Tyll

Daniel Kehlmann's F was one of my favorite books the year it was released, so I've had an eye out for Tyll. This novel is every bit as engaging as F with an even richer narrative and set of characters.

Tyll is—a trouble-making, work-shirking boy; the son of a father who may or may not be a necromancer; an adventurer; a juggler and tightrope walker; a fool who speaks truth to power as only fools can; and instigator of violence and a firm and loving friend. His story is set during the Thirty Years' War, during which an entire generation of Europeans grew up fearing the sound of soldiers' boots. The reader can simultaneously like, mistrust, and, occasionally, fear him.

The novel Tyll explores life on the margins—the lives of traveling show more performers, who are free to wander, but have no rights, and can be accused of almost any crime, and the lives of deposed royalty, who experience a different sort of margin, constantly juggling impecunity and dignity. The novel is simultaneously magical and somber, creating a world the reader wants to enter, but that proves risky.

If you like historical fiction, if you like magical realism, if you like stories built around journeys, if you like the unexpected—you will find Tyll a deeply satisfying read.

I received a free electronic review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. The Opinions are my own. show less

The tale of the itinerant prankster Tyll Eulenspiegel (spelled in a million different ways...) has a similar sort of standing in German folklore to that of Robin Hood in England - written versions of the story go back at least to the earliest printed chapbooks, and places all over Germany claim associations with him, but no-one has ever found any convincing evidence that he really existed. The story is usually set in the first half of the 14th century, but Kehlmann has chosen to update it to the Thirty Years War (1618-48), a high-risk strategy because it means he's setting himself up to be compared to some of the most distinguished works in the German canon. Everyone who's anybody, from Grimmelshausen to Brecht, has used this particular show more conflict to illustrate the random, all-embracing horror of war, so it would be a challenge for any writer to try to find something new and worthwhile to say about it...

Kehlmann, of course, is extremely good at what he does, and he's produced a fluent, engaging and intelligent historical novel, a real page-turner that I raced through in a couple of days (and it's not a short book!). He brings Tyll together with real historical figures of the period, in particular Elizabeth Stuart, the "Winter Queen" (you've got to have something for the English readers...) and Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher, the last of the great pre-Cartesian polymaths, the man who amongst many, many other things "solved" Egyptian hieroglyphs incorrectly, just missed discovering the cause of the plague, and almost invented the magic lantern. Gustavus Adolphus gets a memorable walk-on appearance. Never named, but a powerful presence just offstage, is Shakespeare, and we also get quite a few references to the Gunpowder Plot, so there's plenty to keep you amused even if your memories of Lützen, Wallenstein and the Peace of Westphalia are a bit vague.

What this book seems to be about is theatrical performance and the way it briefly gives the performer power - for good or ill - over the audience. Tyll, in Kehlmann's version, is a victim of his times who finds that performing and getting people to do things they didn't want to is the only way that he can assert his human identity and stay alive, despite all the logic that says he should have been squashed long ago by the forces of cruelty, war and intolerance. Elizabeth is addicted to performance, seemingly never understanding that she isn't merely an actor on a stage, and that her disastrous (Shakespeare-inspired) ambition to enter politics and play the role of a queen has plunged Europe into three decades of total war. And Kircher is also a performer, a laughable nonentity who has trapped himself into playing the role of a great scientist and does it so convincingly that everyone believes him, even when he comes out with leaps of logic that only Terry Pratchett could get away with. (Dragons are known to be invisible. Holstein is the one place in Germany where no-one has ever reported seeing a dragon, therefore there must be a dragon in Holstein...)

Fun and quite rewarding, but perhaps promises a bit more than it actually delivers. show less

This is a masterful novel. I’m not completely sure I have the words to describe why, except to say that Kehlmann clearly understands tricksters and has worked hard to turn this book into a true trickster story. I don’t think there’ll ever be a novel quite like it and I want to figure out how he did it except I don’t want to spoil the magic.

Tyll is the trickster’s trickster—an impertinent showman who holds a mirror to the world—but so is Kehlmann. He’s somehow written a book that’s seriously dark and very funny, that whirls you around with comedy and adventure and the spirit of the words and then suddenly there’s a knife in your gut and it’s a beautiful pain. Reading this felt a lot like watching Tyll perform—it show more looks like entertainment but you don’t know what you’re in for.

So here’s some of what to expect: It’s a portrait of Tyll, who is, in our reality, a folkloric trickster, and in the book, a man who’s risen to great heights from nowhere and cannot be trusted. It questions truth and the nature of memory, examines hubris and justice and the lengths one goes to survive. It draws from fairy tales and alchemy, contains Jesuits and emperors and wicked millers and dragons. It’s funny and sad and sharp and tender, meandering and complicated.

