Reading the Chunksters discussion

Please use this place to sync your reading dates and the other important details to keep the project going.

Discussion schedule for Q by Luther Blissett (I have an Arrow paperback edition from 2004)

Okay, so my proposal for a plan looks like this:
Week 1 9/13: Pages IX - 80 Prologue - Part One, Chapter 18 Eltersdorf, Easter 1526 included
Week 2 9/20: Pages 81 - 161 Part One, Chapter 19 - Part Two, Chapter 4 included
Week 3 9/27: Pages 162 - 241 Part Two, Chapter 5 - 24
< a one week break to catch up with reading/ writing in the threads >
Week 4 10/11: Pages 242 - 318 Part Two, Chapter 25 -36
Week 5 10/18: Pages 319 - 399 Part Two, Chapter 37 - Part Three, Chapter 2
Week 6 10/25: Pages 400 -484 Part Three, Chapter 3 - Q's diary
Week 7 11/07: Pages 485 - 558 Part Three, Chapter 19 - Q's diary
Week 8 11/07: Pages 559 - 635 Part Three, Chapter 33- end
(we will see how it goes in the later sections and we might speed up the last part or add an additional week) .

I will start discussion about each section of the book on the days mentioned above (Sundays), please post accordingly and there will be no need for spoiler tags.

Background on the author (From wikipedia):

Luther Blissett is a multiple-use name, an "open pop star" informally adopted and shared by hundreds of artists and activists all over Europe and the Americas since 1994. The pseudonym first appeared in Bologna, Italy, in mid-1994, when a number of cultural activists began using it for staging a series of urban and media pranks and to experiment with new forms of authorship and identity. From Bologna the multiple-use name spread to other European cities, such as Rome and London, as well as countries such as Germany, Spain, and Slovenia. Sporadic appearances of Luther Blissett have been also noted in Canada, the United States, and Brazil.

For reasons that remain unknown, though according to one former member the decision was based purely on the perceived comic value of the name, the pseudonym was borrowed from a real-life Luther Blissett, a notable association football player, who played for A.C. Milan, Watford F.C. and England in the 1980s. In December 1999, the Italian activists who had launched the Luther Blissett Project in 1994 decided to discontinue usage of the name by committing symbolic ritual suicide, or seppuku. After authoring the best-selling historic novel Q as "Luther Blissett", five of them went on to found the writers' collective Wu Ming.

The novel Q was written by four Bologna-based members of the Luther Blisset Project as a final contribution to the project, and published in Italy in 1999. So far, it has been translated into English, Spanish, German, Dutch, French, Portuguese (Brazilian), Danish, Polish, Greek, and Korean.

The novel is set in 16th century central Europe, during the peasant riots and popular rebellions that almost "hijacked" the Reformation, before suffering bloody repression with Luther's enthusiastic approval.

McKenzie Wark, author of A Hacker Manifesto, concluded his review of the novel with these remarks:

'Q is in some ways an optimistic book... It's a question of a narrative resurrection, where the return of the marginalized, the disempowered is still possible. A return, not as victim, but as a different kind of hero. The kind of hero who works in situations, does what is possible, and moves on. A Luther Blissett.'

Information concerning events and historical figures from part I of the book

The peasants' wars in Germany: (from wikipedia)

The German Peasants' War was a widespread popular revolt in the German-speaking areas of Central Europe from 1524 to 1525. It failed because of the intense opposition of the aristocracy, who slaughtered up to 100,000 of the 300,000 poorly armed peasants and farmers. The survivors were fined and achieved few if any of their goals. The war consisted, like the preceding Bundschuh movement and the Hussite Wars, of a series of both economic and religious revolts in which peasants and farmers, often supported by Protestant clergy, took the lead. The German Peasants' War was Europe's largest and most widespread popular uprising prior to the French Revolution of 1789. The fighting was at its height in the spring and summer of 1525.

Luther and Müntzer

Martin Luther, the dominant leader of the Reformation in Germany, took a middle course in the Peasants' War. He criticized both the injustices imposed on the peasants, and the rashness of the peasants in fighting back. He also tended to support the centralization and urbanization of the economy. This position alienated the lesser nobles, but shored up his position with the burghers. Luther argued that work was the chief duty on earth; the duty of the peasants was farm labor and the duty of the ruling classes was upholding the peace. He could not support the Peasant War because it broke the peace, an evil he thought greater than the evils the peasants were rebelling against; he also criticized the ruling classes for their merciless suppression of the insurrection. Luther has often been sharply criticized for his position.

Thomas Müntzer was the most prominent Protestant minister who supported the demands of the peasantry, including political and legal rights. Although Müntzer was a religious leader, politically he showed less interest in religious questions than in the social position of the people. Müntzer's theology contained powerful mystical and apocalyptic elements that form the basis of his support for the peasants. As the war developed he focused more and more on non-religious themes. During the war Müntzer traveled from province to province offering leadership and encouragement. He became the main leader of the peasantry in Saxony. Diarmaid MacCulloch argues that the role of Müntzer has been exaggerated for political reasons. He writes:

The Communist regime of the German Democratic Republic, building on Marxist historical misuse of 1525 from Friedrich Engels onward, found it useful to elevate Müntzer into an earlier incarnation of Lenin. In reality Müntzer was an impractical mystic and dreamer….He had no interest in the material betterment of the poor. His contribution to 1525 was marginal, apart from its result in leading himself and his scanty band of followers to a wretched death.

Luther took every opportunity to attack Müntzer's ideas. He declared against the moderate demands of the peasantry embodied in the twelve articles. His article Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants, which appeared in May 1525, alienated the lower classes.

A map of Germany during the peasant wars:


Other prominent historical figures (from wikipedia)
Philip Melanchthon 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, intellectual leader of the Lutheran Reformation, and an influential designer of educational systems. He stands next to Luther and Calvin as a reformer, theologian, and molder of Protestantism. Along with Luther, he is the primary founder of Lutheranism. They both denounced what they believed was the exaggerated cult of the saints, asserted justification by faith, and denounced the coercion of the conscience in the sacrament of penance by the Catholic Church, that they believed could not offer certainty of salvation. In unison they rejected transubstantiation, the belief that the bread from the Lord's Supper becomes Christ's body when consecrated. Melanchthon made the distinction between law and gospel the central formula for Lutheran evangelical insight. By the "law", he meant God's requirements both in Old and New Testament; the "gospel" meant the free gift of grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Andreas Rudolph Bodenstein von Karlstadt (1486 – 24 December 1541), better known as Andreas Karlstadt, was a German Christian theologian during the Protestant Reformation. He was born in Karlstadt, Franconia. Moreinformation about him here

The Diet of Worms 1521 was an imperial diet of the Holy Roman Empire held at the Heylshof Garden in Worms, then an Imperial Free City of the Empire. An imperial diet was a formal deliberative assembly of the whole Empire. This one is most memorable for the Edict of Worms , which addressed Martin Luther and the effects of the Protestant Reformation. It was conducted from 28 January to 25 May 1521, with the Emperor Charles V presiding.

This map of the peasants' war may prove more enlightening in terms of Q's storyline: