The Odyssey Effect

People Are Finally Reading The Odyssey—After 3000 Years. Christopher Nolan and Matt Damon got people to do what teachers never could.
—Wall Street Journal Headline, July 18, 2026

Things are getting really crazy. That alone is not a news flash, but what is new is that it’s crazy in a good way. Ever since that Odyssey movie came out, people have been reading the book. One man said he wanted to read the book so that he would know what Homer wrote, allowing him to see where Mr. Nolan took artistic license. Others wanted to experience the literary asides and temperament that by their nature will not translate to the screen. In short, it’s a big societal trend. And the one thing that celebrities and their insistent agents can’t ignore is a trending opportunity.

Before you could say “cyclops,” celebrities began citing the classics as casually as the latest diet or fashion trend. Just the other day, the singer Madison Rogue appeared on an entertainment TV show right before her sold-out stadium concert, describing the subtleties of Sir Randolph Quirk’s A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. She told the interviewer how this classic guide helped her construct the lyrics that helped pave her way to success:

You know, uh, take this lyric. [Quietly singing] We stood crying in the supermarket aisle / two lovers next to the winter squash. And you know, like chapter 17 of the CGEL—that’s the shorthand us performers use when we talk about Sir Randolph Quirk’s A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language—like, chapter 17 tells it all. Like, you know, the noun phrase two lovers stands in non-restrictive, detached apposition to the subject pronoun We. It is separated by a clear causal pause, functioning not as a grammatical subject complement linked by a verb, but as an independent, trailing noun phrase that defines the character and state of the individuals named by the pronoun. It’s really pretty basic when you lay it all out.

The result was a complete sellout of the previously obscure guide. Everyone was reading the massive, 1,800-page tome, learning about such things as adverbials and the semantics of the verb phrase. For used booksellers, who were using the grand old book as a doorstop (it is 1800 pages), it was Christmas, amplified by the sale of forgotten grammar books. One unfortunate soul had his precious and rare copy of the CGEL stolen from his car in a smash-and-grab. Even the criminal element found itself obsessed with syntax.

Sensing the new vibe, the famed football player Bill “The Backbreaker” Beekman chimed in with his literary activity:

You know, it’s great to be here, and I owe a lot to my awesome team. We didn’t come here for nothing. We came to win. And I want to give a shout-out to my man Newton and his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. You know, in this game, you just can’t say what comes up must come down. No, no. There’s a lot more, like Law III of Newton’s Laws of Motion. You know, for every action there is always opposed an equal reaction, or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal and directed to contrary parts. So if I don't bring equal mass and velocity, his vector is gonna redirect my momentum right back at me!

The fallout was immediate. The normal reign of terror that sports Tiger Parents had wrought upon their offspring wasn't enough. Now the minute their kids got off the field, they were sent straight up to their rooms to decode the turgid Principia. Professional sports contracts required classes on Newton’s physics followed by a grueling exam. The joining of the mind and body took on a new meaning, a meaning no one could have previously anticipated.

Then there’s Kaelis, the supermodel. She was asked about her unfailing fashion instincts and predictably worked in her classic inspiration:

Well, it’s a little surprising. My fashion sense really took off when I read Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Take this oversized Balenciaga coat. You see the phenomenon, the sensory intuition of the fabric in space and time. But the noumenon, the coat-in-itself? Totally unknowable to the human mind unless you master Kantian synthetic a priori judgments before the autumn line drops.

I don’t know how long this is going to last; there are only so many hours in the day to wade through the Principia and the CGEL. I’m sure eventually it will be replaced with a fad that is less mentally taxing. But until then, I’ll enjoy this brief, glorious era where the bestseller list absolutely requires breaking out the dictionary.