RECENZIE SCRISĂ DE RĂZVAN ANTON. A apărut inițial pe Teoriile unui blogger. Look Who’s Back will turn out to be a shock for a number of reasons. The first and the most obvious is right there on the front cover. A comic of the hairstyle and mustache that horrified millions of people will rapidly lead you to the conclusion that the book deals with one of the greatest negative figures of history: Adolf Hitler. Nonetheless, Timur Vermes’ perspective creates the complete utopia. Awoken miraculously in 2011, Adolf Hitler, the Fuhrer of the German Reich has to adapt to the new society and manage to do that without letting go of his old habits. Look who’s back exists in two parallel worlds - reality and whatever is going on in the the Fuhrer’s head. Hitler constantly compares the two and this creates a humorous effect, mandatory for the success of such a parody. The attention to detail turns Vermes into a surgeon, who dissects Adolf Hitler’s personality and mixes it with the contemporary society. If at first you would be tempted to think that all the social changes which took place from 1945 to 2011 would make the adaptation of the old Nazi impossible, or that Hitler is going to waste a lot of time thinking about how it was possible for him to be brought into this new era, you are wrong. Hitler does not waste time. The fact that the two worlds blend constantly is due precisely to the unchanged personality of the ‘supreme leader’. He somehow manages to minimize the differences, mentioning, however, as many times as possible, that his Germany was a better place. Everybody believes this Hitler to be a perfect clone, an actor who totally identifies himself with the Persona that he portrays. The difference between the beliefs of the people (he’s a perfect actor who gets a part in a comedy show, then gets to have his own show and his own website) and the beliefs of the Fuhrer (I am Adolf Hitler, the true ruler of the German Reich, I was sent to save Germany from its current misery), and the fact that both sides are right in their own way, will keep you turning the pages. The 2011 Hitler is the same as the one in 1945. The references to the Arian race and the inferiority of any other race, especially of the Jewish, are still there. These are the moments when the character is so convincing in his madness that you need to constantly keep in mind that you are reading fiction and parody and that the horrors of the Holocaust will not be repeated today. 2011 is not at all similar to 1945, but Timur Vermes depicts a character who is intelligent enough to adapt. You will be surprised by how fast Hitler learns to use a computer, a smartphone, by how fascinated he is by the Internet and how rapidly he learns to use it for his interests. The fine ironies directed towards today’s consumerist society are part of the novel. Everything that we currently perceive as normal and positive, the Fuhrer perceives as a sign of decadence of the previous Reich, which he wants to rebuild and control anew. Timur Vermes is remarkable and Look who’s back deserves to be read precisely for the way in which it transforms one of the most horrific characters in history into someone bearable and adaptable to the new, without altering the personality which defined the original world-feared figure. Two different worlds, the same obsession: Look who’s back!