Odyssey by Homer is a celebrated Ancient Greek epic poem about the king of Ithaca, Odysseus, and his travels home after the Trojan War. It is arguably the greatest work of literature ever – handed down over generations – and is a myth with meaning any modern man can take inspiration from. In CarQuest, the characters Calypso and Penelope represent these same women who appear in Homer’s epic.
The Devils by Fyodor Dostoevsky is a psychological and difficult work that outlines what happens in a society that becomes nihilistic and how the result is often the pursuit of power. Therefore, after religious thought was replaced by materialism in parts of Europe in the 19th century, hedonism and Machiavellianism became common. This was why many thinkers at the time grappled with how to defeat nihilism when religion was losing influence. Nietzsche suggested that man makes up his meaning, while later Jung found out through intensive mapping of the unconscious that the meaning is already there being transmitted through dream symbols. The fundamental problem in The Devils is alive and rampant in civilization today.
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert is a French novel about a woman who idealizes the rich in order to escape the monotony of her rural life. It is an important book because these issues are real for anyone who has experienced urban versus rural living. The mindset of the protagonist is a trap many urbanites have in which they refuse the humility and simplicity of living close to nature. The inverse is also true, which is shown perfectly in the protagonist’s husband who has absolute acceptance of his simple life, but lacks ambition and stagnates. In CarQuest, the question of city and country living is discussed throughout the book, especially in the semi-fictional “Genesis“.
