Q (novel) - Interpretations and Controversy

Interpretations and Controversy

Throughout Europe, several critics have read Q from a political point of view, and maintain that the novel is an allegory of European society after the decline of the 1960s and 1970s protest movements. As in the 16th century, the Counter-Reformation repressed any alternative theological current or radical social movement, and the Peace of Augsburg sanctioned the partition of the continent among Catholic and Protestant powers, so the last twenty years of the 20th century were marked by a vengeful rebirth of conservative ideologies, and the International Monetary Fund-driven corporate globalization of the economy seemed to rout any resistance.

This interpretation stems from the authors themselves describing Q as a "handbook of survival skills", which might cast a revealing light on the book's ending.

However, this is just one of the many interpretations emerged in the aftermath of publication. According to other readers and critics, Q is a thinly disguised autobiography of Luther Blissett as a subversive, identity-shifting collective phantom. In fact, the protagonist has no name (and it must be pointed out that the authors later renamed themselves Wu Ming, which is Chinese for "no name"), is involved in every tumult of the age, incites the people to rebellion, and organizes hoaxes, swindles and mischievous acts.

Both British novelist Stewart Home and American novelist David Liss have given an interpretation of Q as an "anti-novel", although their respective analyses bring to different conclusions. While Home's review put the emphasis on the social, political and subcultural references embedded in the plot, Liss' review dismissed the book as unnecessary and self-referential.

Yet other readers have expressed the opinion that Q — apart from radicalism, post-modernism, and allegories — is above all an adventure novel, a swashbuckler in the very Italian tradition of Emilio Salgari and other popular feuilleton authors.