Look Who’s Back by Timur Vermes
This might seem a slightly odd book with which to start off German Literature Month; however, it’s German, it’s literature and it tackles the state of modern Germany in a particularly distinctive way…
The story begins with the narrator waking up on a piece of waste ground in Berlin in 2011. He is unsure how he got there, as the last thing he can remember is being in his bunker with Eva in 1945. This is, of course, Adolf Hitler and so this is a tale where you’re going to have to suspend disbelief from the word go. Mind you, the cover of the book does remind you that it’s a “Merciless Satire” – and that’s certainly the case.
Hitler manages to come to terms with modern life surprisingly quickly. The lads playing football on the waste ground obviously recognise him (let’s face it, Hitler is possibly the most recognisable person in history!) but take for a very impressive impersonator – as does everyone he comes across. He finds unlikely rescue from a news kiosk owner, who’s never named, but who has contacts in the media and brings Adolf into contact with a company who think he’s a comedy act. As Hitler continues to play it straight (i.e. be exactly himself, never stepping out of character – well, he wouldn’t would he, he’s Hitler!) his TV and YouTube appearances take off, he becomes a media star and plans the rebirth of his political party. Scary elements creep in – he finds loyal accomplices in the form of the faithful Sawatzki and his secretary Eva Kormeier (who still think he’s the best impersonator in the world) and the rubbish he spouts seems to find a resonance in modern Germany. Despite hiccups and misunderstandings, we leave Germany once more in the thrall of the Führer with a slightly worrying (prognosis) for the future…
This is initially a very hard book to deal with on a number of levels; because despite all you know about the man and the vile horrors that took place under his regime, you actually find yourself sympathising with the Hitler figure as he tries to deal with the banalities of modern media types and the brain-numbing qualities of daytime television; until you realise that he’s just a tool in the author’s hands and the satire is actually aimed at the state of modern Germany.
The stupidities of modern life are thrown into sharp relief when set against Adolf’s vision of a German race of good, clean, hardworking people with normal values and a happy life – however unrealistic or idealised that vision may be. We can all identify with his reaction when he switches on the TV and learns how to use a remote control:
“So this was a modern day television set. It was black, with no switches or knobs, nothing. Holding the box in my left hand I pressed button number one, and the apparatus started up. The result was disappointing. The picture was of a chef, finely chopping vegetables. Unbelievable! Having developed such an advanced piece of technology, all they could feature on it was a ridiculous cook!”
But as Hitler goes up and down the channels he comes across more cooking, Jeremy Kyle-style programmes and old films. Through his eyes, using shock tactics, our world looks very trivial indeed.
Disturbingly, the book is also very funny. The Führer and his colleagues are constantly misunderstanding each other, as he says what he means and takes what they say at face value. The media types think he’s method acting, staying in character at all times, whereas he is just being himself. Only we, the readers, can see how they are completely at cross purposes, but each thinking they completely understand each other.
It is only when the past comes back to haunt Hitler in the form of the family of his faithful secretary that things take a more serious turn. Fräulein Kromeier turns out to have Jewish heritage, with great grandparents who were sent to the gas chambers, and this leads Adolf to what I think is one of Vermes’ main points with this book:
“These days people like to assert that an entire Volk was duped by a handful of staunch National Socialists, unfaltering to the very end… In 1933 the Volk was not overwhelmed by a massive propaganda campaign. A Führer was elected in a manner which must be regarded as democratic, even in today’s understanding of the word. A Führer was elected who had laid bare his plans with irrefutable clarity. The Germans elected him. Yes, including the Jews… Either there was a whole Volk full of bastards. Or what happened was not the act of bastards, but the will of the Volk.”
What’s chilling to realise is that Hitler actually *had* to be as plausible as he is portrayed here, or else how could he have taken in a whole nation? It’s simply laziness that leads us to simply see Hitler as a monster and not a human being, albeit a warped one. And Vermes obviously thinks his homeland is still ripe for exploitation as this book is nothing more than a warning that we’ve created a modern society full of idiocy in which another Hitlerian regime is entirely possible. As the book ends with Adolf recuperating after an attack and planning his next move, we realise that Vermes has portrayed a world (and specifically a contemporary Germany) where the mistakes of the past *could* be repeated because we really haven’t learned from them.
I can understand why “Look Who’s Back” caused a storm on its publication. Not only does it confront a country with its past, forcing it to accept that it was not just one man who caused all those atrocities; it also shows that modern Germany (like many other Western countries) is in a state where a figure such as Hitler could easily come to power again – in fact, someone like Nigel Farage springs to mind with his startlingly right-wing views and inexplicable popularity. This audacious book confronts the reader with some very unpalatable truths about human nature, about how easily biddable the masses are, and makes us realise how we really need to take responsibility for what is going on in the world around us.
