![]() ![]() Tyll takes off with Nele who’s happy to dodge the marriage, incessant childbirth and early death which looms ahead of her. With villagers always keen to point the finger at those who bring misfortune while placating the authorities, not least God, Claus meets an inevitable fate. His father is fascinated by books, keen to learn as many of the world’s secrets as he can despite having trouble deciphering them, and eager to discuss his ideas with the two passing scholars who turn out to be Jesuits on the lookout for heresy. Opening in a small village when the miller’s eponymous son is still a child, Tyll takes us from the early years of the war to the convoluted negotiations which will bring it to its end.Ī sharp, clever little boy, Tyll is never quite the same after spending two nights alone in the woods in the grips of a fever after his mother went into premature labour. Not a setting which instantly appeals to me but Kehlmann’s a writer I can‘t resist. ![]() In comparison Tyll is a lengthy, historical novel set against the backdrop of the Thirty Years War which raged across what we now know as central Europe from 1618 to 1648. His last book, You Should Have Left, was a short, gothic number, both chilling and riveting. I’ve read all of Daniel Kehlmann’s translated novels, each very different from the others but all witty and smart. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |