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I was surprisingly underwhelmed by this book, a supposed contemporary classic of radical lit/fiction. The jumpy style and narrative bear witness to the multiple authors, with a lack of overall thematic coherence and plot tightness. The characters are two-dimensional, including the protagonist, and very rarely are we moved to identify with any of them. Nor are we given sufficient descriptive detail or contextual political-theological information in order to fully comprehend the stakes of the struggles at the heart of the text between the radical Protestant reformers and their orthodox Catholic opponents. There are long stretches of the book that really don't go anywhere, with most of the book relying on a tiresome formula of, "protagonist arrives in location, meets flimsy supporting cast, carries out theological agitation, is persecuted and flees to next backdrop location".

While it is understandable that the un-named protagonist is constructed as a cipher for the reader's own engagement with the themes of the text, there is no excusing the crappy characterisation of the supporting personalities - the female characters in particular are portrayed in a manner that would fail the literary equivalent of a Bechdel test. Maybe this worked better at the original time of release, at the height of the 'alter-globalisation' movement of summit-hopping super-protestors (an assessment I believe the authors are sympathetic to), or maybe it's a 'lost in translation' question as regards certain Italian (or wider 'continental') radical tropes that are being critiqued or interrogated. Either way I didn't get it.

There were certain redeeming qualities - great action scenes, key politico-theological issues of the Reformation were at times tackled really well, and immensely detailed description of the European cities of the early modern era. The revolt and siege of Muenster are brilliantly depicted, a fantastic middle section of the book that almost redeems the baggy second half. It's a shame, if the book was cut to a sixth of the size (it's 600+(!) pages long for what is basically an extended political metaphor) it would be an immediate 5 star rating. Read if you have the spare time or a keen interest in the relevant subject matter (Early Modern Europe, the radical Reformation, history of communism) - otherwise, avoid.