I guess that's one thing you and Emily Wilson agree on, then.





From what I've read elsewhere in the meantime, the 'debunking' comment is referring to the idea that there was a unified, coordinated invasion by a specific group or alliance of groups which caused the downfall/temporary decline of Egypt, Mycene and other leading civilizations, whereas now the consensus would be more that there were various different invasions and groups of raiders, in addition to other non-military factors. Even if that's the case (not quite sure from your reply above if you'd agree with that assessment), 'debunking' indeed seems like a stretch - particularly in the context of the movie, where the references to the Sea Peoples work just as well or even better if it's multiple different aggressors.

I found the Coat of Varnish one very interesting - according to that review, Wilson's work does have literary merit and the ideological bias isn't all that strong, but the real weakness is how much she oversimplifies and loses nuance. As he puts it, it's a good or even remarkably good translation for certain purposes/audiences ('For young readers, and the casual “Book of the Month Club” type consumer of print, Wilson’s may be the finest Odyssey ever produced.', but a bad one for deeper analysis or academic purposes.

If I just take Kuhner at his word on that, the problem isn't so much Wilson's translation project as such (excepting perhaps a few particular choices here and there), as the way it's been promoted as a brilliant new translation and the first in English by a woman and all that, without any such warnings about target audiences or about how its strength in certain regards (like the meter/rhythm) comes at a cost in terms of depth and complexity.

Robertson's article spends some time objecting to the premise of a translation that makes deliberate choices instead of reflecting the translator's worldview more indirectly - he focuses on ideological/bias choices, but according to Kuhner's take, Wilson's choices about meter and language register make a much bigger difference than the ideological ones. I think there should be room for such projects and they can be great if done right (a bit like how many stage, opera and movie directors show us e.g. Shakespeare or Wagner in modern settings or with modernized language - and Shakespeare and his contemporaries did just the same when depicting stories from Antiquity), but I do agree that those choices need to be clear and the people reading/watching such versions need to be aware that they're not the most straightforward translations.