io6z Reviews Rezeption und Zeitlichkeit des WerkesChristoph Heins. By Terrance Albrecht. (Europaische Hochschulschriften, Reihe I: Deutsche Sprache und Literatur, 1740) Frankfurt a.M., Berlin, and Bern: Lang. 2000. 191 pp. ?33.20. ISBN 3-63135837 -7 (Pbk). Christoph Hein in Perspective. Ed. by Graham Jackman. (German Monitor, 51) Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. 2000. vii + 3o6pp. $21. ISBN 90-4201482 -2 (pbk). In the preface to Christoph Hein's Von allem Anfang an, the narrator writes of his memories as 'ein regelrechter MottenfraB', fragmentary and full of holes which his writing is an attempt to fill.He might have been writing of literary scholarship: these two publications complement each other in a number of ways, treating a variety of topics relating to Hein's works, while neither claims to present an overview. Ter? rance Albrecht's book is based on his 1997 Humboldt University dissertation, while Christoph Hein in Perspective includes the papers delivered at a conference on Hein at the Gesamteuropaisches Studienwerk Vlotho in July 1999. Both, therefore, were composed before Hein's latest novel Willenbrock (2000). Rezeption und Zeitlichkeit, as the title indicates, deals with two separate aspects of Hein's work, each of which could loosely be described as 'temporal'. 'Rezeption' is a historical survey, while 'Zeitlichkeit' investigates Hein's literary treatment of time. No attempt is made to link them, however. The first chapter of the book traces the press reception of Hein's texts in East and West up to and including Das Napoleon-Spiel (1993). Much of it is predictable: East German reviewers tended to look for orthodoxy while West Germans sought out the subversiveness. The second chapter is more useful, documenting archive ma? terial relating to behind-the-scenes arguments in the GDR over the publication of Hein's works, in particular the plays Die wahre Geschichte des Ah Q and Die Ritter der Tafelrunde and the novel Horns Ende. Albrecht demonstrates that the SED's cultural policies by no means developed in a linear manner but remained to the last filled with contradictions. Most interestingly,it becomes clear that in the 1980s it was possible for courageous publishers and theatre directors to overcome the opposition even of such as Kurt Hager to the staging of controversial plays and the publishing of controversial novels: Horns Ende, indeed, appeared without permission. Some ques? tions remain unasked: while the reason why Der fremde Freund became Drachenblut in the West is well enough known, why was the title of Einladungzum Lever bourgeois changed into Nachtfahrt und friiher Morgen for West German consumption? Why did the firstWest German edition of this collection exclude the heavily critical 'Der Sohn' although later editions included it? The third chapter takes an abruptly differenttack and formsthe 'meat' in Albrecht's book. Adopting techniques ofanalysis based on, among others, Walter Benjamin, Paul Ricoeur, and Sigrid Weigel, Albrecht offerssubtle and illuminating readings of Hein's texts in relation to 'Formen der Erinnerung und Zeitlichkeit', centring largely on Der fremde Freund and Horns Ende, but with a section devoted to Das Napoleon-Spiel. Through his investigations of topics such as allegory, time levels, myth, memory, and subjectivity, he shows how Hein's subtexts subvert the ostensible 'readings' by the fictional characters. He concludes that Hein's texts prior to the 'Wende' contain a utopian element, of which the characters themselves are unaware but which the subtext conveys to the reader and which Albrecht terms after Blaise Pascal 'die Vernunft des Herzens'; from Die Ritter der Tafelrunde onwards, and especially in Das Napoleon-Spiel, this utopian element has given way to 'eine kalte Bestandsaufnahme' (pp. 177-78). Albrecht is also one of the contributors to Christoph Hein in Perspective. 'Der kalkulierte Zufall als Provokationgegen Recht und Erinnerung' is, however, identical MLRy 98.4, 2003 1063 almost word for word with the chapter on Das Napoleon-Spiel in his book, although this is nowhere stated. This is not the only curiosity in these conference proceedings: Phil McKnight's 'History and GDR Literature' is the English version of a paper published in Riickblicke auf die Literatur der DDR (edited by Hans-Christian Stillmark ); why it has been translated (back?) into English fora volume which contains in equal...