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Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann review – plague, war and practical jokes

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/18/tyll-daniel-kehlmann-review

The talented Austro-German has created a dazzling, picaresque romp but he squanders the potential of his best character

Time and again, Daniel Kehlmann’s novels feature an artist whose success depends on leaving his wife and children. (His last book broke with the formula to follow a harassed screenwriter on holiday with his family; it’s called You Should Have Left.) The creative travails of men, and the collateral damage they inflict, may not seem a surefire draw for book-buyers, yet Kehlmann, who writes in German, is translated into more than 40 languages – he’s fun to read, and his books travel light, uncluttered by cultural references.

Not so Tyll. Set in early 17th-century Europe, it takes place during the thirty years’ war, a sectarian power struggle over the Holy Roman Empire, which ravaged Germany and left millions dead. Wikipedia wormholes await the reader unfamiliar with, say, the battle of Zusmarshausen, the poet Martin Opitz, or indeed the novel’s eponymous hero, lifted from a 16th-century folk tale about a lawless practical joker who roams the land exposing hypocrisy (Michael Rosen once adapted the story).

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