Rating: 
Summary: a frightening if not always interesting novel
Review: This is a pretty vivid picture of paranoia and persecutorial madness. It tells the story of a party leader who has been arrested by the party he has loyally served for his entire life. He's a legend, really, one of the original uprisers who'd helped pave the way for a successful revolution. His arrest seems more to have something to do with a concept of 'out with the old . . .' than any specific crime. And we sit in a cell with this one, panicked man who relates his excuse for being who he was.It is interesting and far from a surrealistic, Kafkaesque haze of uncertainty and fear of death. It is rather direct and to the point in its outlining of the seeming inhumanity of the entire apparatus of justice. And herein lies the tragedy, the understanding that the true crime against humanity to the party--any party--is individuality. Great stuff written almost as a list of incidents.
Rating: 
Summary: Koestler's Masterpiece
Review: Undoubtedly one of the finest accounts, fictional or otherwise, of the Stalinist Terror in the Soviet Union.
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Summary: Darkness At Noon
Review: Darkness At Noon was, for me, hard to understand at times, but was still a good and worthwhile read.
Koestler was able to portray Rubashov with stark reality. Rubashov's talking to himself gives you a good picture of how he is torn between loyalty and dislike for the communist party. However, his shifts from present to past and back again could be confusing at times.
The book also shows the difference in beliefs between people in the Soviet Union. The best example of this is when the prisoner in cell 402, a monarchist, taps to Rubashov, "Bravo, the wolves devour each other".
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Summary: Have some understanding of russian society before you read
Review: As i read this book i was confused about the plot every chapter. To let you know i am not a good reader in the sense that i do not comprehend much of what i read. The book jumped back and forth between one mans flashbacks. They were confusing to me because i do not know much about russian society. Arthur Koestler is a very talented writer, yet, did not intrigue me. If you like books about other cultures and what they were like before the present day, Darkness at Noon gives a very good example of a russian society. Arthur Koestler writes about a man named rubashov who was taken in because he had government indiferences. This book is very dark and repetitive in nature but it has a feel to it like you are there with him in that prison. Read it and like it. Its only 200 pages!
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Summary: To differ with the common opinion here...
Review: Koestler's "Darkness at Noon" is a magnificent book, no doubt about it. However, I believe that the current reviews are a bit mistaken in their depiction of Koestler's argument. First, it is important to undrestand that "Darkness at Noon" is semi-biographical. The experiences involved seem to indicate tha the main character is in truth the Russian intellectual Bukharin, whom Lenin had wanted to succeed himself. Physically speaking, the main character resembles Trotsky. It's likely that these resemblances suggest that Russian socialism could perhaps have worked better under a leader other than Stalin. The common perception that Koestler was demonstrating the "evils" of communism is naive and rather unperceptive. Koestler believed hat Russian communism ultimately failed as a system because it failed to address the spiritual side of man. The "new man" created by their social structure devoid of traditional bourgeoise moral value was abominable. The movement inspires a complete commitment to it; so much, that one sacrifices oneself for the greater good. The individual is completely lost here. Koestler ultimately determines that this is unethical, that progressive "history" is unworthy of the sacrifice of millions of individual lives. But are these flaws latent in communism within the specific context of the novel? Probably not. Koestler was a great critic of Stalin and Utopianism... but it's doubtful he would have considered communism "evil" or have attempted to expose it as such.
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Summary: Wolf Bait
Review: Before addressing one of the finest examples of modern literature, let's get one thing out of the way: President Bill Clinton bears no resemblance to Rubashov, the protagonist in Arthur Koestler's classic Darkness at Noon. At least not a positive one which he wanted aide Sidney Blumenthal to believe when he compared his own prosecution to that of Rubashov. Briefly, both men pleaded innocent before ultimately admitting their guilt. That's about where the similarity ends. Although certainly guilty of other things, Rubashov was innocent of the crimes of which he was accused. Rubashov accepted his punishment - his debt to the past. Clinton? Well, we all know that story. Maybe too much of that story. Immediately following the Russian Revolution of 1917, debate and open discussion were the norm among the party faithful who labored so diligently to bring the party to power. By the 1930's, with the founder of the revolution dead, and "No. 1" firmly in control, criticism is no longer tolerated. Darkness at Noon is a fictionalized account of Stalin's purges of the 1930's in which Nicolas Salmanovitch Rubashov is arrested after years of service to the party. "BRAVO! THE WOLVES DEVOUR EACH OTHER," declared Rubashov's prison neighbor, No. 402, an unrepentant monarchist, when he is told that Rubashov has been jailed for "political divergencies." He's certainly guilty of crimes, just not those of which he is accused. Has he betrayed the revolution? Only to the extent that the revolution has betrayed the people. Rubashov's rationalizations make sense to him, but they probably would not to the trail of bodies left in his wake. We meet just three of them but know there are more. The first is Richard, a cell leader in Germany, 1933, where the Nazi government has largely exterminated the party. Richard's death sentence is delivered in a museum under the watchful eye of the Virgin Mary, whose outstretched hands come back to haunt Rubashov in the form of another prisoner, his hands outstretched for bread from his jailers. Another is Little Lowey; a very different kind of party member than Richard. He has principles. A dock worker and successful party organizer with friends in every pub, Lowey is asked to assist in violating the international boycott against Italy for its aggression in Africa so those "Over There" can continue their industrial growth. This obviously does not sit well with Lowey who is expelled from the party and denounced as an agent provocateur. He hangs himself. The victim that sheds the most light on the character of Rubashov is his former secretary and lover, Arlova. Her brother and sister-in-law arrested, she is recalled home where she is imprisoned and slated for execution. To the end, she continues to believe Rubashov will come to her defense. Yet, to preserve himself