Overlord
The Triumph of Light 1944-45
Published in four volumes by Element in 1995-7
Volume 4, Books 10-12
ISBN 1862040176
Price: £15.99/$24.99 (Can $33.99)
Hardback
The fall of Berlin and the death of Hitler, the Nazi surrender and the birth of the Atomic Age at Hiroshima.
The Front Flap Says
Contained within three volumes the first nine books of Overlord tell the story of Eisenhower’s advance towards Hitler through D-Day, the plot against Hitler’s life, Falaise, Arnhem, the Holocaust, the Ardennes campaign, the Yalta conference, the crossing of the Rhine and Hitler’s defence of Berlin. Books 10-12 present the fall of Berlin (a contemporary Troy) and death of Hitler, the Nazi surrender and the birth of the atomic age at Hiroshima. At another level, Hell falls to Heaven’s invasion, and Satan, the power behind Hitler, now cut down to size, goes into exile and foments the Cold War with his new ally, Stalin. With the defeat of Hitler, the Antichrist, Armageddon is over, and Eisenhower is given a vision of Paradise and the coming Millennium, the Cosmic Christ’s Thousand-Year Reign on earth and benevolent world government which triumphs over Satan’s plans for a new world order.
Conceived in 1969, discussed with Ezra Pound in 1970 and begun in 1994, Overlord is the first 12-book poetic epic in the English language since Milton’s Paradise Lost, and as in the case of Milton’s classic it had a 25-year gestation. Like Virgil’s Aeneid, which celebrated Augustus’ new order, its underlying theme is the yearning for universal peace which can be found in contemporary attempts to create a world government to coincide with the new millennium. Nicholas Hagger’s Universalist epic reaches a triumphant conclusion with Eisenhower’s defeat of Hitler and the Cosmic Christ’s victory over the Cosmic Satan, and a vision of the divine order behind the universe reconciles the Tolstoyan conflict between war and peace and Michelangelesque contrast between Heaven and Hell. In Hagger’s classical unitive vision, harmony and balance are restored between the eternally conflicting forces of Light and Darkness, with Light just predominating.
Combining imagination, spiritual vision, a penetrating understanding of history and a metaphysical eye that draws on the new science and philosophy, Nicholas Hagger has created an impressive work that towers above the contemporary European literary scene like a mountain half-hidden in cloud over a flat landscape.
Front cover for later edition
New approach
Nicholas Hagger’s books reveal truths that have been hidden. His poems convey his quest for Reality and the vision of unity, and reflect the follies and vices of the Age. In his first poetic epic he brings a new approach to the last year of the Second World War.
