John Stuart Mill assured in Utilitarianism that “it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied”. In his opinion, no minimally sensible human being would want to exchange the complexity of their life for the linear life of a happy imbecile. But are we sure? Plutarch answers us with a work dedicated to Grillus, a sailor of Ulysses who, after experiencing human and porcine life, considered the latter to be entirely preferable.When Ulysses arrived on the island of Aeaea, he visited the sorceress Circe accompanied by half of the crew. Circe invited them to a banquet, but she enchanted the food and turned the diners into pigs... Except for the reluctant Ulysses, who sensed some malice. Seeing his metamorphosed sailors, he begged Circe to return them to human form.—Are you sure —the sorceress asked him— that he will want to re-humanize himself who knows what it means to be an animal?The pig who had been the sailor Grillus resisted there with firmness. He had discovered that it was more comfortable to live off the gifts of generous nature than to rush into the labors of humans in harsh Ithaca. Animals, he said, live surrounded by what they need, while man, insatiable, does not stop working. Besides, animals use neither tricks nor deceptions when they fight. Nor do they need to remain continuously busy with superfluous desires. They are more frugal and moderate.—You should know, Ulysses —Grillus continued—, that all of us, far from considering ourselves inferior to you, despise you, because, evidently, what is said about your cunning is false. You reject outright the possibility of becoming a better being than you are. You behave like a child, but while you lie with Circe you tremble with fear, and you fear waking up turned into a pig, a wolf, or who knows what. And us, who have all our needs satisfied, you want to convince us to abandon what we have and embark with you, regaining the condition of sailors exposed to all dangers. Man is the most tiring and unfortunate of all creatures.—It seems to me, Grillus, that the metamorphosis you have undergone, besides ruining your figure, has disturbed your reason, because you have it full of absurd and wild opinions.—You’d better stop insulting and start dialoguing, if you want to understand why, after having experienced both kinds of life, we prefer the porcine.Fénelon dedicates to Grillus one of his Dialogues des morts, precisely titled, Ulysse et Grillus. What he tells us is that Grillus has plenty of arguments to remain a pig: "I find food everywhere, even in the least desirable places. Lawyers and wars, and all the other problems of life, mean nothing to me. I don't need a cook, nor a barber, nor a tailor, nor an architect. I am free and can satisfy my desires at a very low cost. Why should I recover the heap of human needs? A pig's homeland is where there are acorns. Don't talk to me anymore about reason, because if you look at the lives of men, you see nothing but madness. Isn't it better to be stupid than an evil fool? I much prefer to be a big, fat pig, satisfied with my filth, than a weak, vain, frivolous, cunning, deceitful, and unjust man, who expects to be, after his death, a sad shadow and a dissatisfied ghost with his condition".Also a notable philosopher, Pyrrho, found the porcine life so enviable that he put it forward as an example of a successful philosophical life. During a sea voyage he was taking with his disciples, a great storm broke out that frightened all the passengers, except for Pyrrho himself and a pig, which experienced it with a composure of spirit very rarely seen among men.—Thus, unperturbed, the wise man must remain in the face of dangers —said Pyrrho.Commenting on this anecdote, Montaigne asks: “Should we conclude that this advantage of reason, of which we are so proud and thanks to which we consider ourselves masters and emperors of the rest of creatures, has been granted to us to torment us?”We close this minimal porcine morality with Fosco Maraini. In the book Secret Tibet he assures that, since the rule of a community of monks only allowed eating the meat of marine animals, they decided to rename the pig as wild whale and they could eat sausages without scruples, which makes us think that, often, humans observe our farm animals as a living pantry. In fact, another philosopher, Chrysippus, maintains that the gods placed a soul in pigs to preserve their meat, as if it were salt, because the pig, he adds, is born to be sacrificed.

“A simple man”. This is how Emily Wilson, the first woman to publish a complete translation of the Odyssey in English, defines the protagonist of Christopher Nolan's film. The philologist has railed against the film in an essay published in the London Review of Books under the title An uncomplicated man, referring to the first words Wilson used in her 2017 version to define Odysseus as a “complicated man”. During the promotion of the Odyssey (2026), Nolan cited Emily Wilson's translation on several occasions as one of his main sources of inspiration. Even so, the expert in classical literature and professor at the University of Pennsylvania has not been satisfied with the result.

Elon Musk continues to be upset about Christopher Nolan's version of The Odyssey. For months, he and his supporters have been campaigning on social media to question the casting of the new blockbuster of the ancient epic, particularly the choice of black actress Lupita Nyong'o for the role of Helen of Troy and transgender actor Elliot Page as the warrior Sinó. Now that the film has been released, some conservatives have admitted that there is nothing particularly woke in Nolan's tale of sacrifice and male honor. He takes liberties with the original material, like any Hollywood version, but one of its main divergences is a more Christian than pagan moral framework, which should not offend most of the conservative sector.

Christopher Nolan's Odyssey lasts 2 hours and 53 minutes. Almost three hours of epic footage to narrate Ulysses' adventures for ten years, from when he leaves the shores of Troy until he finally returns to Ithaca. The film covers practically all the essential episodes and themes of Homer's poem, the foundational work of the journey myth, created from oral tradition about 2,800 years ago. But, like any adaptation (or reinterpretation), it is by no means exact: the filmmaker alters the order of some passages, summarizes others, and eliminates important scenes that, in the original text, add nuances and help to understand the protagonist's psychological depth. These are the most significant.

In the prologue of the recent translation ofThe Odyssey published by Bernat Metge Universal, Roger Aluja recalls how Ulysses differs from Achilles, the triumphant warrior of the Iliad, in that his glory culminates not in victory in battle but in his subsequent return home. In his appropriation of Homer's classic, Christopher Nolan takes good note of this. As a new example of cinema understood as an immense audiovisual spectacle, the grandeur of The Odyssey lies not in the epic of combat but in the overwhelming weight of external circumstances that a human like Ulysses cannot control. In his darkest film (not at all Mediterranean), Nolan empties the journey of its most joyful adventurous dimension and approaches terror in some of the best passages: the capture in Polyphemus's cave, the disturbing transformation of the sailors into pigs by Circe, the unsettling descent into Hades... Ludwig Göransson envelops it all with a tactile soundtrack that immerses us in Poseidon's oceanic wrath.

What does Homer teach us about the human psyche? This is the starting point of Mental Odyssey (Kitaeru), written by Dr. Sam Akbar. The book stems from her dual experience: that of a classical philologist trained at Oxford and a clinical psychologist who has worked for years with survivors of extreme violence.