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Synopsis
Darkness At Noon stands as an unequaled fictional portrayal of the nightmare politics of our time. Its hero is an aging revolutionary, imprisoned and psychologically tortured by the Party to which he has dedicated his life. As the pressure to confess preposterous crimes increases, he re-lives a career that embodies the terrible ironies and human betrayals of a totalitarian movement masking itself as an instrument of deliverance. Almost unbearably vivid in its depiction of one man's solitary agony, Darkness At Noon asks questions about ends and means that have relevance not only for the past but for the perilous present. It is—as the Times Literary Supplement has declared—"A remarkable book, a grimly fascinating interpretation of the logic of the Russian Revolution, indeed of all revolutionary dictatorships, and at the same time a tense and subtly intellectualized drama..."
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Review
This splendid novel is set in the tumultuous Soviet Union of the 1930s during the treason trials. Rubashov, the protagonist and a hero of the revolution, is arrested and jailed for things he has not done, though there is much about the current Soviet state that veered from his ideals as a revolutionary. His investigators, Ivanov and Gletkin, seek a public confession and interrogate him using a number of methods. Through the ordeal, Rubashov reaches an epiphany or two while his interrogators suffer the cruel fate of the Soviet machine. Darkness at Noon succeeds as political/historical novel, but even more so as a refreshing tale of the human spirit.
About the Author
Arthur Koestler was born in Budapest in 1905. He attended the university of Vienna before working as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Berlin and Paris. For six years he was an active member of the Communist Party, and was captured by Franco in the Spanish Civil War. In 1940 he came to England. He wrote The Gladiators in Hungarian, Darkness at Noon in German, and Arrival and Departure in English. He set up the Arthur Koestler Award (now the Koestler Trust) which awards prizes for creative achievements to prisoners, detainees and patients in special hospitals. He died in 1983 by suicide, having frequently expressed a belief in the right to euthanasia.
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- PublisherRandom House UK
- Publication date1973
- ISBN 10 0091146100
- ISBN 13 9780091146108
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages276
- Rating
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Darkness At Noon (Danube Edition)
Seller: The Real Book Shop, Portland, United Kingdom
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Fair. Dust Jacket Condition: Good. "From a prison cell in an unnamed country run by a totalitarian government Rubashov reflects. Once a powerful player in the regime, mercilessly dispensing with anyone who got in the way of his party s aims, Rubashov has had the tables turned on him. He has been arrested and he ll be interrogated, probably tortured and certainly executed." - Koestlerarts. Rare copy. Mustard and black dust jacket. 1973 Danube Edition. Black cloth boards. CONDITION: Used, fair. Ex library book with associated stickers and marks. Dust jacket intact and covered in library poly cover. Seller Inventory # ABE-1690799360364
Quantity: 1 available