James Herbert
The Spear

With the novel “Er ist wieder da” aka “Look Who's Back,” the German writer Timur Vermes revisits a theme frequently explored by cinema and literature: the return of Adolf Hitler. Subjected to a successful and good film adaptation as well, Vermes writes about an incredible return of the Fuhrer in today's Germany. The work predominantly contains satirical content, but clearly prompts various political and social reflections, especially on the inconsistencies and malfunctions of our society. The film will soon be reinterpreted with an Italian twist - let's say - by director Luca Miniero, who will narrate the same story by setting it in Italy and imagining the return of Benito Mussolini. The strong sensation is that a brilliant and critical work like Vermes' will be rendered as a kind of farce. But perhaps this is just yet another negative judgment of mine on contemporary Italian cinema. Apart from all the differences between Germany and Italy and the different ways in which Nazism and Fascism are addressed today in their respective countries.

This novel by writer James Herbert from 1978, titled “The Spear” (a clear reference to the “Spear of Longinus”), is set in England at the end of the seventies and instead revisits the powerful return of what was one of the darkest sides of the Third Reich: Nazi mysticism and secret societies like the notorious Thule Society. The most extreme component of the Nazi ideology, which was initially functional to the propaganda of the National Socialist thought, in truth transcended any political project. It is now accepted that Adolf Hitler himself (whom this cult revered as a true deity) at a certain point wanted to distance himself from everything that was happening at Wewelsburg castle in Westphalia, the SS initiation center and operational base of Nazi Germany's number two, Heinrich Himmler.

It is precisely the return of Heinrich Himmler and the occult that is the theme around which James Herbert (1943-2013) develops this spy story featuring Harry Steadman, a private investigator and former agent of Mossad, the Israeli secret service, which he left after the death of his partner due to an attack and disgusted by the numerous deaths and excessive violence of that world. But on a day seemingly like any other, the past will knock at his office door, and although he is reluctant to re-enter this "world," he will be literally dragged into it by the unstoppable chain of events that will bring him dramatically to face completely alone the Thule Society and the most extensive conspiracy ever schemed in contemporary Western history.

Herbert's novel can be classified as science fiction, but its content is effectively typical of spy stories with horror undertones, due to references to occultism and its dark rituals and the presence of definitely very “strong” elements within the narrative where moments characterized by certain violence and brutality are not lacking. “The Relic” (this is the title in the Italian version) begins very well and pushes the reader to voraciously continue reading until the last pages, where, however, the novel loses a certain verve and expectations are somewhat disappointed. Not on the level of content, however, but rather on the way in which these are narrated by the author.

For the rest, the novel may today appear to us as lacking innovation and originality, but judging it negatively in this respect would be unfair because Herbert narrates a story that is compelling as a whole and demonstrates a deep knowledge of the rituals and beliefs of Nazi mystical thought and, in the same way, critically positions himself toward a "dark" part of the Western world and in particular, his own England, telling us a reality as frightening as it is unsettling, which we cyclically encounter in the course of history and the passing of time.