Thursday 27 March 2014

SATIRE REVIEW: Look Who's Back - Timur Vermes

Release Date: 27/03/14
Publisher:  MacLehose

SYNOPSIS:

Summer 2011. Berlin. Adolf Hitler wakes up on a patch of ground, alive and well. Things have changed - no Eva Braun, no Nazi party, no war. Hitler barely recognises his beloved Fatherland, filled with immigrants and run by a woman. People certainly recognise him, though - as a brilliant, satirical impersonator who refuses to break character. The unthinkable, the inevitable, happens, and the ranting Hitler takes off, goes viral, becomes a YouTube star, gets his own TV show, becomes someone who people listen to. All while he's still trying to convince people that yes, it really is him, and yes, he really means it. Look Who's Back is a black and brilliant satire of modern media-bloated society, seen through the eyes of the Fuhrer himself. Adolf is by turns repellent, sympathetic and hilarious, but always fascinating. Look Who's Back is outrageously clever, outrageously funny - and outrageously plausible.


REVIEW:

I originally heard about this book from a publisher and whilst I was a little wary in regard to the subject matter, I thought that it would be more than interesting to see what could occur in an alternate history timeline especially with the modern advances in technology.

What this book is, and the reader has to remember, is that it’s a satire, which whilst it may not always come across as such with the translation, is something that can and will at times scare the reader as they can see how things that we take as every day now can be turned to further a cause as well as a get a message across.

The Hitler within the pages is a person that the reader will find fascinating, the way he has to adapt to our world, the way he see’s modern problems and the way in which a mind can twist words to play not only to the reader but also to the other cast members within. All round, it’s a book that is quite easy to read multiple pages of, has what feels like a firm hand on the modern world and all round gives the reader something to not only think about but to question which overall is perhaps the main point of a satire.



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