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Q tells the story of a Forrest Gump of the reformation age. We never learn the real name of this unsung hero. He's an anabaptist, representing one of the radical arms of the reformation. Whenever something crucial in early anabaptism happens, he's present: Müntzer's peasant upheaval, the synode of the martyrs in Augsburg, the tragedy of Münster in 1635, Jan van Batenburg's apocalyptic riders, Eloi Pruystincks early libertarian commune. He changes identities but is always in the middle of the action - usually everybody else gets killed and only he survives the atrocities. As he gradually discovers, there is a secret adversary only known by the name of Qohelet (preacher), a papal spy who manages to foil all efforts of the anabaptists from within. He's working for Gianpietro Carafa, the head of the Roman Inquisition and later pope Paul IV. Via Basel, our Forrest ends up in Venice for the final showdown with Q, aided by Portuguese sephardim. There, things don't turn out as expected.
The protagonist is driven by a lust for a self-determined life, not any sense of a spiritual mission. The papal spy is working on the mission of Carafa to maintain the fundament of the catholic church through the reformation. The fundament is fear of god which is threatened by protestantism and it's central principle "sola fide", i.e. the justification by faith alone.
The whole book offers an irritating point of view for somebody who is used to lutheranism as the driving force behind the reformation in Germany. In Q, Luther is rather part of the establishment and the papacy is instrumentalizing him against the more violent arms of the reformation as well as to curb the ambitions of the emperor Karl V. Here, the anabaptist movement is the focus of the story. They are mostly militant and form the left wing of the reformation. They advocate the renouncement of private property, a liberal sexual moral and most of all don't accept any profane government. The true evil force in Q are the ones who pull the strings behind the scenes: beside the inquisition these are foremost the bankers represented by the Fuggers.
This leads to the message of the book. It's authored by an anonymous Italian collective named Luther Blissett. Even before reading the book my assumption was that they want to convey that things can change on a broad level. The reformation of the church in the 16th century is a symbol for a possible change of society in the 21st century, which the authors seem to deem necessary. When the power of the Fuggers is introduced,this message becomes even clearer. It's a plea against globalization today. I would assume that the authors joined the Occupy movement later.
While the development of anabaptism in 16th century Germany seems an odd choice for Italians to write about, the theme hits a home run for me, as the upheaval caused by reformation and culminating in the thirty-years war hundred years later is my favourite historic period. This carries the novel for me in spite of political messages I don't share and neglecting two central heroes which are larger than life and completely unbelievable. I enjoyed it as a historical thriller, a genre I normally don't read anymore. Considering this, 3 stars is a good rating which could have been better if the characters had been a bit more human and average.