Flux Reviews: Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes
1:26 am
Title: Look Who's Back
Author: Timur Vernes
Publication Date: March 10, 2014
Publisher: MacLehose Press
Format: Paperback
Price: ₱899 (Philippines) - $11.72 (Amazon)
Plot Synopsis:
HE'S BACK
Berlin, summer 2011. Adolf hitler wakes up on a patch of open ground, alive and well. Things have changed--no Eva Braun, no Nazi party, no war. Hitler's barely recognizes his beloved Fatherland, filled with immigrants and run by a woman.
HE'S FÜHRIOUS
People certainly recognize him, albeit as a flawed impersonator who refuses to break character. The unthinkable, the inevitable happens, the ranting Hitler goes viral, becoming a YouTube star, gets his own T.V. show, and people begin to listen. But the Führer has another programme with even greater ambition--to set the country he finds in shambles back to rights.
LOOK WHO'S BACK
stunned and then thrilled 1.5 million German readers with its fearless approach to the most taboo of subjects. Naive yet insightful, repellent yet sympathetic, the revived hitler unquestionably has a spring in his step.
The Review
So the most hated and infamous characters in history wakes up in the middle of Berlin, completely healthy and fine, not a day older, whether the Illuminati aliens put him there, some kind of Back to the Future-esque shit or something, the point is: the Führer is loose in the 21st century. He's Seig Heil-ing advertising fascism around kids' playground and Starbucks as if it's 1945. Yeaaaaaah this is gonna be good.
It's like that movie, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home where Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock has to go back in time to 21st Century San Francisco and they don't know how money works and how and why people move and act the way they do, basically they're almost completely clueless about that time period's culture. It's kinda like this, except with your favorite German dictator.
Or like your grandpa who's just been introduced to the iPad, or him going to Japan for the first time, really.
The novel opens up with Adolf Hitler waking up in 2011 Berlin, he's completely weirded out by almost everything he sees, he has no passport, no ID, he really doesn't know anything about 21st century culture and it's many alienating points, like that first time you had an iPhone or just a phone in general, or having a pair of Google glass when in comparison, you had this heavy-ass, literally brick-shaped "mobile phone" that had a backpack-mounted battery, all of which weighed about 10 pounds.
I can now totally see him doing this after a few years |
And weirdly enough, there are some parts in this book where you can't help but sympathize with him, having no family, being alone on Christmas and him thinking it's all right, that's some weird feels man.
Halfway in you'll be asking yourself "Is Hitler really a bad guy as a person?" and But the real questions in our minds are: "Will he get arrested/executed? How will the rest of the world react to his presence? How the hell did he get to 2011?", "How will he react to 'swag'?" and most importantly: "Is he still alive today and walking about?"
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Featuring some pretty cool and tasteful mix of Mein Kampf, Terry Pratchett-esque dry humor (meaning it isn't like obvious gags and American jokes), and some parts of a YA novel, a somewhat controversial book since this does deal with Adolf Hitler, and practically anything to do with him is taboo. This was a pretty good read (this is also a satire on modern media and Germany's current status :) ) and I suggest you guys read it :)
"What kinds of truths were being hidden? Were there lying turnips? Were there lying leeks?”
“It came as no surprise to learn of the success the Swede has recently enjoyed with his furniture. In that rotten state of his the Swede is permanently on the lookout for firewood, so it is no wonder that from time to time this might result in the odd table or chair.”
My Rating:
4 1/2 out of 5 Fallen stars
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