# Kevenhüller — The Story of Gösta Berling character guide

> Kevenhüller in The Story of Gösta Berling by Selma Lagerlöf.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0037-part-ii-xx-kevenh-ller

## Snapshot

An eccentric inventor among the Ekeby cavaliers, forever tinkering with strange machines and impossible schemes that make him both ridiculous and oddly admirable.

## Who they are

Kevenhüller belongs to the loose brotherhood of pensioners who drink, carouse, and spin tall tales at Ekeby, but his particular obsession is invention: he builds contraptions nobody asked for and dreams of mechanical wonders that the world is not ready to receive. His comic futility cuts against the novel's deeper melancholy, since his genius, like the cavaliers' freedom, is a gift that never quite finds its use. He matters because he embodies Lagerlöf's affection for glorious misfits, the men whose failures are more alive than other people's successes.

## In the story

### [Kevenhüller](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_story_of_g_sta_berling_se/chapters/part-ii-xx-kevenh-ller)

The protagonist of the chapter, a master inventor cursed by a wood-nymph; he creates an automatic carriage, a flying machine, and a fire-wheel, but is driven to despair and attempts to burn Ekeby.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_story_of_g_sta_berling_se/characters/kevenhuller
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_story_of_g_sta_berling_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_story_of_g_sta_berling_se/characters