And it’s both an easy read—once I found the rhythm of the text, I was pretty much hooked and turning pages—and a difficult one, because each section has a different point of view, from a different era, the themes aren’t so much laid out as skirted around, and you’re not being guided through any of it. (Tyll’s not the type to hold your hand, after all.) This is absolutely a novel you need to dig into to fully enjoy but man, is the effort worth it. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt that sort of catharsis and, in some ways, so attacked. Also it’s not easy because it’s set during the Thirty Years’ War and that … wasn’t a great time.

And like I said, I don’t know how Kehlmann did it. Everything’s balanced perfectly and plays into everything else. It’s raw and funny and addictive and terrifying, and this is, mind you, a translation. I’m sure I’m missing stuff by not being German or by not reading it in German. (I’m very glad I read a book about the Holy Roman Empire last year so I had at least some context.) There’s certainly enough in it to merit a reread or two. Am I describing this well? Absolutely not. Like I said, there aren't really the words.

Strongly recommended, but mostly to people who like immersive historical fiction and mulling over books when they’re not reading them. Sense of humour is required.

To bear in mind: Contains child abuse, war and deaths by war, plague, and hard truths about humanity.

9.5/10 show less

[bc:Tyll|45990558|Tyll|Daniel Kehlmann|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1577257716l/45990558._SY75_.jpg|57727239] I’ve been putting off writing my thoughts about this wonderful book because I came in blind to the folklore that inspired it, and with only a passing knowledge of the 30 Years War when it takes place. I'd be a fool not to acknowledge my historical ignorance here...

That having been said, I loved this book. I cannot compare it to the original chapbooks that preceded it, as I haven’t read them other than glossing over a Wikipedia page. But here, in this book, Kehlmann uses the folkloric character Tyll Ulenspeigal to dramatic effect, popping in and out of the lives of a number of historic show more figures relevant to the history of the war.

Tyll's presence in this book is often ethereal—literally. Because Kehlmann expertly weaves the story in a way to make us wonder. Is the character real or is he a ghost? Kehlmann plays with that idea often, giving us moments when we feel for Tyll because of the hardships that have shaped him, then letting us see glimpses of him from the point of view of others, where he is seemingly an inconsequential player in the backgrounds of their lives. Until he's not. Until the folly of their existence begins to unravel and we can’t help but wonder if it’s Tyll who pulled that string.

I enjoyed it for these reasons. Even if I am woefully ignorant of the history surrounding it. I highly recommend this book. Now I need to go back and brush up on my European history. show less

A strange one, this, but brilliant. I still haven't quite fathomed it out. The story of a jester, his childhood and fragments of his life duting the Thirty Years War, but told in fragmentary fashion, and often through the eyes of others, with Tyll only appearing briefly. An excellent novel, it sticks in the mind in all sorts of troubling ways.

Brilliantly inventive. Clever. Reviewers have--accurately in my judgment--called it "a rip-roaring yarn" (The Guardian) and "a rollicking historical picaresque" (Publisher's Weekly). Kehlmann has a gift for description and some of his set pieces are extraordinary works of description and terribly moving. And that's the problem: this is all that...but no more. In the end the book left me feeling that it was less than the sum of its parts. The book is a tale of Tyll’s life (he moves the historical Till Eulenspiegel from the 14th century up to the early 17th century and the Thirty Years War). He tells the tale, or the life, in episodes and the episodes never added up to a full life. Not even close, sadly. Tyll is wonderfully alive in the show more beginning but as the new episodes add more brilliant stories, he becomes almost a stick figure, the same aspects of his character shown, the same bits told over and over, as if Kehlmann had spent so much time on creating his contexts that he ran out of imagination when it came to placing his protagonist in them. Make no mistake: he is a great writer (and Ross Benjamin’s translation is terrific)…but ultimately I found myself disappointed despite the inventiveness, the cleverness, and the ingenious and even inspired situations. show less

Daniel Kehlmann zeichnet hier ein facettenreiches Bild des berühmten Tyll Ulenspiegel, das in der Tradition des Schelmenromans steht, allerdings auch weit darüber hinausgeht. Hier wird nicht die Geschichte eines harmlosen Possenreissers oder Hoffnarren erzählt, sondern die wechselvolle Lebensgeschichte einer vielschichtigen Persönlichkeit; die gesamte finstere, düstere, lebensbedrohliche Welt des 30jährigen Krieges kommt hier voll zum Tragen. Kehlmann erzählt virtuos, und die prallen, derben, saftigen und fröhlichen Anekdoten sind genauso gelungen wie die Beschreibung der politischen Intrigen, der Feldzüge, des Aberglaubens, der Hexenverbrennungen, der bitteren Armut und Not. Ein sehr plastisches, amüsantes und auch zum show more Nachdenken anregendes Panorama wird hier entfaltet. Ein ganz großer Wurf. show less