Garak asserts to Bashir that the Repetitive Epic is the finest form of Cardassian literature. I was wondering, is there any real-life literature that could be considered a “repetitive epic” in the same vein as “The Neverending Sacrifice?”
I think you might be able to draw a parallel with long-running serials like comic books, or even Star Trek itself. They tend to revisit old themes and revolve around a certain status quo.
They tend not to involve multigenerational obedience to an authoritarian regime, though…
Isn’t there a version of Superman where he lands in Siberia instead of Saskatchewan and ends up a good Soviet citizen?
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. It tells the story of a man who lives his life over and over again. Very interesting story and while not exactly like Garak’s repetitive epic its definitely in the same vein.
I feel like repetitive epic is like a Cardassian version of the dubious literary idea of The Hero’s Journey, adapted for the Cardassian heroic ideal of selfless sacrifice to the state. I think Garak would appreciate the “Rememberence of Earth’s Past” series (Three Body Problem) for the way that individual heroics take a backseat to the glory and survival of the state.
The closest I can think of–at least as far as multi-generation epics–would be Wilbur Smith novels.
I don’t know what the most similar novel to The Neverending Sacrifice might be, but I think the exact opposite is probably the 1970s novels satirizing the British Raj called The Flashman Papers. They are incredibly funny, highly offensive, beautiful assaults on the landed gentry, set during one of the most incompetent, badly failed military expeditions to Afghanistan in the history of badly failed military expeditions to Afghanistan–the British one.
No, not the American one with British help–the actual British one, from way back in the seventeenth century.
