Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent historical fiction, 11 Mar 2006
Given the subject matter and nationality of the authors, it is almost impossible not to compare ‘Q’ with the work of one of my favourite authors, Umberto Eco. Reading Eco has given me a taste for historical fiction whilst seemingly rendering almost everything else in the genre trivial. At last, in ‘Q’ I have read something to rival Eco in historical detail and (almost) richness of ideas. ‘Q’ is historical fiction at its very best, and a thoroughly enjoyable read.
‘Q’ is set against the backdrop of the religious upheavals taking place in central Europe during the sixteenth century. Martin Luther has denounced the Catholic church, and a multitude of preachers and prophets have arisen, each spreading the message about his own version of the new religion. The main character, Lot (actually just one of many names he has in the book), is infused with the fervour of the times, and joins several of these groups (Thomas Muntzer in Frankenhausen, Jan Matthys in Munster, anabaptists in Holland, smugglers of heretical religious books in Venice), witnessing at first hand their bloody struggles and violent suppression by the combined forces of Catholicism and the new orthodoxy of Lutheranism. Lot’s hope for a world in which religion is delivered to the people is repeatedly dashed by its manipulation as a tool of power by the rulers in Rome and Germany. Lot eventually begins to see a shadowy hand behind his repeated defeats, a spy disseminating false information within the groups and reporting their activity to others outside them. Wherever Lot goes in Europe, he finds his actions hampered by this mysterious man, known to him only as Qoelet, or Q. By the end of the book, Lot’s work has less to do with the spreading of radical religion, than with the search to unmask Q.
The historical detail in ‘Q’ is astonishing, with almost all the characters being factual, and the political intrigues surrounding the reformation are brilliantly re-created. Unlike some reviewers, I didn’t find the story difficult to follow, despite the complexities of politics and religion that form the essential backdrop to the story. Other reviewers complained that the story never got going. This is true to a point and, by analogy to Eco’s books, ‘Q’ is much more ‘Baudolino’ than ‘The Name of the Rose’, with Lot’s wanderings basically providing an excuse to examine the upheavals of sixteenth century Europe. Qoelet remains very much in the background, and only towards the end does he play a more direct role in Lot’s life, which was, to me, the only part of the book that was badly done. So, despite the blurb, ‘Q’ is not really a thriller about the unmasking of a spy, but rather an examination of Reformation politics and a commentary on the use of religion and power, but told through the eyes a man fighting on the losing side. If you think that sounds boring, then I guess you will find ‘Q’ boring. Also if blood, sex and swearing aren’t your cup of tea, steer clear. For me, ‘Q’ is exemplary historical fiction, perhaps a little less clever than Eco and a little less complicated in terms of ideas, but an excellent book nonetheless.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You should have stuck in there Olly!, 7 Jul 2003
I admit Q does present a bit of challenge at first, especially if (like me) you have limited knowledge of the history of Renaissance Europe. But for the reader with an open mind and who's willing to learn, this novel is an embarrassment of riches with cracking prose a fast pace and (believe it or not Olly) a great plot. It took a while for me to get my head round the story but come on - it's more Umberto Eco than James Joyce! The only reason it was confusing is because of my lack of basic historical knowledge, but the picture is fairly clear after the first 100 pages or so.Perhaps part of the problem is that in Britain our only knowledge of Renaissance history is Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. Little are we told (either in school or in the history prgrammes that now swamp the TV schedules) that, prior to Napoleon, British history is if anything a sideshow to the main event in Europe and often not even that. This is a huge, sweeping epic of a novel that explores, among other things, the religious fervour which swept the continent in the decades after Luther's Protest, the brutality of the Inquisition, the in-fighting that gave rise to a separate Protestant church, the nature of class struggle and revolution, the rise of mercantilism and the manner in which politics was practised in a pre-democratic era. All this and more is weaved into the fabric of a gripping plotline and is told in a narrative style that brings alive the sights, sounds and smells of a continent dragging itself out of the Middle Ages. Read on Olly, you've missed one of this year's best publications!
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Blissett doesn't miss it, 8 Aug 2003
As a history teacher fascinated by the European Reformation, I looked forward to combining business with pleasure over my summer holiday. I have always enjoyed the way in which historical fiction, from Rosemary Sutcliff to Umberto Eco, stimulates both the imagination and the intellect. The writers of Q have achieved more still: parallels with the modern world bring sixteenth century radicalism explosively to life - secret print shops instead of the internet, the Holy Office rather than the "security" services and the interference of politicians familiar in all ages. Only once is the writers' agenda on the censorship of ideas clumsily invoked ("...who knows, they might one day abolish [the Index of censored books] altogether..."). I am unsure how a reader without knowledge of the 40 years after Luther's protest in 1517 would sustain their interest in the complexities of the text. I hope that the book won't be merely for the historically initiated, but I fear that it will. The authors certainly do themselves no favours by the layout: an unnecessarily spread out 600 plus pages make the book more daunting than it should be. The opening too is off-putting, jumping about pointlessly from one early event to another. However, by the time the narrative settled down into a more straightforward format in Part Two, I was hooked. The horrors and disappointments of the Kingdom of Munster in the 1530s are brilliantly, even cinematically, depicted as the central narrator, a man of many names, sees his dream of a communal society (as they often do) descend into mayhem and carnage reminiscent of the end of Apocalypse Now. As the story goes on, the other ways in which he seeks to bring down the social order, including defrauding the banks and spreading subversive literature, seem more compelling elements than the race to uncover him and his relationships with other characters. This is, as the dust jacket proclaims, a "Novel of Ideas". There are weaknesses to the book. The female characters seem only to serve to "sex up" the text (literally) and are universally blandly attractive: the narrator seems to fall for all of them, disappointing because there were many more interesting women around in early sixteenth century Europe. The writers (and translators) of historical fiction have to struggle to convey a fitting vernacular for their period. Liberal doses of four-lettered words seem particularly lazy in this period (when they would have been meaningless as swear words) and in the mouths of these characters. Nevertheless, this is compelling and skilfully woven together - the idea of someone reappearing in all the hotspots of trouble in a troubled half-century, themselves reconstructed viscerally and believably, is plausibly presented. The parallels with the problems of our own time, particularly the control of challenging ideas, movements and information, have refreshed my enthusiasm for the sixteenth century.
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