The 2018 Reading Challenge - #6 - A Novel based on a real person
Hey ya´ll :)
How are you on this wonderful Wednesday?
I actually did it ;) I finished another book for today and its for the category - A Novel based on a real person.
Not the easiest one to find a book for to be honest! Of cause you could go for a memoir in novel form but...don´t even know if something like this exists ^^ haha
Not the easiest one to find a book for to be honest! Of cause you could go for a memoir in novel form but...don´t even know if something like this exists ^^ haha
In the end I decided to go for a book on my shelf already and I got this for christmas.
It might not be the most perfect choice but it fits ;) so here it is I read
Tyll
by Daniel Kehlmann
Till Eulenspiegel (German pronunciation: [tɪl ˈʔɔʏlənˌʃpiːɡəl], Low German: Dyl Ulenspegel IPA: [dɪl ˈʔuːlnˌspeɪɡl̩], Dutch: Tijl Uilenspiegel) is a trickster figure originating in Middle Low German folklore. He appeared in chapbooks telling episodes that outlined his picaresque career in Germany, the Low Countries, Denmark, Bohemia, Poland, and Italy. He made his main entrance in English-speaking culture late in the nineteenth century as "Owlglass". However, he was first mentioned in English literature by Henry Porter in The Two Angry Women of Abington (1599) in the form Owleglasse, and by Ben Jonson in his comedic play The Alchemist (1610).
Again a little summary this time from rowohlt:
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"The vagrant, actor, entertainer and provocateur Tyll Ulenspiegel is born in the early 1600s. Tyll’s father, a miller, is also a magician and explorer, and soon arouses the ire of the village churchmen. Tyll is forced to flee, accompanied by Nele, the baker’s daughter. During his travels through a country devastated by the Thirty Years’ War he meets both ordinary people and great souls. These include the young academic and writer Martin von Wolkenstein, who’s dying to find out what war is really like; the melancholic executioner Tilman; Pirmin, the juggler; Origines, the talking donkey; the exiled rulers of Bohemia, Elizabeth and Friedrich, whose mistakes sparked this great war; the doctor Paul Fleming, whose bizarre plan is to write poems in German; and, not least, the fanatical Jesuit Tesimond and Athanasius Kircher, the renowned sage whose biggest secret is that he forged the startling results of his scientific experiments. Their stories come together in a spellbinding narrative, and an epic re-imagining of the Thirty Years’ War. And who should this violent whirlwind envelop in its fury if not Tyll, the well-known prankster who one day decides to become immortal??"
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All the way through the book it felt like someone tells you a wonderful story.
Its so nice and entertaining to read...I had such a nice time! Its entertaining, thrilling and makes you think about things like war, violence and the...I´m sorry...stupidity of the human race (don´t mean that offensive). Tyll Ulenspegel or Eulenspiegel is a huge part of german narrations and probably everybody in Germany knows at least the name, but you should know that this book is not primarily about Tyll...despite the name...its considerably more about war, the Thirty Years’ War to be precise, and Tyll, who´s story is out of the middle ages, is just kind of the character we are following.
The figure of the rebellious juggler good and evil and a cynical trickster, a type of folk legend which can at any time come to life again, from the middle ages to the 17th century till today, if only one is gifted and cunning enough for it. So its not necessarily Tyll, the original, but can be any guy of the same kidney, a scoffer playing with the internal contradictions and pious lies. If the situation is bad enough anyone can come and use it for their own good.
This story is about a rough time in which people witnessed horrible things - witch hunts, executions, oppression, war and its consequences for lifes and minds.
So keep in mind that a lot of this book is an actual representation of history, which is not told against the chronology, but against the actual causality; it goes back in time, but from cause to cause in the chain of effects. That way the book appears as if it wanted to demonstrate the brutalities of the time but also its subtlety, the artificial and the sought-after, the joy of enigmatic structures. Just like Tyll, juggling with balls, the author juggles with the motifs and states of consciousness of the century, keeping everything in balance, faith or superstition, magic or calculating reason.
There is a lot to discover in this book. Many parallels to other historical figures and stories, little riddles for those who know a lot out the time and literature, many little gimmickrys and riddles like Umberto Eco did it, he seemed to have been a inspiration...even tho I don´t know enough about him to make a huge statement about that ;) But besides all the fun and the "riddles" its a serious and sad story about a terrifying time when a human life weighed nothing and worse things than violence and blood, and hunger and disease were part of everyday life, the devastation inflicted by the external pressure of war upon the individual and above all the emotional distress, overwhelming powerlessness and helplessness.
A book about a horrifying time we all can be glad to not live in, told in a not so serious way and in a light and unadorned way.
A story for those who do not want to completely expose themselves to the horror of the time, but want to take it a bit easier and now and then enjoy the illusion during reading that we live in a so much more enlightened and civilized time today.
I highly highly recommend it ^^
For a little more inspiration and some alternatives ^^
(all summaries are from goodreads and easily found when searching for the title):
Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
The best-known literary inspiration might be Alice Liddell, who, at the age of 10, met Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (under the pen name Lewis Carroll). Dodgson became quite close with the Liddell family, especially young Alice, for whom he wrote the original story. The author took countless photographs of the young girl before abruptly breaking off his friendship with the family in 1863, when Alice was 11 years old. Liddell went on to marry into money and became a celebrated society figure, though she was forced to sell the original Dodgson manuscript at auction in later years to pay her bills.
Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath by Kate Moses
This engrossing debut novel depicts Sylvia Plath's feverish artistic process in the bitter aftermath of her failed marriage to Ted Hughes--the few excruciating yet astoundingly productive weeks in which she wrote Ariel," " her defining last collection of poems. In December 1962, shortly before her suicide, Plath moved with her two children to London from the Hughes's home in Devon. Focusing on the weeks after their arrival, but weaving back through the years of Plath's marriage, Kate Moses imagines the poet juggling the demands of motherhood and muse, shielding her life from her own mother, and by turns cherishing and demonizing her relationship with Ted. Richly imagined yet meticulously faithful to the actual events of Plath's life, Wintering is a remarkable portrait of the moments of bravery and exhilaration that Plath found among the isolation and terror of her depression.
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
A brilliant literary debut, inspired by a true story: the final days of a young woman accused of murder in Iceland in 1829. Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution. Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard. Riveting and rich with lyricism, Burial Rites evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
A deeply evocative story of ambition and betrayal, The Paris Wife captures a remarkable period of time and a love affair between two unforgettable people: Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley. Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris, which hardly values traditional notions of family and monogamy. Surrounded by beautiful women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of his life with Hadley and their circle of friends into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly and her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Despite their extraordinary bond, they eventually find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage—a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so hard for. A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.
Some more inspiration?
Mrs Queen Takes the Train by William Kuhn
The Painted Kiss by Elizabeth Hickey
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks
Lydia Cassat Reading the Morning Paper by Harriet Scott Chessman
Which book did you choose for this category?
Did you read Tyll or any other book about Tyll?
Which book did you choose and did you like it?
With lots of love
♥♥♥
Verena
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