Q - Luther Blissett

...“Q”. It is clear that Q is involved in these rebellious movements as a participant and this is what provides the element of mystery to the novel.

After many years our “hero” and Q, whose existence he has only gradually understood, are finally drawn to meet for an inevitable showdown.

It is a well-written if somewhat dense novel. Not really enough of a thriller for me to merit the attention of ...
...novel in which the mystery of “Q” is intercalated.

Whilst generally readable its length may be forbidding to some and the sheer
number of characters involved sometimes makes it hard to identify who is for what – the occasionally nuanced nature of the beliefs involved reinforces this problem. The closest thing to a hero is the main character but it is clear that even he is disillusioned by how quickly idealists ... more

Luther Blissett was a legendary centre-forward at Watford in the 1980’s when the team reached the old Frist Divison for the first time and the FA Cup Final (they lost and chairman Elton John cried). He then moved to AC Milan, traditionally one of the best teams in Europe, where his star waned and he was dubbed Luther Missit. That Luther Blissett has got nothing to do with
this review. In fact the author is a tetrarchy of unbknown Italians residing in Bologna who have chosen this odd pseudonym.

Being based in Bologna the authors are almost certainly academics (the university is the oldest in Europe) and obviously tip their collective hats
at Umberto Eco with this literary historical thriller.

The first thing to say about “Q” is that if you are really absolutely uninterested in religion, this is not the book for you. The plot deals at length with the various splits from Roman Catholicism which took place after Martin Luther’s challenge to Rome. What was originally a challenge to
corruption within the established church led, through political machinations, to the establishment of a new church. Those radicals who had really expected wholesale changes were soon disappointed with the setting up of a new oppressive authority and branched out into different sects.

Baptists, Anabaptists, Calvinists, Lutherans and Catholics were therefore embroiled in a series of disputes, massacres and skirmishes which left the German territories in turmoil which was not really solved until after the Thirty Years war of the 17th century.

The events of this novel take place during the late 15th and early sixteenth
century. The main character a Protestant Anabaptist who is forced to change his name regularly, is introduced as a young
student in Wittenberg, Luther’s haunt, and through his life we learn of the
development of the religious and political struggle through the years. He is involved with Magister Thomas Munzer at the field of Frankenburg where peasants with sickles are mowed down by cannon, then with other brethren at Augsburg then with Matthys and Jan of Leyden at Munster (the Munster experience is one of he worst with the nonconformists winning but ending up in thrall to a self-proclaimed murderous king using children as his spies), then with other Anabaptists in Amsterdam. Defeat after defeat embitters him yet somehow he still carries on although his own religious ideas are never really explored in depth.

The religious and political strife also includes the attempts of the aristocracy and their allies (usually the church) to keep the feudal system
in place whilst elements of the newly-created mercantile class ally themselves with the poor and dispossessed to try and create a fairer market-based society.

Throughout the novel there is a spy working for a senior cardinal at the Vatican – the eponymous “Q”. It is clear that Q is involved in these rebellious movements as a participant and this is what provides the element of mystery to the novel.

After many years our “hero” and Q, whose existence he has only gradually understood, are finally drawn to meet for an inevitable showdown.

It is a well-written if somewhat dense novel. Not really enough of a thriller for me to merit the attention of people who just enjoy thrillers. It is largely a historical novel in which the mystery of “Q” is intercalated.

Whilst generally readable its length may be forbidding to some and the sheer
number of characters involved sometimes makes it hard to identify who is for what – the occasionally nuanced nature of the beliefs involved reinforces this problem. The closest thing to a hero is the main character but it is clear that even he is disillusioned by how quickly idealists can change into oppressors when once they establish themselves in power – even if they just control a village.

“Blissett” does succeed in presenting a sordid, dirty picture of senseless
brutality; an age in which eternal life is everything yet life itself has no value. An age of change as well, the invention of the printing-press was instrumental in disseminating the new ideas.

The authors' appear to be on theanarchist fringe – at least the novel seems to suggest that it is power which corrupts and that zealots are perhaps the most corruptible of people.

I cannot recommend it ahead of Eco’s masterpiece “The Name of The Rose” but
readers who have enjoyed Eco’s other novels will not find much to object with this one.

Available from most bookshops and published by Arrow Books with a recommended price of £7.99
 

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