough, a drug-enforcement conference. I think they packed more drugs in the trunk for that.

What emerged was the psychedelic odyssey of the book’s subtitle, A Savage Journey into the Heart of the American Dream, with Thompson in his thinly disguised persona as Raoul Duke. Not pictured or captioned – the motorcycle race he was originally paid to write about in Las Vegas. Just kidding – I remember it briefly in there somewhere, glimpsed through the desert dust swirling as they try to find it. They do manage to attend that drug-enforcement conference, however.

Which pretty much encapsulates the gonzo journalism of Thompson’s creation – writing the hell what you feel like but with snark and style.

I liked the film as well, starring Johnny Depp (who befriended Thompson in real life) and directed by Terry Gilliam.

“His literary influence, outlandish persona and unique look (particularly the aviator cool shades and the ubiquitous cigarette in a TarGard holder) led him to become a subject of affectionate parody…Characters based on Thompson include Spider Jerusalem from Transmetropolitan, Uncle Duke from Doonesbury, Duke Rollo from Aberrant, Col. Hunter Gathers on The Venture Bros., and Dale Gribble from King of the Hill”.

If you hadn’t guessed so far, “Thompson had a lifelong love for alcohol, drugs, and firearms, and an iconoclastic contempt for authority. He often remarked: “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”

Top Tens – Poetry & Literature: Top 10 Literature (Special Mention) (8) Roald Dahl – Switch B!tch

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Cover of The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl published by Penguin – the edition I own (fair use)

 

 

(8) ROALD DAHL –

SWITCH B!TCH (1974)

 

“I don’t write horror stories, I write funny stories. I think they’re funny, anyway.”

Roald Dahl is best known for his children’s novels but started – and continued – as a writer of short stories for adults, interestingly originating from writing about and stories inspired by his military service as a literal ace pilot for the Royal Air Force in the Second World War.

While on the subject of his military service, Dahl lived a life out of an adventure novel. When his active service as a pilot ended when he was wounded in action, he was assigned as an assistant air attaché to the British Embassy in Washington DC – from which he managed to get involved with the British Security Co-Ordination, essentially a quasi-espionage organization. That saw him as something of a real-life James Bond, including being an “utterly shameless womanizer” – and may even have been the inspiration for the character, as he worked with Ian Fleming. Dahl wrote the script for the Bond film You Only Live Twice – and it shows in characteristic stylistic traits. However, Dahl’s own life, particularly that utterly shameless womanizing, was probably more the inspiration for his character Uncle Oswald.

If you think his children’s novels are dark, then oh boy – I have something to tell you about his stories for adults. You can tell them apart because his stories for adults are slightly darker with slightly more risqué subject matter.

“His style is exemplified by black comedy…His works for adults are almost universally cynical and pessimistic about human nature”.

There’s so much Road Dahl to choose from, even confined to his short stories for adults, but I’ll go with this short collection of four stories, originally published by Playb0y magazine, which was also my introduction to Dahl’s stories for adults – I had, after all, grown up reading his novels for children.

And I’ll go with the titular two short stories – well, almost titular for the story The Great Switcheroo (where two husbands plot to “switch” wives), but the other story is indeed titular from the other word in the title of the collection, with bonus points of having his recurring character Uncle Oswald as a protagonist in a plot involving an irresistible aphrodisiac.