Executive Overview
In his latest release, American Odyssey: What An Ancient Story Reveals About Our Divided Souls (Creed & Culture, 198 pages, $26), political theorist Patrick J. Deneen presents a profound and counterintuitive cultural critique. Timed to coincide with both the American semiquincentennial and the broader contemporary cultural reckoning with Homeric epics, Deneen’s volume positions Homer’s Odyssey not merely as a foundational Mediterranean text, but as a mirror for the contemporary American soul.
Deneen traces the tension between the competing American impulses of departure (the questing desire to leave) and return (the aching longing for home) through four pillars of twentieth-century American myth-making: The Wizard of Oz, Huckleberry Finn, Field of Dreams, and It’s a Wonderful Life. By examining these cultural touchstones, Deneen contends that the deep political and sociological chasms of modern America—such as the chasm between "somewheres" and "anywheres"—are not merely horizontal divides between citizens, but vertical fractures running directly through the American heart.
Yet, Deneen’s diagnosis of America’s restless, rootless condition invites a sharp critical debate. While Deneen champions a return to nostos (homecoming), critics and cultural commentators argue that America’s true classical avatar is not the cyclical wanderer of Ithaca, but the forward-marching imperial founder of Virgil’s Aeneid. This review and investigative analysis explore Deneen’s theses, the cinematic mirrors he invokes, the material realities of American housing and suburbia, and the broader debate over whether the United States is fundamentally defined by the politics of homecoming or the destiny of empire.
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Detailed Chronology: Tracing the Odyssean Arc in American Culture
To understand Deneen’s argument, one must follow the structural anatomy of American Odyssey. Each chapter of the book is bifurcated: the first half unpacks a distinct philosophical or theological theme from Homer’s epic, while the second half maps that theme onto a modern American cinematic or literary narrative.
1. The Homeric Foundations: Gods, Beasts, and Political Man
Deneen begins his textual voyage by examining the theological and anthropological landscape of the Odyssey. Reading Homer through an Aristotelian lens, Deneen characterizes the Olympian gods as fundamentally apolitical and oblivious. Lacking a polis (city-state), the gods possess no intrinsic desire for justice. Instead, they mete out retribution only transactionally—keeping the sacrificial smoke rising from mortal altars. In Deneen’s estimation, the gods operate much closer to beasts than to rational humans, a reality echoed when mortals descend into the domain of monsters like Scylla, Charybdis, the Cyclopes, and Circe.
By contrast, man is finite, deeply conscious of consequences, and unalterably a political animal. Cut off from his city and family, man is reduced to mere flotsam on the wine-dark sea. Only by returning to his polis—rejoining his family and assuming the responsibilities of citizenship—can man properly secure his humanity.
2. The Yellow Brick Road: The Wizard of Oz
Deneen applies this framework to The Wizard of Oz, arguing that Dorothy’s odyssey provides a mythic revelation of the American interior. Dorothy’s desire to escape drab, dry Kansas sets her on a perilous voyage through fabulous and dangerous lands, yet her journey is ultimately circular and homeward-bound. Her hard-won wisdom distills into her iconic invocation: "There’s no place like home."
Deneen reads this as the foundational American migration myth, linking Dorothy’s opening anthem, "Over the Rainbow," to the psychological impulses of the nation’s early forebears.
3. The Elysian Diamond: Field of Dreams
Moving to the 1989 baseball fantasy Field of Dreams, Deneen pivots from Dorothy’s childhood wonder to the moral renunciation embodied by Dr. Graham. Offered a posthumous second chance at youthful baseball stardom in a magical ballpark, Graham ultimately steps back through the threshold to save a choking child and return to his mortal wife. Deneen compares Graham’s self-effacement to Odysseus leaving the immortal nymph Calypso to return to aging Penelope.
4. Bedford Falls and the Suburban Frontier: It’s a Wonderful Life
The capstone of Deneen’s argument rests on Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. George Bailey is cast as the ultimate Odyssean figure who never physically left his hometown. However, Deneen introduces a sharp critique of Bailey’s legacy: rather than merely renouncing worldly ambition, Bailey sublimates it into the archetypal American suburban development known as "Bailey Park." Deneen laments the physical architecture of this new subdivision—devoid of sidewalks, historic front porches, and civic density—as a symptom of a nation choosing private isolation over interconnected community life.
