Review: Look Who's Back - Timur Vermes (translated by Jamie Bulloch)

‘If Adolf Hitler flew in today, They’d send a limousine anyway’ The Clash, White Man in Hammersmith Palais

Timur Vermes’ debut novel is high concept, in the sense that its premise can be explained in one sentence: ‘Adolf Hitler miraculously wakes up in the present day, and becomes an internet celebrity’. Coming to life in the wasteland above the Fuhrerbunker, he staggers to the street, where he is taken in by a newspaper vendor who allows him to sleep overnight in the kiosk. From here, he is introduced to a couple of TV executives, who take him for a marvellously talented impersonator, and give him a slot on a satirical programme. From here, he becomes a breakout star, his relentless obsession with the Volk glossed over as a dedication to method acting. 

The idea that comedy could be used as a trojan horse for right-wing extremism isn’t especially new; Michel Houellebecq’s novel The Possibility of an Island (2005) features a stand-up who advocates a form of ‘right wing anarchy’ through routines which carry titles like ‘Munch on my Gaza Strip (My Huge Jewish Settler)’, and the recent furore over anti-semitic statements by the French performer Dieudonne shows the ability of popular personalities to influence the news agenda and play politics. So while the premise of Look Who’s Back is fantastical, it message isn’t entirely unrealistic. 

 

As a high concept novel, Vermes never enquires into the circumstances of Hitler’s reawakening – this is satire, after all, not sci-fi. Hitler, in his narrative, simply puts it down to ‘a miracle of sorts’. He is ‘Destiny’s trump card’, appearing at Germany’s time of need. In this sense of manifest destiny, Look Who’s Back does share a certain similarity with the modern celebrity autobiography. The decision to present the novel as a first person narrative causes a problem of tone, however. If Look Who’s Back had been written in the same voice as Mein Kampf, clearly no-one would have read it. On the other hand, Vermes can’t portray Hitler without the hatred. Therefore, we are left with a disjointed novel where pages of relatively gentle ‘fish out of water’ comedy about an old man getting to grips with ‘the internetwork’ suddenly lurches into a couple of paragraphs of virulent anti-semitism, before dropping back into a routine about how men’s razors have too many blades on them these days. 

Obviously satirists have the right to shock, provoke and to express outrageous opinions, but the problem isn’t that the voice Vermes has adopted for his protagonist is controversial, it’s more that it isn’t coherent enough. Early on, there are some good comic observations about the euro (‘regarded, as one would expect, with a high level of mistrust’) and our reliance on fossil fuels (‘the way in which synthetic materials were used here… suggested that crude oil was no longer a problem’), but these could have come from any German who had died before about 1960 – Rosa Luxemburg, say, or Bertolt Brecht. The fact that this Hitler spends time ranting about such clichéd topics as estate agents casts doubt on his more authentic political views. Furthermore, his colleagues seem to accept that he is ‘always in character’ a little too readily. Even the most jaded media observer would struggle to imagine rooms of producers and executives really sitting through meetings as Hitler rants about ‘Untermenschen’ and ‘the efficient deployment of foreign workers’, much less greeting him with a Fascist salute. Likewise, his apparent inability to understand basic aspects of modern life would probably be more of an issue. Bravely, Vermes never allows us to doubt that his narrator is Hitler – there is no reflection, no possibility that he is deluded, or a con-artist – but we are forced to conclude that his Hitler is not especially convincing. 

That’s not to say that Look Who’s Back is without merit. There are good satirical moments, not least Hitler’s disdain for ‘that suspect Russian leader’ Vladimir Putin (‘the moment a politician removes his shirt, his policies are dead in the water. All he will say is, "look, my dear fellow countrymen, I have made the most extraordinary discovery: my policies look better without a shirt on”’). The fact that the main criticism of ‘YouTube Hitler’ comes from online commenters with names like ‘blood&honour’ sets up an excellent set-piece where Hitler visits the headquarters of a shambolic far right group, highlighting the uncomfortable position of those who crave legitimacy while subscribing to vile ideologies. Meeting the Federal Chairman of the NDP, he asks ‘can’t you salute me like an upstanding German?’ Eventually, he dismisses them as ‘a veritable nest of harmful imbeciles’.

Vermes’ greatest insight, though, is into the sheer elasticity of public opinion, the way a media-driven narrative can override moral scruples and appearances outweigh content. Hitler’s views are expressed most fully on his television segments, which are viewed through an ironic filter by his audience. When he is set upon and hospitalised by a gang of skinheads, who take him for a parodist, he unwittingly finds himself hailed for his ‘unequivocal championing of non-violence’ and free speech, amongst other things.  The sheen of stardom means that his actions are interpreted in the most favourable way possible; the only real burst of criticism he receives from the press is nipped in the bud when his producers blackmail the journalist who is trying to expose him. After this, public opinion largely falls into place.

Look Who’s Back has been a huge hit in Germany, where it has sold over a million copies since 2012. Non-German readers may find themselves a little confused by many of the topical references, and the translator’s note by Jamie Bulloch is invaluable in providing potted biographies of TV personalities and the broad positions of Germany’s acronym-obsessed political parties. Ultimately, though, despite its popularity the novel’s bold premise is let down by an inconsistency of voice, and the lack of a really engaging narrative arc, as things tend to fall together rather conveniently for the reborn Hitler. It’s a problem for a satire when the protagonist’s personality is necessarily toned down from the real life figure they represent, which is always going to make writing a novel like this incredibly tough to carry off. Look Who's Back is billed as a 'merciless satire', but maybe it just isn't merciless enough.