"Sing for our time, too."

American Library Association has a poster you've probably seen. "The book is always better," it proclaims. Its message is pretty clear: Read. Read. Read.

But it's disingenuous, I think. I saw Christopher Nolen's The Odyssey last night, and while I have some serious criticisms about the film, it brought home to me an even more important difference between film and text: different is not necessarily better. And, by the same token, just because it's different, it's not necessarily wrong, or bad.

I've taught The Odyssey for just about all of my teaching career. The translation I've used is Robert Fagles' highly acclaimed 1996 version. But there have been others since, notably one by Emily Wilson, and just recently one by Daniel Mendelsohn. Both of these later two have been praised by scholars and critics for different reasons. Suffice it to say, when I entered the movie theater I already knew the story pretty well. I expected there to be some variations from the "original," which is to be expected. A movie is not a book. There are always things that a book simply can't bring out. For example, in Lord of the Flies, it is cinematically impossible to effectively recreate the dialogue between the character Simon and the pig's grizly severed head. But that doesn't make Peter Brook's film bad. It just shows the limitations of his medium.

To start with the positive aspects, I loved the scenes of the boats at sea. The gear looked authentic, the work of the sailors realistic, and the terror of being out on "the wine-dark sea" was captured vividly. That's the kind of thing that a camera can do which written text can only suggest. I thought that the film's depiction of Polyphemus was brilliant: unlike what I had pictured the Cylcops to be, but utterly genuine. Same with the whirlpool Charybdis and the ship's passage between the treacherous rock cliffs that are home to the six-headed Scylla.

There were times, though, that I felt kind of lost. What was the sub-plot of the character Sinon? Who is Sinon, anyway? He doesn't appear in Homer's epics at all. I had to go look it up: he's a character from Virgil's Aeneid. He volunteered to be left behind and trick the Trojans into believing that the wooden horse was a gift left by the Greeks to Athena. But Nolan's elaborate tale about how Sinon got there, and the treachery of Antinous just seemed to muddy the waters.

Agamemnon looks appropriately awesome, like an ancient Greek Darth Vader. But when he speaks he sounds mellow and reasonable, not like the fearsome Lord of Men from the epics.

And speaking of speaking, the flat, American accents seemed jarring. I don't expect Homer's characters to speak their lines in the King's English, but I do find it odd that Telemachus refers to his mighty father as "Dad." "My Dad is coming home." Really?

There have been criticisms of the casting. I'm certainly not bothered by the use of Black actors in traditionally white roles; it's 2026, for God's sake, get over it already. But Zandaya's Athena had two emotions: sad, and pretty sad. In the epic poem, Circe (Samantha Theron) and Odysseus (Matt Damon) become lovers; he stays on the island for a year before his men persuade him to leave. Nolan's reading of the characters is quite different from what you'd expect from reading Homer.

Other stuff really bothered me. Where was Nausicaa? What became of that beautiful, touching scene when Odysseus discovers her, doing the laundry with her maids? Did Alcinous marry her off before Odysseus arrived? Did Nolan forget about the lotus eaters? The shades of the dead ignored the protocols of the underworld: Tireseus is supposed to be the first to speak to Odysseus and drink the blood of the sacrifice. A minor point, I'll admit, but his prophesy - a recapitulation of Poseidon's curse - is omitted. The Battle of the Great Hall was brilliantly recreated, but what happened to Penelope's final test? What did they do with the great bed? Did Eurycleia figure out how to move it out of the bedchamber and into the hallway, as Penelope commanded?

And Nolan clearly has a different vision of what the epic is really about. I've always focused on the themes of homecoming and hospitality (xenia, in Greek), and the unconventional portrayl of the Greek hero. Nolan brings out those themes - "Zeus's Law" - but by deleting the episode of Odysseus' olive-tree bed, Nolan seriously diminishes the important bond of husband and wife, which is mentioned so frequently in Homer's text. He eliminates the dramatic contrast between the homecoming of Odysseus and that of Agamemnon. He renders the story much more political, more about power and even economics. Gone, too, is the emotional reunion between Odysseus and Telemachus, as depicted in Homer. In Nolan's telling, the recognition is almost accidental.

I wonder if someone who doesn't already know the story will be confused, particularly by the numerous flashbacks to provide backstory for the events.

Those are my reservations, if not criticisms. But on the other hand, my AP Literature students are reading the epic over the summer, and I'm requiring them to send me periodic updates on what the've found interesting in the poem. In particular, I had them respond to a question about the poem's origin. Some of the answers were quite insightful. They noted that it made sense to suppose that The Odyssey was the product of both formulaic phrases that could be memorized, and the poet's own improvisation. There was no written text. Therefore, as one of my students reported, the poem was "new" every time it was performed. It was organic, fluid, and subject to the whim, the inspiration, and the imagination of the performer.

I think that's likely a good way to look at Christopher Nolan's movie. It is not the same as the text we study. But the one we study isn't the same one that was first composed 2700 years ago. The Odyssey of Homer certainly evolved over time. The Odyssey of Robert Fagles, or of Emily Wilson, or Daniel Mendelson are two of the most recent inerations of the story. And The Odyssey of Christopher Nolan is just one more step in that evolution; perhaps the most dramatic, but valid nonetheless.

I am always struck, when teaching The Odyssey, at how contemporary it all sounds. How something first composed so long ago could sound so fresh, so alive. How it so embodies the prayer to Homer's muse, as spoken in the opening verse:

Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter of Zeus,

Start from where you will - sing for out time, too.