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If I remember correctly, they had a desk named "JERKER" in early 2000s.
I worked with a guy called Jerker at IBM in Greenock, who soon learned to give back as good as he got. Swedish people can be pretty sarcastic, so he was what you'd call a "good cultural fit".
In this context, the book itself is the history rather than the story as a foundational western narrative. The movie diverge in many grounds from the book, and it is sad that most people will only watch the movie rather than read the original work.
Look, given that the so-called "original work" is in ancient Greek, I don't think any ordinary American today is going to take the time and effort to actually "read the original work".
Even if you were to learn the Greek language well enough to "understand" the original book, you wouldn't really understand it, would you? Because it makes so many intertwined culture references, to the landscape, to the gods and myths of the period. So, what is better: for people to sit down and try to grind through the book, or to make a living production as a modern adaptation, for modern audiences to enjoy?
Furthermore, the Odyssey would have been performed by a singer or poet in its time. People in Greece wouldn't have been reading it on paper! That would be absurd even then! So, it would already be a performance, an interpretation, and it would surely be adapted by those performers to the place-and-time. There is surely a lot of space between the oral tradition that Homer originated to the written word.
Personally, I have immensely enjoyed O Brother, Where Art Thou? as a modern adaptation to Americana. I cannot pretend to understand the original, or the intricacies of the Coen Brothers' adaptation, but I love the performances, the singalong songs, and the production values of the modern film, and it gives me more insight and appreciation for the ancient epic as it was.
The language is not the problem here, I also cannot understand ancient greek. Let aside the casting, it impose a modern morality instead of the original moral arguments. The movie portrays Odysseus in a completely different manner. Homer's Odysseus is intelligent, deceitful, resilient, cruel... While in the movie Nolan's "modern" themes served rather than Homer's original.
I don't know if I am the only one, but it feels like trying to rewrite a historical epic with someone's own themes. I don't say one is better or worse, but it just doesn't feel right.
The movie is essentially a total rewrite that uses nothing more than the poem's title and character names. Few other details, motives, lessons, or tensions were retained. It should have been called The Odyssey: A Parody.
It is worth mentioning that the original poem was never intended as a strict historical account. One can retell history through a few different lenses: from the perspective of a neutral investigator, from a cultural perspective, or through the literature inspired by that history. The Odyssey was a mythic epic in that third style.
Homer's original poem was written down after many generations of oral tradition in Greek culture around 3,000 years ago. That it survived is a testament to the cultural value of the details, motives, lessons, and tensions embedded within The Odyssey. None of those values made it into the movie.
The issue is not simply the (laughable) liberties taken with casting or the historical inaccuracies. The movie deviated so far from Homer’s vision of a heroic, faithful, and tragic King of Ithaca that calling it The Odyssey is fundamentally dishonest.
Homer’s Odysseus feared and fought gods and mythological creatures while longing for home (nostos, the word where "nostalgia" is rooted). He was confident and clever (metis) and didn’t waste words.
By contrast, Nolan’s Odysseus is a war-haunted loser whose deep trauma and guilt manifest as a brooding, obsessive narcissism focused on securing his throne, people, and his woman.
This movie may indeed be a hit at the theaters, but it is not The Odyssey. It is a parody.
This is a work written by the terrorist organization leader after incarcerated on 1999. While this carefully selected piece doesn't, the larger work of five volumes named "Manifesto of the Democratic Civilization" goes into the manifestation of his terrorist movement.
Very Kaczyynski like - the unabomber manifesto, in isolation, seems to be insightful and have a coherent grasp of reality and the implications of a deeply technological society, but in context of the author, is very dark and twisted; it picks and chooses the arguments so as to make the terrible conclusion all but inevitable.
They do call themselves, "Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê" (PKK) which literally means Kurdish Workers Party. It doesn't mean whether they call themselves terrorist or not; USA, UK, EU, NATO and many others call that way.
While I don't claim to follow the whole thing, it does have a section titled "Liberating democratic civilization from the State", which certainly smells cypherpunky.
They probably added text to their link submission. It’s not immediately clear that this text shows up as a comment indistinguishable from anyone else’s.