for the continuation of the Revolution, Rubashov remains silent. Her ghost lingers to haunt him in a myriad of ways: when a prisoner is dragged through the prison on his way to being shot, he imagines her in the same situation, wondering if she died in silence; he remembers the back of her neck, knowing that is where traitors are shot; and he remembers the scent she left when she was in his bed. We also meet Rubashov's interrogators. The first is, like himself, aveteran of the civil war and an old party stalwart. Both interrogator and interrogatee understand it is simply pure chance that their roles are not reversed. Like Rubashov, Ivanov also has some misgivings about the direction the party has taken and he makes the mistake of revealing them to his deputy at the prison. Ivanov's brain meets with a "charge of lead" even before Rubashov's. The deputy is more direct in his sinister behavior. He has no illusions of serving the people. To him, the ends justify the means. There can be no opposition to what the party says, as personified by No. 1. Any minor dissent is treason deserving of the ultimate penalty. Most of the characters in Darkness at Noon remain relatively unfurled. They are only important in how they help lead Rubashov to his "grammatical fiction" that the Old Guard is guilty "although not of those deeds of which they accused themselves." In the end, does Rubashov repent for his disloyalty to the party or for following the party line so faithfully even when it went against his better judgement? He ponders, "And what if, after all if No. 1 were in the right? In here, in dirt and blood and lies, after all and in spite of everything, the grandiose foundations of the future were being laid? Had not history always been an inhumane, unscrupulous builder, mixing its mortar of lies, blood and mud?" Can an individual who did so much to bring the current power structure into being suddenly disown his own part in what has been built? Alas, such a conversion is probably impossible for the old Bolshevik. Rubashov is likely not lamenting his own demise at the hands of a corrupt party, just the fact that the party's plan was not followed by the right people. Of course, today it's become a familiar lie. We last heard it with the collapse of socialism in the old Soviet bloc - the system didn't fail, it was the people who tried to institute it. We'll hear the same thing when the workers paradise that is modern day Cuba disintegrates. They'll also blame it on the U.S. embargo. We want to believe, when Rubashov says his account with history is being paid by his death, that he has rejected the party and its totalitarian methods. He even allows that maybe the party's course wasn't perfect: "We have thrown overboard all conventions, our sole guiding principle is that of consequent logica; we are sailing without ethical ballast. Perhaps it did not suit mankind to sail without ballast. And perhaps reason alone was a defective compass, which led one on such a winding, twisted course that the goal finally disappeared in the midst." But such sentiment is quickly extinguished, yielding to the former darkness, "Perhaps the Revolution [came] too early, an abortion with monstrous, deformed limbs." He even compares his situation with that of Moses' forty years in the desert, before he is shown the Promised Land. Unlike Moses, however, Rubashov dies without this reassurance of a better future. His suffering is futile and senseless.
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Summary: Koestler's Philosophy
Review: In a tale of a disillusioned communist, Koestler tells his abstract and sometimes outrageous thoughts and answers to questions about human nature. Set primarily in a prison, this novel focuses on the life of Rubashov, a controversial political figure thrown in jail for crimes he didn't commit. While imprisoned, Rubashov reflects on his life and what he has stood for. He begins to question his beliefs. By reflecting many of his beliefs through his characters, we are allowed a glimpse into the mind of Koestler, who himself became disillusioned with the Party. Though simply written, this entertaining novel offers a look at Koestler's life and some historical background on the party. Fueled by Koestler's own philosophical insights, the novel tells an interesting tale about the communist Soviet Union.
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Summary: POWERFUL
Review: For me, some books are so powerful that they leave you in a state of dazed contemplation following their completion - kind of like a mental hangover. Darkness at Noon is one of these books. It is a fast read but this in no way implies that it is fluff but simply that it was well written and entirely captivating. I was so engrossed I read it in two sittings. I would describe Darkness at Noon as Orwell meets Dostoyevski meets LeCarre. Highly recommended as both a great story and its eerie insight into Soviet justice during the 1930s - or lack thereof.
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Summary: vital
Review: This one is deservedly Top 10 (Modern Library Top 100, although it is a translation from the German). It is the story of Rubashov, an aging revolutionary in an unnamed Revolutionary State (obviously the Soviet Union). He is arrested & repeatedly interrogated, until he finally admits to a series of crimes against the State, which it is obvious to us and to his interrogators that he could not possibly have committed. Koestler, a former Communist, examines how dedicated Communists were brought to the point where they confessed ridiculous crimes in Stalin's Show Trials of the 1930's. In so doing, he also demonstrates that once you convince youself that the ends justify the means, you should not be surprised when those means are turned against you. GRADE: A+
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Summary: Vivid and intriguing psychological account
Review: Arthur Koestler's prose is nothing short of masterful; the reviewer may go on at length, praising it in the hackneyed, cut-and-dried adjectives of critspeak, such as "powerful", "mesmerising", "engrossing". Koestler manages to evoke the chill frostiness of Rubashov's cell, every patch of peeling wall-paint, every twitch of anxiety, every flicker of panic. This is strikingly vivid and absorbing writing, with the characters' psychologies admirably sketched out. The narrative is centred around the experiences of Rubashov, a leading party official, now being detained and interrogated for holding views "oppositional" to official party policy. The novel could be considered tragic in detailing the fall from grace of a man who exercised his power over those below him, and who is then overpowered in turn. Though no direct references are made, Koestler subtly and tellingly alludes to the fact that the setting is Stalin's Russia during the thirties -- (the period of the purgings of the party), -- the mysterious party chief "No. 1" unmistakably cast as Stalin. Allusions are also made to "The Old Man" and the former leader with "slit Tartar eyes" -- clearly Lenin under the thinnest of disguises.
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