Starred review from October 21, 2019
The latest from Kehlmann (Measuring the World), is a rollicking historical picaresque that follows the legendary trickster, acrobat, juggler, and jack-of-all-trades Tyll Ulenspiegel as he and his company make their way through a 17th-century German countryside gutted by the Thirty Years’ War. After his father, a miller in a small village, is executed by the Jesuits for heresy (courtesy of an unusually sympathetic hangman), the young Tyll escapes with his adopted sister, Nele, and becomes pupil to the wandering (and treacherous) entertainer Pirmin. Tyll’s ensuing adventures unfold over the course of eight distinct episodes resembling folktales, some of which put the canny Tyll in the foreground, while others feature him only as a witness to the main action. In this manner, readers meet the fat count Martin von Wolkenstein en route from the Viennese court in the thick of battle and encountering a slyly mocking Tyll in the forest; next, Tyll appears in the Hague as the court fool of the so-called “Winter King” Friedrich V and his queen in exile from their kingdom in Bohemia; and two unlikely traveling companions, the great mathematician Adam Olearius and the occultist Dr. Kircher (who is searching the land for dragon’s blood in order to cure the plague), find themselves guests of Tyll, Nele, and Origenes, their talking donkey—and these are just a few highlights. Located somewhere between German romanticism and modernism, superstition and science, history and high fantasy, this is a rapturous and adventuresome novel of ideas that, like Tyll’s roaming sideshow, must be experienced to be believed.
November 15, 2019
One of Germany's most celebrated young novelists updates and transforms the 16th-century classic Till Eulenspiegel. The story is now set during the Thirty Years' War, 300 years after the time of the original story. And the boy protagonist's name is now spelled Tyll Ulenspiegel. After his Lutheran father, Claus, a miller, is hanged by the fanatical Jesuit inquisitor Oswald Tesimond for possessing books on black magic, Tyll escapes his village with his sister, Nele. A precocious kid with an obsession for tightrope walking, he becomes a prankish entertainer and provocateur who can transfix crowds with his act and create chaos. Told through multiple points of view, the novel mixes such historical figures as Elizabeth, exiled Winter Queen of Bohemia, with folkloric characters including a talking donkey named Origenes. Parts of the book could hardly be more relevant to the present, including this circular exchange on torture: "Without torture no one would ever confess anything!" "Whereas under torture everyone confesses." In exploring the borders between history and myth, Kehlmann (You Should Have Left, 2017, etc.) sometimes risks putting off readers with his intellectual gamesmanship. More often, he creates odd, darkly entertaining scenes. The miller is at the center of several of them. He is executed for possessing a book of spells that he can't read because it's in Latin. And no one has ever faced the gallows as sated as Claus, who pushes an all-you-can-eat last-meal policy to the max. A richly inventive work of literature with a colorful cast of characters.
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Starred review from January 1, 2020
A bestseller in Germany, Kehlmann's tale convincingly sweeps Tyll Ulenspiegel, the classic itinerant trickster from German folklore, ahead from medieval times to the seventeenth century and the Thirty Years' War. Injecting gleeful dark humor into a setting that manages to feel both fantastically dystopian and historically grounded, the irresistible story highlights the chaotic devastation of the era, during which millions across Europe died, and shows how a prankster like Tyll hardly has a monopoly on foolish behavior. Some of the book's eight nonchronological, interlinked episodes are told, in part, from Tyll's perspective, while in others he appears as a minor character. He survives a rough childhood (and emerges changed after being forced to stay alone in the forest overnight), sees his miller father betrayed by witch-hunting Jesuits, trains as a performer, becomes court jester to the deposed Winter King and Queen of Bohemia, and more. Kehlmann pokes fun at Germany's language and traditions as Tyll entertains and insults people across the social spectrum, from royalty to laborers. Indeed, Tyll's unique position lets him interact with a variety of folk, enhancing the scope of this picaresque tale. English-speaking readers may not recognize all the historical characters, but no prior knowledge is needed to enjoy Tyll's adventures.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)