Q (Spanish language edition) - Softcover

Blissett, Luther

Softcover

ISBN 10: 8439705301 ISBN 13: 9788439705307

Publisher: Mondadori, 2000

Synopsis

With Europe convulsed in wars over religion, a young theology student finds himself siding with heretics and the disenfranchised while confronting an agent of the Vatican who intends to hunt down and destroy enemies of the faith.

About this title

Review

The story of Q begins with the mystery surrounding the author(s). Luther Blissett, the "author" of Q is the name of a Jamaican soccer player who played for AC Milan in the early l980s. He was victimized by Italian fans, whose racist and nasty comments caused his career to take a dive. This hapless fellow inspired a group of Italian artists to appropriate his name and attach it to all manner of projects. There are Luther Blissetts writing, drawing, and carrying out elaborate hoaxes all over the world. Four young Italians in Bologna wrote Q in the mid 1990s. It remains a bestseller in Italy and has become a cult hit throughout Europe.

Q is set at the time of the Reformation. After Luther hangs his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Church, nothing is ever the same in the hallowed halls of Christianity. One of the sects which sprang up during the Reformation was the Anabaptists, Christians who discredited infant baptism and believed that the Bible was the only rule for faith and life. Q follows the adventures of a student of Thomas Munzer, Anabaptist and leader of the abortive Peasants' Revolt of 1524-25, who goes under many names, the first of which is Gustav Metzger, and Q, a papal informer. These two travel throughout Europe, trying to suss out each other's identity, sending letters to Munzer and to the Pope, making friends and enemies, hating each other's deeply felt convictions. Metzger is staying one step ahead of the heretic hunters, bent on destroying all supporters of Luther.

The translation is rickety, at best. There are long, sonorous passages filled with the formal language of the times, and then a jarring change to modern slang. "On the point of death they all denied everything that had been extorted from them with torture: small consolation, and I don't know how many were able to die in peace because of it... It was November or December 1531, around the time Lienhard Jost kicked the bucket." There is a tremendous amount of scholarship contained in the novel and the blend of fact and fiction allows room for intrigue, politics, betrayal, and that ever-familiar conundrum of terror in the name of religion. At over 750 pages, it requires a great deal of patience and attention on the part of the reader, not all of which is richly rewarded. A final cavil: Wittenberg is misspelled in the jacket copy. --Valerie Ryan

From the Inside Flap

A bestseller across Europe this international phenomenon is an ambitious, dynamic and intelligent historical novel written by four young Italian men.

Set in the time of tremendous religious and political upheaval caused by the Reformation in Europe, Q begins with Luther nailing his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg cathedral -- a historical flash point which would completely disrupt European society. The novel traces the adventures and conflicts of two central characters as they travel across Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. One is an Anabaptist, a member of the most radical Protestant sect. These are the anarchists of the Reformation who revolted against Catholicism and the emerging Reformation church. The other is a Catholic spy and informer.

Like the leaders of religious reform, the book?s authors break with tradition -- seeking anonymity behind the pseudonym Luther Blissett. They have successfully created a world of intrigue, violence and intense political and religious passion. A phenomenal bestseller in Italy and Holland ? Q is now being translated into eight languages. When it was first published anonymously in Italy, it was widely rumoured to be the work of Umberto Eco.

About this edition

• Publisher: Mondadori
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 8439705301
• ISBN 13: 9788439705307
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 672