The Iliad

Why 'The Odyssey' Is the West’s Greatest Story

Plain English with Derek Thompson, 17 July 2026. The book comes up at 13 min 5 sec in.

Karen Nivali discusses the Iliad as contrast to the Odyssey—a poem saturated with mortality, fate, and justice, in which Achilles embodies near-inhuman violence while also showing surprising introspection. Nivali calls it 'extraordinarily bleak' but magnificent, describing its meditation on what human life is worth. The Iliad is positioned as the poem of brute force (Bia) against the Odyssey's cunning (Metis), and as a precursor work whose audience the Odyssey was shaped to address.

Listen to this episode ↗︎