PositiveThe Telegraph India (IND)[Lee] probes deep into the emotions that drive Stoppard’s works and her literary-critical readings of his works supplement the biographical details. Those not as familiar with Stoppard’s oeuvre will get a very clear idea about his versatility ... Lee provides a rounded, but mostly positive, account of Stoppard’s life and work.
Daniel Kehlmann, Trans. by Ross Benjamin
MixedThe Telegraph India (IND)... a rich retelling of the stories that have come down to us from medieval chapbooks and nineteenth-century reconstructions that connected the protagonist to the Reformation ... The later sections of the novel, however, struggle to hold the reader’s interest and after being totally absorbed in the tale of Tyll’s village, the reader is likely to feel lost in the many courtrooms, battlefields and the variety of landscapes that appear one after another ... many names that appear in the later sections of the novel will often send the reader off to look them up in history books and encyclopaedias, sometimes even increasing the confusion further as many of them are very convincing and realistic creations by the author ... Kehlmann introduces an interesting mix of literary devices ... One element that held out much promise in the initial sections was the hint of magic realism ... The character of Tyll Eulenspiegel also does not fail to impress wherever he appears in the book. Despite showing much promise, Kehlmann’s Tyll, nevertheless, has room for improvement. Although the picaresque genre that the novel adopts is all about creating a multiplicity of stories, some coherence and a better interweaving of the tales would have gone a long way in giving the reader some direction ... After many adventures in the novel, whether involving the protagonist or not, when one reaches the last pages, it is only natural to wonder whether the novel has really ended.
