![]() ![]() The book recounts Tyll’s life from his childhood in a tiny village to his ascent to the 17th-century equivalent of showbusiness celebrity as a court jester. This is because it first of all succeeds as a rip-roaring yarn – one of the reasons it’s being turned into a Netflix series. ![]() However, it demonstrates that it’s possible to read Tyll with pleasure while knowing next to nothing about the history. ![]() ![]() I’m ashamed to admit that before I began this book I knew less about this conflict, which shaped modern Europe and cost millions of lives, than I did about the bloody but fictional struggles that tear Westeros apart in Game of Thrones. Kehlmann, who found fame with another historical novel, 2006’s Measuring the World, transplants his hero to the gritty context of the thirty years’ war, which I now know lasted from 1618 to 1648. Tyll Ulenspiegel first crops up in a German jokebook – the gratifyingly evocative German word is Schwankbuch – from the early 16th century. T he hero of Daniel Kehlmann’s new novel is based on a character from German folklore, a subversive prankster who challenges the social order with filthy slapstick and fart jokes, like an X-rated Robin Hood. ![]()
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