This was a really compelling book – thought-provoking, disturbing yet surprisingly enjoyable and readable. It left me feeling admiring of Vermes’ talent as a writer, uneasy about the fact that I felt any sympathy with Hitler and his reaction to the 21st century and worried about the way our world is heading…
*****
Interestingly, after writing this review I went to search for a picture of Vermes online and came across a fascinating piece on the book from The Guardian. A couple of pertinent quotes from the author and German media:
“The fact is we have too much of a stereotype of Hitler,” he told German media. “He’s always the monster and we can be comforted by the fact that we’re different from him. But in reality he continues to spark real fascination in people, just as he did back then when people liked him enough to help him commit crimes.”
“I want to show that Hitler would have a chance to succeed nowadays just as he did back then, just in another way,” said Vermes.
But it has triggered a mixed response by critics. “We laugh but it’s a laugh that sticks in the throat,” wrote Die Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Germany, it adds, “has a Hitler fixation which has taken on almost manic proportions. Hitler poses in reliable frequency on magazine covers, wanders like a ghost … through the TV channels … Vermes satirises this ‘Hitleritis’, but his novel draws on it as well and even lends it a new dimension, that of not laughing about Hitler, but with Hitler.”
You can read the rest of the article here.
Violet
Nov 02, 2014 @ 08:22:18
I want to read this. I wasn’t sure it was worth buying, but you’ve convinced me. Recently, I read Howard Jacobson’s ‘J’, which deals with the similar idea that another pogrom could happen in Europe. History does seem to have a way of repeatingitself, mostly due to people’s apathy and self-interest. This book sounds as though it tackles that issue, which really does need to be talked about.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Nov 02, 2014 @ 10:02:34
It’s a book that still leaves me with ambivalent feelings but it’s so clever and very to the point about how we’re still being hoodwinked by dodgy leaders.
Col
Nov 02, 2014 @ 08:52:17
I read a reference to this book the other day. Years ago I read Robert Harris Fatherland which I really enjoyed and I’d wondered if this was similar – but it’s clearly a very different premise – I like the sound of it and yet there’s something a little discomfiting about it too! However I think I will look out for this and give it a go.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Nov 02, 2014 @ 10:03:49
It’s very unsettling – particularly when you find yourself seeing the modern world through Hitler’s eyes and agreeing with the way he sees it. A very unusual read…
lizzysiddal
Nov 02, 2014 @ 08:59:51
Brilliant review, Kaggsy. I’ve been dithering about whether I should read this for all the uncomfortable reasons you mention. It’s more likely that I will now.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Nov 02, 2014 @ 10:05:02
Yes. it *is* uncomfortable, but I think that’s its intention. I still think the modern world hasn’t really dealt with what happened in WW2 – it took a lot more people than just one man to perpetrate the horrors and this book throws up some disquieting questions about human nature.
heavenali
Nov 02, 2014 @ 09:46:48
Brilliant review Karen. What an unusual sounding novel, it sounds very clever and I can understand why it caused controversy. It certainly seems that it shines an uncomfortable light on human beings ability to beguiled by certain types of politics -which to me does seem very timely.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Nov 02, 2014 @ 10:06:08
It *is* timely, isn’t it, especially when you think of certain parties in our country at the moment. And it makes you think about what the human species is capable of. Definitely worth reading!
hastanton
Nov 02, 2014 @ 10:17:10
Thanks for this review….have heard and read a lot about this book already but nothing had convinced me it was worth reading. Def going on my list now.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Nov 02, 2014 @ 10:29:22
I had my doubts too, so I didn’t rush out and buy it, just reserved it from the library. But I *definitely* think it has a lot of good points to make and it’s a surprisingly easy and enjoyable read…
winstonsdad
Nov 02, 2014 @ 11:48:53
Stunning book and translation Jamie did such a good job in getting hitler to sound like we imagine he would scary to see the world in his eyes but also a warning how easy it is to lapse back to his views
kaggsysbookishramblings
Nov 02, 2014 @ 13:43:38
Yes, I agree – very stunning and so cleverly done!
jacquiwine
Nov 02, 2014 @ 12:17:04
Great review. It’s so horrifying to think that something akin to the Hitler ideology could bubble up again. As a society, I wonder if we ever learn from the mistakes and atrocities of the past…reading All Quiet on the Western Front really brought this home to me.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Nov 02, 2014 @ 13:44:03
I don’t think we do learn – that’s the scary thing and why this book is so plausible.
Fleur in her World
Nov 02, 2014 @ 14:19:36
Interesting. Another of those books that I don’t think I’d want to read, but I’m glad that it’s out there and that people are reading and talking about it.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Nov 02, 2014 @ 14:59:26
It’s probably not your sort of thing Jane – I wasn’t sure if it would be mine! – but I’m glad I read it.
DebraB
Nov 02, 2014 @ 14:27:48
Sounds like an interesting book. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I look forward to reading more of your posts on German literature. I am embarrassed by how little I know of German literature (despite my German heritage.)
kaggsysbookishramblings
Nov 02, 2014 @ 14:59:49
Well, I’m no expert but I hope to read more German lit this month! 🙂
Liz Dexter
Nov 02, 2014 @ 18:25:28
Fascinating: feels like the kind of thing I would find interesting but troubling …
kaggsysbookishramblings
Nov 02, 2014 @ 18:42:10
It *is* troubling – it couldn’t be anything else and it makes you almost feel guiltiy for reading it. But very, very good!
