Number 23 - Look Who's Back - Timur Vermes

 

Again, a brand new writer for me. I picked this book entirely because of that cover.

Fish out of water stories are ten a penny. Take a character from one environment, put them somewhere they wouldn't normally be and sit back and watch. Time travel variants aren't particularly new - Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court being a perfect example from over 100 years ago.

This has to be the single most audacious take on the theme that I've ever seen. As you may have worked out from that cover, the fish out of water in this book is none other than the Fuhrer himself, Adolf Hitler.

He wakes up in 2010 in Berlin for no reason that is ever explained (not that a reason is needed, this is one of those 'just go with it' stories) and has to learn to navigate Germany and general existence in the age of the internetworks...

Everyone assumes he is an extremely dedicated impersonator who never breaks character. He manages land a guest spot on a satirical TV show, giving his opinions on modern life as he sees it.

As satires go, this is next level stuff. If you'd ever told me that a book written in first person from the point of view of Hitler would be this funny, I wouldn't have believed you. It's true that the laughs become more and more uncomfortable as the book goes on, but it's still laugh out loud funny even the times when you wonder exactly why this is funny. It's pretty disturbing towards the end too, despite the basic impossibility, the story feels horribly plausible.

Throughout the book we see conversations taken entirely the wrong way by both parties. These range from hysterically funny to an internal pleading that someone will recognise the fact that he's not joking (sometimes both at the same time). It's very cleverly written indeed. 

I'm sure I missed a few political sideswipes since I'm not an expert on 2010 German politics, but there's more than enough here to entertain, provoke and disturb regardless. It is jaw-droppingly good - in a literal sense.  My jaw genuinely dropped several times in the course of reading this.

I started by saying this was audacious and that's still the best single word I can think of to describe this book. I highly recommend this to anyone who likes potentially challenging fiction. I loved it unreservedly.