Daniel Kehlman's Top 3 Books

In today's German literary scene, Kehlman could be a sort of Michel Houellebecq only that passed through that German sifting of sobriety despite everything. A broken world, but one that fits together like a strange puzzle, is presented to us readers as this writer enters the material, surely becoming the writer he always wanted to be, freed from all kinds of corseted.

A 100% homegrown deduction but that somehow explains a unique and fascinating derivative of the good old Kehlman. Because the best literature is the one that one does simply convinced to discover that supreme authenticity of the act of writing. The writer and his truth, his longing to strip the world bare in order to observe it like Stendhal or to dare to violate it in a moment of embarrassment.

Okay, maybe he's pointing too blatantly at his soap opera titled simply "F." Because it is fair to say that previously there were historical fictions and tremendous bestsellers in Germany still waiting to achieve the same echo in other countries. Prophet in his land and eternal conqueror of new bookstores beyond the homeland. However, a great writer who, as I say, stands out for a versatility that as soon as appears to a great historical fiction writer as he breaks into the creative avant-garde more dedicated to the plot and formal imagination.

Top 3 recommended novels by Daniel Kehlman

F

F for failure or futility. F for end A tragicomedy like this points to the random, to the unforeseen, to the parked desires that gain new strength when one contemplates behind their backs a past that is barely a thick and cold fog.

Arthur Friedland would like to be a writer, but has always been too cowardly to even try. One afternoon he decides to take his three children to the show of the great Lindemann, a master of hypnotism. Despite the fact that Arthur has always believed himself immune to this type of practice, the magician manages to get him to reveal his most hidden dreams, and that same night Arthur takes his passport, empties his bank account and leaves his family to become a successful author.

And what about the three children? Martin, a priest without a vocation, lives trapped in his obesity, while Eric, a shady financier, faces ruin while losing touch with reality. Iwan, finally, destined to be a famous painter, is about to become a masterful fraud. Anchored in their life options, the three will see how, as the summer of the global financial crisis opens, their destinies cross again.

F by Daniel Kehlman

Tyll

Sometimes the most unexpected characters from the past end up being resurrected in the hands of some writer. And it ends up showing that they were ahead of their time, misunderstood or possessed of the most incredible secrets...

Daniel Kehlmann reinvents the historical novel with this fictionalized biography of a legendary character from German folklore: Tyll Ulenspiegel. Wanderer, artist and provocateur, he was born in the year 1600 in an environment of poverty and violence. As a child, he discovers his ability to entertain people, tightrope walking and juggling. His father, a miller who is also a magician, empiricist and healer, raises the suspicions of the Jesuits and is accused of witchcraft. Tyll is forced to escape with Nele, the baker's daughter.

Thus begins a journey through a country devastated by the Thirty Years' War in which Kehlmann masterfully weaves a web of connected destinies, a cast of fascinating characters who star in this monumental and comic epic. Among others, a young writer who wants to discover what war is really like, a melancholy executioner, a talking donkey, a poetic doctor, a fanatical Jesuit, a wise man who falsified the results of his scientific experiments and Frederick V and Elizabeth of Stuart, the exiled rulers of Bohemia whose mistakes sparked the war.

With this fusion of historical fiction, picaresque and magical realism that reads like an entertaining epic adventure book, Daniel Kehlmann has been compared to Umberto Eco and has positioned himself as the new ambassador of German literature.

Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann

The measurement of the world

One day Daniel Kehlmann metamorphosed into Jules Verne a la Kafka. Out of that came a wonderful, yet disconcerting, story. Because the adventures always have an epic that embroiders everything and we end up parking other types of details between pettiness that curiously can end up forging friendships. Human contradictions made a journey of initiation.

A story full of fine irony centered on two extraordinary characters: Alexander von Humboldt, naturist, explorer and inveterate adventurer of inexhaustible curiosity, and Carl Friedrich Gauss, mathematician and astronomer. When they meet again in Berlin in 1828, already grown up, they remember their youthful years, which they dedicated to the enormous undertaking of measuring the world and, meanwhile, to living a thousand and one adventures. The author shows them to us in all their facets, with their greatness, but also with their foibles and weaknesses, and gets an unprecedented human perspective of these two great names in history.

The measurement of the world
rate post

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.