![]() First edition (Rowohlt, 2017) | |
Author | Daniel Kehlmann |
---|---|
Translator | Ross Benjamin |
Country | Germany |
Language | German |
Genre | Historical |
Publisher | Rowohlt Verlag |
Publication date | October 2017 |
Published in English | 6 February 2020 |
Media type | Print (hardback) |
Pages | 473 |
ISBN | 978-3-498-03567-9 |
OCLC | 1006404492 |
833/.914 | |
LC Class | PT2671.E32 T95 2017 |
Tyll is a 2017 novel, originally written in German, by the Austrian-German writer Daniel Kehlmann. The book is based, in part, on the folkloristic tales about Till Eulenspiegel, a jester who was the subject of a chapbook in 16th century Germany, [1] as well as on the history of the Thirty Years' War. The book was first published in October 2017 in the original German by Rowohlt Verlag. [2] An English translation by Ross Benjamin was published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Penguin Random House, New York, in February 2020. [3] Between its initial publication in 2017, and its publication in English, Tyll had sold almost 600,000 copies in Germany. [4]
Kehlmann does not narrate Tyll's story in a linear fashion. The chapter "Shoes" that serves as the novel's prologue tells a tale from the middle of the jester's life.
"Shoes." Deep into the Thirty Years' War Tyll Ulenspiegel arrives in a town where the war had not yet come, along with Nele, an old woman, and the donkey. The inhabitants of the town recognize Tyll from his widespread fame, even though they had never seen him before. Tyll and Nele perform to great applause. The performance culminates in a high-wire act, through which Tyll initiates a prank that causes violent upheaval.
"The Lord of the Air." This chapter presents the actual beginning of the narrative. The reader encounters his father Claus Ulenspiegel, the miller of their town, who is not like the others: he is able to read, loves books, and desires to study the mysteries of the world. Tyll's father is accused of witchcraft, which results in his trial, conviction, and execution. Knowing his prior life is now gone, Tyll asks Nele to join him as they leave the village forever.
"Zusmarshausen." It is nearly the end of the war, and it has come to the Emperor's attention that the "famous jester" (i.e. Tyll) has found shelter in the heavily damaged Andechs Abbey. The Emperor gives the task of finding Ulenspiegel and bringing him back to Vienna to the not quite 25 years old Martin von Wolkenstein.
"Kings in Winter." Elizabeth Stuart and her husband have suffered an ill fate as the King and Queen of Bohemia. During her and Friedrich's exile in The Hague in the Netherlands, a jester (Tyll) and his female companion (Nele) appear and ask for employment.
“Hunger.” After leaving their home village, Tyll and Nele are traveling with the cruel Pirmin, who is teaching the children the trade of a performer.
“The Great Art of Light and Shadow.” Kircher, a court mathematician, and an assistant join a quest for dragon's blood.
“In the Shaft.” A commandant tells Tyll he must join a unit of soldiers. Feeling he would be safe from bullets underground, Tyll chooses to become a miner.
“Westphalia.” The Winter Queen appears in Osnabrück to reclaim the electoral dignity of the Palatinate for her son.
The reception of the novel upon its publication in the German-speaking countries was largely positive. Roman Bucheli of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung called Kehlmann's novel a "masterpiece". The critic claims that the book is "more than a novel" because it has chosen "wit and reason," as well as "art and knowledge" as its allies. [6]
Equally enthusiastic was Christoph Bartmann of the Süddeutsche Zeitung Munich, who sees in Kehlmann's Tyll his best book since his bestselling novel Measuring the World, that appeared in 2005, twelve years earlier. [7]
The novel was published in the United States in a translation by Ross Benjamin, a translator known for translations of novels by Friedrich Hölderlin and Joseph Roth, as well as the diaries by Franz Kafka. [8]
Simon Ings of The Times denotes Tyll as "a laugh-outloud-then-weep-into-your-beer comic novel about a war." He goes on to emphasize the parallels between Kehlmann's novel, which the writer bases on transferring Till Eulenspiegel's story into the era of the Thirty Years' War, and another novel actually written about that exact same era and published twenty years after the end of the war, Simplicius Simplicissimus by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (1668). [9]
Reviewing Kehlmann's novel for the Washington Post, the novelist Jon Michaud comments on the structure of Tyll: "Each chapter functions as a self-contained short story or novella with recurring themes and characters tying the whole together. Some are more successful than others, and the best are transfixing." [10]
The novel is currently being adapted into a television series for Netflix. The adaptation will be produced by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, the showrunners of Dark . [11]
German literature comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German parts of Switzerland and Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, South Tyrol in Italy and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German, but there are some currents of literature influenced to a greater or lesser degree by dialects.
Oswald von Wolkenstein was a poet, composer and diplomat. In his diplomatic capacity, he traveled through much of Europe to as far as Georgia.
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Till Eulenspiegel is the protagonist of a European narrative tradition. A German chapbook published around 1510 is the oldest known extant publication about the folk hero, but a background in earlier Middle Low German folklore is likely. The character may have been based on a historical person.
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Walter Trier was a Czech-German illustrator, best known for his work for the children's books of Erich Kästner and the covers of the magazine Lilliput.
The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak is an 1867 French-language novel by Belgian author Charles De Coster. Based on the Low German literary figure Till Eulenspiegel, Coster's novel recounts the allegorical adventures as those of a Flemish prankster, Thyl Ulenspiegel, directly before and during the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule in the Netherlands.
Daniel Kehlmann is a German-language novelist and playwright of both Austrian and German nationality.
Tarzan the Untamed is a book by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the seventh in his series of twenty-four books about the title character Tarzan. It was originally published as two separate stories serialized in different pulp magazines; "Tarzan the Untamed" in Redbook from March to August, 1919, and "Tarzan and the Valley of Luna" in All-Story Weekly from March to April 1920. The two stories were combined under the title of the first in the first book edition, published in 1920 by A. C. McClurg. In order of writing, the book follows Jungle Tales of Tarzan, a collection of short stories about the ape-man's youth. Chronologically, it follows Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar.
Measuring the World is a novel by Austrian author Daniel Kehlmann, published in 2005 by Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek. The novel re-imagines the lives of German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and German geographer Alexander von Humboldt—who was accompanied on his journeys by French explorer Aimé Bonpland—and their many groundbreaking ways of taking the world's measure, as well as Humboldt's and Bonpland's travels in America and their meeting in 1828. One subplot fictionalises the conflict between Gauss and his son Eugene; while Eugene wanted to become a linguist, his father decreed that he study law. The book was a bestseller; by 2012 it had sold more than 2.3 million copies in Germany alone.
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