Supporting Context & Metrics: The Material Reality of the American Home
Deneen’s lament over the decline of traditional, high-density civic architecture—and his broader concern regarding the plummeting rate of American homeownership as a sign of "civilizational homelessness"—collides directly with hard material economics.
The Housing Affordability Crisis
Critics of the anti-suburban romanticism often point out a glaring contradiction: the historic, walkable urban cores favored by cultural critics have become prohibitively expensive due to stringent zoning laws, historical preservation red tape, and modern building codes.
- The Cost of "Nostalgia": Constructing traditional New Urbanist developments featuring narrow gridded streets, natural materials, and authentic historic windows often takes up to seven years in planning and regulatory approvals alone. Furthermore, regulatory mandates and supply chain constraints can drive the cost of traditional building materials up to four times higher than standard tract-housing supplies.
- The Economic Function of Suburbia: Far from being sterile landscapes devoid of community, suburban developments like Bailey Park historically served—and continue to serve—as the foundational ladder of upward economic mobility for the working class. Homes initially built as modest, affordable alternatives to predatory urban landlords (such as the fictional Mr. Potter) have matured into multi-million-dollar assets that anchor middle-class generational wealth.
- Homeownership Metrics: The decline in national homeownership rates is driven less by a spiritual abandonment of the concept of nostos and more by systemic supply shortages and structural inflation in the housing sector. People require a secure material roof over their heads before they can successfully execute a spiritual or communal restoration.
Official Statements and Scholarly Perspectives
The publication of American Odyssey has ignited robust discourse among cultural historians, political scientists, and literary critics regarding the true mythos of the American experiment.
- Patrick J. Deneen’s Thesis on National Soul: In media and academic discussions surrounding his work, Deneen has maintained that America’s hyper-mobile ethos has blinded its populace to the vital importance of limits, local attachments, and stewardship. For Deneen, the eternal flight from place to place represents a tragic evasion of moral responsibility toward one’s immediate community.
- The Counter-Argument—The Aeneian Imperative: Critics, such as those writing from classical and Southern perspectives, argue that applying the Odyssey to America fundamentally misunderstands the nation’s historical trajectory. While Odysseus fought tenaciously to return to a small, insular island kingdom, Aeneas of Virgil’s Aeneid was tasked with a very different mandate: carrying his household gods forward across the sea to found an empire without end (imperium sine fine).
As one literary critic noted:
"America is never going back. We are the world’s great imperial power… Under these conditions, a politics of Odyssean homecoming seems rather fraught with difficulties. Imperial America must look elsewhere for a proper epic myth, and turn from the Aegean to the Latin West."
Future Outlook: Ithaca or Rome?
As the United States navigates its semiquincentennial era amid rapid technological shifts, cultural polarization, and economic uncertainty, the debate sparked by American Odyssey points toward two distinct future pathways for national self-understanding:
- The Odyssean/Retrenchment Model: Proponents of this view, aligned with Deneen’s postliberal critiques, argue that the nation must intentionally scale back its global commitments, rebuild local economies, foster civic density, and rediscover the virtues of the local community and the traditional home. This path prioritizes spiritual and cultural rootedness over geopolitical expansion.
- The Aeneian/Imperial Model: Conversely, realists and classical traditionalists argue that America is structurally and historically a cosmopolitan, multiethnic empire. Rather than pining for an impossible return to an agrarian past, this outlook suggests that the nation must embrace its role as a global hegemon, managing its immense power with institutional wisdom, legal integrity, and a mature recognition of its historical responsibilities.
Whether contemporary Americans ultimately see themselves as wanderers striving to return to Ithaca or as pioneers building an eternal city across the Italian shore, the human condition remains unchanged. As long as citizens remain caught between the desire to leave and the longing for home, the ancient epics will continue to serve as essential maps for navigating the divided modern soul.
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