THE WRITER'S FASCINATION WITH POWER:

Critical analysis of Stefan Heym’s Konig-David-Bericht has typically concentrated upon the novel’s parallelism of the official orchestration of public chronicles at the court of King Solomon with the GDR’s manipulation of its socialist heritage. The focus has been upon the nature of power rather than upon the intellectuals that compose such chronicles in the service of the state. The present article reverses this focus and argues that rather than presenting a profound critique of the GDR or of any other particular state (the portrayal of power being fairly monolithic), the novel in fact constructs a typology of intellectuals/writers. The writer as warrior, the intellectual as power behind the throne, the court scribe, the incorporated prophet figure, and the eunuch all define variants on the relationship between the intellectual and power. Above all, however, the King David Report examines the nature of dissidence, and it is here that Heym draws some of his most surprising ‐ and revealing ‐ conclusions. ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ ‐‐‐