‍I am Team Emily Wilson. Not because of fidelity or otherwise to Greek myths or history: that’s not my bag. Rather, I am annoyed about The Odyssey because it didn’t finish its arcs.

To quote myself in my forthcoming writing book…

I’ve recently read two back-to-back bad books, written by experienced authors and issued by large publishers. Bit fed up, tbh.

The ultimate reason both books were bad was that they read like first drafts, with (as I said while ranting on Bluesky about this) good ideas not yet coagulated into a plot, elements that had been chucked in but weren't fully incorporated, and characters that were visibly acting according to the demands of the plot, rather than shaped so you felt their actions were natural.