Daniel Mendelsohn’s An Odyssey, an account of how he and his father bonded over Homer, won the American critic and memoirist both admirers and prizes. In his latest collection of essays, The Bad Boy of Athens, he persuasively shows how traces of the Greek classics can be found in the most unlikely places. The AI robot of the film Ex Machina I is prefigured in The Iliad, Cersei in Game of Thrones has more than a passing resemblance to Clytemnestra, the Titanic disaster is a parable about hubris, and so on. Mendelsohn makes his links with ingenuity, erudition and wit.
William Collins, 368pp, £20
Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month
Content from our partners