Liz Dexter
Nov 03, 2014 @ 08:50:28
Husband and I are considering reading it together. But I bet I’d feel uncomfortable reading it in public – one for home consumption only!
kaggsysbookishramblings
Nov 03, 2014 @ 09:32:27
Yes – I flicked through the first pages in a coffee shop and felt a little self-concious!
emmasrandomthoughts
Nov 02, 2014 @ 21:08:38
Wow, I hadn’t even heard about this book before. Sounds uncomfortable, and yet I may have to add it to my list.
I guess Vergangenheitsbewältigung continues to be a force in German literature even today.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Nov 02, 2014 @ 21:30:59
It certainly seems to be – the fact that the book caused such a furore must indicate they’re still coming to terms with the past! It’s an unsettling but unputdownable read.
Mytwostotinki
Nov 03, 2014 @ 11:51:43
Very interesting review that really makes me want to read the book.
By the way, I have a problem with one of the quotations:
“A Führer was elected in a manner which must be regarded as democratic, even in today’s understanding of the word.”
Sorry, but that’s not exactly the truth. Hitler, who would in a functioning democratic state not even be eligible for office (he was an Austrian citizen that never acquired German citizenship in a legal way), was never elected by a democractic parliament. He was appointed Reichskanzler by a senile President that governed Germany with “emergency laws” as a quasi-dictator and sockpuppet of some industrialists without parliament. In Prussia, the biggest German state, the Nazis took power not by elections but by a coup d’etat, and soon after Hitler was chancellor, all other political parties were banned and the constitution abolished. In the last free elections the Nazis got roughly only one third of the vote and even in the massively manipulated elections in March 1933, when many opposition leaders and supporters were already murdered, imprisoned or in one of the new concentration camps and the electorate massively exposed to intimidation and manipulation, Hitler got not the majority of the votes. Sure, Hitler was popular with a big part of the population, but to say that he was elected in a democratic way is simply ridiculous and contrary to the historical truth. That’s in no way an excuse for what happened, and surely the Nazis gained some support later from people who were at the beginning sceptical about the man and his movement, just because the unemployment went down considerably – and that they turned a blind eye on all the awful things the Nazis did is simply terrible. But things are indeed much more complicated as the very populist and historically wrong quotation seems to insinuate. I think any “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” needs to be honest and to not bend the facts.
My apologies when I got carried away a bit…
kaggsysbookishramblings
Nov 03, 2014 @ 14:25:47
That’s ok! I’m no expert on German history and I’m glad to hear your thoughts – very interesting! I think the main point is that humans were too easily led and too gullible – and still are…. 🙂
Caroline
Nov 03, 2014 @ 15:50:37
I’m not sure. I very much liked your review but i don’t think I want to see Hitler as an “ordinary” human being. That’s too much liberal thinking for me. I’m also not interested in a serial killers unhappy childhood. All the other points – that it could happen again – are interesting. Although I’m not sure it could. Germany at the time was very special and there was a lot that prepared it for a man like Hitler. But it would go too far to go into this here. It’s certainly true that Anti-Semitism has come back and I find it very worrying.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Nov 03, 2014 @ 15:57:27
I can understand your reservations, but Hitler is certainly not portrayed as an ordinary human here – far from it. However, I think the satire is very much aimed at the modern world and all the brain-numbing occupations that humanity engages in, so that it would be easy for extreme views to slip back into the world – which it certainly seems as if they are doing in the UK.
Caroline
Nov 03, 2014 @ 15:59:34
I get you. I might have misunderstood. There’s a vein of thinking that finds even the most appalling behaviour understandable. I think they forget that humans always have a choice. I was afraid one part of the book went into that direction.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Nov 03, 2014 @ 16:11:50
No, I don’t think it accepts that kind of behaviour at all. I think where this book is audacious is the way that it portrays a modern society able to accept a Hitler figure. And I did wonder if it would skirt round the nasty facts but it didn’t; acknowledging that it takes more than one person to perpetrate these events. It’s certainly thought provoking.
MarinaSofia
Nov 04, 2014 @ 12:36:37
I thought this was a very clever, funny and disturbing book – a necessary one both for German readers and for those abroad. Precisely because it is too easy to see things in black and white, in terms of absolute evil or monsters. Well done for writing a very balanced and thoughtful review.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Nov 04, 2014 @ 13:16:41
Thank you! Yes, I think you’ve hit an important theme here – if we just say that people like Hitler are monsters and the exception, we ignore the fact that he didn’t act alone and that there is the potential for evil in many humans. It’s something we need to be vigilant about.
Reads of the Year (possibly!) | Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings
Dec 30, 2014 @ 08:21:43
German Literature on the 2016 International Dublin Literary Awardf | Lizzy's Literary Life
Nov 11, 2015 @ 19:53:16