The King David Report

by Stefan Heym

Book Overview

In this retelling of the biblical story, King Solomon commissions Ethan the Scribe to write the official history of King David. In return for the finest cooking in the land and the wages of a minor prophet, Ethan must write a proper record, full of glory and battles, statecraft and honor--a tribute to David and, of course, to Solomon, his heir. But as Ethan explores the story, he finds another life hidden behind the iron curtain dividing past from...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0810115379
• ISBN13: 9780810115378
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Length: 254 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Tohuwabohu

An eminent scholar is asked by King Salomon to write a true - nothing but the truth - biography of his father King David. The scholar's research reveals a not so quite divine portrait of the late king. It is heavily stained by incest, sodomy, treachery, lechery, manslaughter, bloodbaths and opportunism. In one word, it exposes a satanic character. King David followed the advice of his counsellor: 'In order to reign you should have but one goal: power, and love only one person: yourself.' The scholar discovers also some very compromising facts about the present king. He recognizes all too well that he lives in a split world: 'I do not say what I know; I say what I don't think; I think what I don't say; I want to say what I should not think. I am a dog turning around and around trying to catch a flea on my tail.' 'Truth is the daughter of ill fate.' His report becomes a tohuwabohu: a rewrite of a rewrite ... until he looses his job. The king's command of a true biography turns into an order for censure. There should be a yawning abyss between reality and what his subjects should believe: 'Do as I say, not as I do.' This novel was (and is) an extremely intelligent attack on the 'newspeak' of one party-communist regimes, which wield(ed) complete control of the communications sector. But the problems it tackled are even more actual and widespread today. Our world is dominated by big media monopolies, which are controlled by the powerful, who in turn control the government. These powerful people are not interested in the truth, only in 'their' truth. Sabotage or direct liquidation of free objective journalism is rampant all over our planet. This novel is an extremely clever and magisterial exposure of the all important 'the media and the powerful'-issue. A must read.

A tour de force

Being the account of the life and times of the Biblical King David, this historical novel, masquerading as an official report from King Solomon's designated historical interpreters, shines a brilliant light on the Biblical David as well as on the process by which fact becomes "historical truth". Imagining the court of King Solomon, a somewhat small-minded, self-seeking, albeit reasonably clever, Near Eastern potentate, Stefan Heym here conjures for us a picture of a reluctant scholar sucked into the maelstrom of politics and revisionism by which governing bureaucracies have historically secured their rule. Called to Jerusalem by King Solomon to help glorify the memory of his father, David, and establish the regime's bona fides, Ethan of Ezra, an actual Biblical personage credited with writing one of the psalms, must seek out the varying threads of King David's life from those who have survived him and meld these with the official records and documents of Solomon's court, all with an eye toward creating a legendary king who will give legitimacy to the rule of the petty tyrant, Solomon. Ethan does this at continued risk to his own life and to what is his, driven by an insatiable desire to ferret out and preserve some semblance of truth. All the while, he must find ways to compromise and get away from the court intrigues in one piece. The King David he discovers is not a particularly lovely specimen of humanity and it is Ethan's challenge to preserve a glimpse of this true David, through the smoke and mirrors of the official history he must write. Satiric and ironic by turns, the tale has one real flaw: its characters, though sharply realized, remain aloof from us, people we see but do not greatly care about. However, the book is so well written otherwise, the ancient world of the Bible so brilliantly evoked, that this deficiency does no harm to the book itself. This one is finely wrought as it lays out a convincing tale of how the Bible we have may actually have come to be and of what must really lie beneath the surface of the confused and folklorish tale of David that has come down to us from its ancient authors. SWM The King of Vinland's Saga

Truth will prevail

This is another masterpiece from Stefan Heym, the pseudonym for Helmut Flieg. The author is an East German/American Jewish writer, known for his controversial political standing, and as an advocate of "real socialism" he has been a victim of totalitarism and western democracy alike. In "The King David Report," Hyem has retold the old biblical/legendary/historical story of King David. The main character, who personifies the author, is Ethan of Ezra, a wise, truthful man who has been entrusted by King Solomon to write the official version of King David's life and deeds. Ethan is the intellectual who must face the conflicts of time and who is tormented by the limitations which are set to his writing the truth, who soon realizes that learned men are an annoyance to the people and a bother to the servants of the King. To what extent should he expose the truth of King David's life, who setting aside his political glory can also be accused of being a murderer, adulterer, and a machiavellic leader? How does history deal with a King whose only purpose was power, who only loved himself, whose God was made exclusive to himself and justified his crimes in the name of the Holy One? Ethan soon realizes that the outlaw will cover his tracks rather than leave behind accounts of his exploits, and a high price is to be paid by those who are willing to bring forth the truth.How are we to deal with historical undesirable matter? Tell it all, tell it with discretion, or don't tell it. Heym's intention is to extrapolate the story of King David to events taken place in our recent history, something that comes out quite easily for the reader. But despite oppression, torture, false witnesses, perversion of the facts, plariarism, and the death of the innocent, the author is a positive, optimistic thinker. He believes that it is impossible to entirely divorce history from truth and expect it to remain credible. "As the sun breaks through the clouds, truth will break through words...""The King David Report" has a complex structure, a well-documented background, and a clear ironic transparency. It is a well-elaborated piece of literature, which must be seen as a historical novel, a biblical account, and a political satire.

Smart, snappy, and brilliant

I completely agree with what another reviewer said about this book: it is entirely engrossing, extremely well-informed, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. However, the same reviewer goes on the compare it to Hurston's "Moses Man of the Mountain." There is no comparison between the two. Hurston's retelling of a biblical story is written in sometimes decent, yet most of the time decidedly spotty prose, and her implicit statements about the valuable application of Moses' exodus to today's modern world are, at best, inconsistent. This is in contrast to The King David Report, which I found to be seamlessly constructed and flawlessly written, in addition to having an articulate and intersting meaning in light of the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, two of which were experienced first hand by the author himself. I just wanted to say so for anyone who felt as I do about Moses, Man of the Mountain, and who might have been disuaded by the comparison from reading Heym's great work.

History, as written by the winners.

Like other recent eastern european authors like Bulgakov and Dombrovsky, Stefan Heym writes a novel based on Biblical events to tell a tale of life in a totalitarian state. Ethan of Ezra, allegedly the wisest man in Israel is commisioned to write the true story of the life of King David. Unfortunately his patron is none other than Solomon, who is anxious for a certain interpretation of his father's life. This is a marvellous book, turning a dry piece of Old Testament prose into the stuff of political feuds and drama that looses nothing in a couple of thousand years of waiting.