Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Darkness at Noon
Book Review: A Powerful Work
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a powerful work of fiction which is mostly fact in its nature. It is the story of Communism and the men who made it. It is also an examination of a man caught in a trap which he himself created. Rubachev, facing death at the hands of the party and system which he was instrumental in creating, is forced to look back at his own treatment of others in the same system.The protagonist never seems to be able to come to an understanding of what is right. His last thoughts are not that the intellectual basis of his belief system was utterly corrupt, rather it s that he would rather have studied astronomy.
This book is necessary reading if one wishes to understand the totalitarian mind.
Book Review: A TRUE MASTERPIECE!
Summary: 5 Stars
What can one say about Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon"? Well besides the fact that it perfectly documents the Soviet totalitarian regime or that Koestler's prose is one of the most beautiful of the English language. It is hard not to like "Darkness at Noon" because in so many ways it represents something that is very rare in our modern culture: Perfection.Book Review: A chilling story of the darkness of the collective system
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the book which Communist apologists dread - a chilling and all together dark tale of totalitarian governments in the name of the people. Whether it be Russia of the1930's, China of the late 40's, Cuba in 1959 or Cambodia in the mid 1970's, Koestler succeeds at the depiction of the sacrifice of the individual for the good of "the movement", and the "good of the movement", which is always in the name of "the people". The book also succeeds in depicting the fallacies of the blind following of the all-knowing "Number 1". It is almost a companion piece to anyone reading the Ayn Rand novels "We the Living" or "Atlas Shrugged". All of a sudden, Ms. Rand doesn't sound so far "out there".
A terrific book and must read for those who still see any legitimacy in the big red monster.
Book Review: A good book if one can understand
Summary: 2 Stars
The novel Darkness at Noon would be a very good book if the person who is reading it were very into politics and communism. In order to understand this book completely the reader needs to be very well informed of the past. In this way they need to be able to understand history and know a lot about it. They also need to be able to compare Koestlers story and actual history and put the two together. The reader also needs to be able to realize that the story is parallel to Machiavelli and Stalin. The main character Rubashov refers to Machiavelli and Stalin a great deal in the story even though it is never actually stated that he is talking about the two of them. It seems that the character Rubashov wants to be like them and that he has in the past tried to make what he was doing to be something that they would have done. If a reader does not know a great deal about history they can begin to like the book if they pay attention to what is happening to Rubashov. Although there are not many things that go on outside of Rubashov trying to figure out what he is going to do about his trial. In order to read the book for this purpose a reader really needs to concentrate and understand that there are things going on in the background. The reader will also need to read between the lines and think more into the psychological meaning of the book. If a person is reading to book for this they will pay more attention to the conversations that Rubashov has with other cell mates and his love for Avolra. The reader would also want to pay attention to the conflict that Rubashov has with himself.
Darkness at Noon was written to give a person an image about what would happen if one was a communist and was trying to change the world. There is so many things that go on in the book that it is very hard for a reader to grasp one concept before Koestler is already going on and almost done with the next thing that the reader should grasp. If one was to read this book they should be older and be able to understand more of the themes in the story rather than to read it at a young age and not being able to understand what they are reading while they are reading the novel.
Book Review: A showdown of conflicting dualities
Summary: 5 Stars
Arthur Koestler's novel Darkness At Noon explores the inner struggle raging inside Nicolas Salmonovitch Rubashov, a bureaucrat and Old Bolshevik who is arrested in 1939 on charges of conspiring to assassinate Stalin. While awaiting his sentence, he is forced to reexamine his past. The conflict within Rubashov can be construed as a struggle between several sets of dualities: Communism versus Christianity, "we" versus "I," the Party versus the individual, emotionless logic versus emotional conscience, a.k.a. "the grammatical fiction", lies versus the truth, old Bolsheviks versus new Bolsheviks, and regarding History, the Party, and Stalin, the most important duality of all: right versus wrong. Whatever the outcome, as Rubashov says throughout the book, "I shall pay."Rubashov is expected to do the right thing, to logically arrive at the conclusion that he was wrong and that Stalin and the Party were right, but while in his cell, contemplates his past in daydreams, silent soliloquys, monologues, in the process analyzing monologues as "dialogues of a special kind; dialogues in which one partner remains silent while the other, against all grammatical rules, addresses him as 'I' instead of 'you.' He revisits his past and remembers the people he betrayed, such a Richard, the German communist, Little Loewy, the Belgian communist who takes issue with Stalin supporting Hitler with mineral shipments prior to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, and Arlova, the librarian and Rubashov's former secretary whom he denounces just to save his own skin.
Also, consider this: "History has taught us that often lies serve her better than the truth; for man is sluggish and has to be led through the desert for forty years before each step in his development." Key to the argument of truth and lies is Stalin's absolute control of Party policy. As Rubashov wonders during one of his bouts of doubt: "And what if, after all, No. 1 were in the right? If here, in dirt and blood and lies, after all and in spite of everything, the grandiose foundation of the future were being laid? Had not history always been an ..., unscrupulous builder, mixing its mortar of lies, blood and mud?" Truth is a commodity held ... by Stalin, i.e. what mattered was what Stalin believed was the truth and woe be to he who challenges him.
This is akin to Orwell's 1984, where Winston Smith is forced to repeat the Party slogan: "Whoever controls the past controls the future. Whoever controls the present controls the past" O'Brien replies that "whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth." And the Party has power with control of the truth. Power is thus an end, not a mean.
Koestler displays religious overtones in connection with Rubashov's attack with conscience, ironic considering Marx's view on religion as the opiate of the masses. Rubashov compares the Russian people under Lenin with the Israelites under Moses, who "for forty years... had been driven through the desert, with threats and promises, with imaginary terrors and imaginary rewards. But where was the Promised Land?"
A painstaking introspective look at a man struggling with conscience, but also looks at the dark aspects of the Stalin purges and the ruthless machinery of the Party.