SOURCE: McKnight, Phillip. “The Absence of Malice: Das Napoleon-Spiel.” In Understanding Christoph Hein, edited by James Hardin, pp. 113–35. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995.

In the following essay, McKnight analyzes the character Wörle's explanations for how and why he plays games in Das Napoleon-Spiel.

Das Napoleon-Spiel, 1993 (The Napoleon Game), Hein's most recent novel, appeared as a series in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in the spring of 1993 before the book was released. While he was writing the novel, Hein's attention was diverted by the events of 1989 and especially by his own participation on the committee established to investigate police brutality in the GDR during the demonstrations of 7 and 9 October 1989. The following year, his work on Das Napoleon-Spiel was interrupted by two life-threatening brain operations and the ensuing long rehabilitation period, during which he was able to work only an hour or so each day. He had collapsed on...