“He’s back and he’s Fuhrious”
The Third Reich meets W1A in Timur Vermes’ much talked about new novel.
Adolf Hitler finds himself awakening, on the ground in full uniform, in Berlin 2011. Things have changed, and not as Hitler had planned. Mistaken for an extremely near the knuckle, satirical comedy act, he is soon picked up by a production company who think they have found the latest shocking act to fill up the column inches and their pockets. His striking appearance and reluctance to tone down his opinions has the inhabitants of Berlin twitching with offense.
But has his charisma of old remained? Will Berlin fall for him again? Or will this new world teach one of the looming monsters of the past a new thing or two?
Watching Hitler bumble about 2011, discovering 24 hour color TV, the Internet, Starbucks was predictably hilarious, and I couldn’t stop picturing the older Adrian Mole with a side swipe parting and Chaplin moustache, rallying against modernity and the imbeciles he finds surrounding him.
Reading a modern account of such a haunting figure (1930s Nazis are number two on my phobia list) was a bizarre sensation, and friends have expressed to me how books of this nature, that seem to cartoonify evil and turn it into a light-hearted romp, are weird, tasteless and make them feel uncomfortable.
But I disagree. What I find strange is that someone would read (or, more accurately, react to without reading) a book like this on such a surface level. I imagine such a reader (reactor) believes the following has happened:
- That an author has, balls-out, written a book he hopes will result in his readers relating warmly to Hitler and giggling along to his scampy, scally wag, holocausty ways. Taking him to their hearts and campaigning to reinstigate The Third Reich.
- That a publisher has picked this book up and nodded with enthusiasm and relish that its extreme right-wing leanings have finally been satisfied. A book has been written that not only reflects how they, as a company, truly feel about Uncle Adolf, but makes them feel so proud about these feelings that they release the book with a fairly substantial marketing budget.
- That a translator has written it up into English without vomiting all over the place.
- That this book has gone on to be stocked by all the leading booksellers, who only bat an eyelid in order to swoon over the precious, precious Nazi-love held within.
That people could possibly think this has happened is beyond me.
I’m getting ranty, but come on. If this book was a celebration of Hitler or a dismissal of his actions in ANYWAY it would never have seen the light of day in Waterstones, and certainly wouldn’t have gone on to be a bestseller in Germany. In fact, if you want to get antsy about something, ask Waterstones (and other booksellers) why many of their stores not only stock, but FACE OUT, Mein Kampf. THAT is what’s weird.
So, just take a moment before you go all Mary Whitehouse over this.
Turning these figures, obsessed with their own image, into buffoons is what satire is all about and can be a very sharp weapon in reducing them and their ideas. I think art, and comedy, would lose so much if we stopped ourselves from exploring events and people (ourselves included) from all possible angles. This is a book which will make you LIKE Hitler at times, if you want your literature to make you questions things, then this will have you screaming “WTF?!” at yourself. And there is nothing wrong with some focussed self-analysis once in a while.
For this reason Look Who’s Back reminded me of 2012′s Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander, which turned Anne Frank from the sainted poster-girl of oppression to a sulking, miserable old woman hiding in a residential attic in New York. This book made you examine the nature of history and how we relentlessly allow it to haunt us.
I get why these books may make people uneasy, but it’s for that very reason that you should give them a go, I think it’s good to give those knee-jerk reactions a work out from time to time.
I have to admit, there were many moments in this book that I didn’t get. It is one of those books that is based just enough in history and politics to have me sweating over the details, wondering if the only reason I’m not laughing is because I just don’t get the joke. It’s how I feel reading Private Eye sometimes, when I have no idea who they are talking about; I’m sure that comment from Hislop was a zinger, but I don’t know why. I read a lot of Look Who’s Back with the same benign grin on my face going, “I know this is meant to be funny, but I’m not sure what the joke is….hahaha…..ummm.”
(Hey! maybe it was all the right-wing propaganda that went over my head! What a klutz I am!)
The observations about our media-centric world, our self-indulgence and those knee-jerk reactions, were spot on and hilarious. The bits of this book I understood I really enjoyed, and would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a scathing satire and has a working knowledge of German politics and culture past and present.
Book info
- ISBN: 9780857052933
- Maclehose Press, Quercus 3rd April 2014
- Translated by Jamie Bulloch
- Sent proof by publisher, via Netgalley
