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Summary: Brilliant . . . Literate . . . Compelling
Review: I first read Koestler's Darkness at Noon in high school, close to 30 years ago. Although I cannot recall my earlier reaction to the book, I am certain that I was not prepared, as a 17-year old, to appreciate either the literary beeauty or socio-political importance of Koestler's masterpiece. I came back to this book for two reasons. I had just finished reading Volkogonov's "Stalin" and "Trotsky" and Solzhenitzyn's Red Wheel (Volume I). Darknesss at Noon seemed to be the next appropriate book to pick up off the shelf. I had also been reading about the remarks President Clinton made (alluded to by other reviewers) to Sid Blumenthal indicating that he felt "like the prisoner in Darkness at Noon." It is, perhaps, either a sad testament to human nature, or an indicia of the power of great literature, that the story of the fate of one (fictional) man, Rubashov, can feel more compelling than the narrative description (in "Stalin" and "Trotsky") of the fate of millions. Further, whereas Volkogonov's works go a long way towards explaining what happened and how it happened, Rubashov's self-crticial analysis, and his dialogues with Ivanov and then Gletkin go a long way towards explaining why the purges happened. It helps explain the mindset of those many, like Rubashov, who confessed their non-existent sins before their ineveitable demise. It also goes a long way to explaing why so many millions of people actively participated in the denunciations that accompanied the purges and show trials. Clinton's comparison to Rubashov is rich with unintended irony. Perhaps Clinton, like me, had not read the book since high school, and felt that Rubashov was the purely innocent victim of a prosecutorial system run amok. However, Koestler makes it clear that Rubashov was not merely a vicitim of Stalin, or Stalin's henchmen, but of the system that Rubashov (a hero of the revolution) himself played an important role in creating. Rubashov spent a life filled with deceit, manipulation, and even murder, on behalf of his party and its "core values". The doctrine of the end justifying the means was a cornersone of Rubashov's philosphy and morality. Whatever "core values" existed at the beginning of his revolutionary life with the party had long since withered to nothingness by the time of his imprisonment. Consequently, if President Clinton's comparison of himself to Rubashov was based upon the idea that Rubashov was a purely innocent victim, he is just wrong. To the extent Clinton was aware that Rubashov was in no small way responsible for creating the milieu under which this despicable actvity takes place - then he is more self-aware than I had previously given him credit for. Finally, the book is just darn well-written. Of particular beauty and impact are Rubashov's dialues with his interrogators. Pick up this book and read it.
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Summary: Historical insight necessary
Review: I jumped into this book knowing nothing of the Moscow trials and found myself historically negligent. The book was good the first time, but after i did some research on the trials the book was even better. From the point of view of a man condemned, I found Rubashov to be excellently written and far superior to one character we can compare him to, Cinncinnatus C. from Nabokov's "Invitation to a Beheading."
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Summary: The obvious lesson of Koestler's book.....
Review: ...is that the legal apparatus of the state, wielded by officials on whom there are no checks and whose aims are wholly partisan, can terrorize a patriot in the case of the novel or paralyze a president. A population can be held captive for half a century or a nation can be distracted for a year while its media is monopolized. Koestler's hero, facing fictitious charges and and unbridled state power, succumbed. American citizens, faced with subpoena and repetitive questioning, have to resort to legal defense, at their personal expense. Clinton's high crime, because it was shot thru with such low comedy served to focus our attention on the zealotry shared by his accusers and spared us the rhetoric of having been saved from an enemy of the people. Reading this book and attending to the recent demonstration and posturings in DC remind us that the knock on the door in the middle of the night just might be done in the name of "the rule of law".
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Summary: Best thing to come out of Clinton impeachment
Review: I picked up this book because of the reference made to it by Sydney Blumenthal in his Senate deposition. Apparently, Clinton related to Blumenthal that he saw himself as the book's imprisoned protagonist who is endlessly interrogated by a communist automaton (i.e. Starr). However, in reading the book I connected Clinton more with the communist interrogator, than the interrogatee. Both Clinton and the Communist philospophy laid out by Koestler value the ends over the means. For the Soviets, one man is meaningless if he hinders the "good" of mankind. It makes no difference to them if innocent people are put to death, so long as it advances their cause. Likewise, for Clinton it makes no difference how heinously his lapdogs destroy the reputations of others, so long as he survives. Personally, I find the Soviets perspective a little more noble but read the book to make the judgement for yourself. All in all, it's a great book and my reading of it was the one good thing to result from the impeachment trial.
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Summary: President Bill Clinton sees himself in this book.
Review: I rated the book "1 star" only because I haven't read it yet. My interest in the book occurred when President Bill Clinton testified last year that he saw himself as the "hero" of the book. The current impeachment trials are seen as parallel to the "Moscow Trials" referred to in the book. It might be wise if more Americans read this book to gain an understanding of President Bill Clinton.
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Summary: The story of a man who tells a lie for the sake of an idea
Review: Nicolas Salmanovich Rubashov is a ex-commissar of the Soviet Republics, one of the founders of the Communist regime. He served his republic abroad, liquidated other secret agents when told and always served the party and its leader No.1 (represents Stalin). Now, Rubashov himself is arrested by his old friends and brought to a prison where he is put in cell 406. The Party wants to convict him as a counter-revolutionary who tried to sabotage the system and even tried to assassinate No.1. The pure nonsense of these accusations is evident, even his old friend Ivanov who conducted the first hearing, wants to save Rubashov. Rubashov never committed any of these crimes but in his mind he had started to doubt the central idea of consequent logic, the idea that the end justifies the mean. In the beginning of the story he is not afraid of death because history will rehabilitate him. But this is of no interest for the party. The ex-commissar of the people is part of Stalin's purge trials of the 1930's, which are also often called the Moscow Trials. In these trials high members of the party were convicted for things they have never committed, but because of No.1's will. All accused members knew how the system worked, knew No.1 and his logic to well and became so too dangerous to leave alive. After the first hearing with Ivanov, Rubashov's life begins to improve, he even has time to bring his thoughts to an end. He often thinks through other people's minds and he is even aware of the coming death, he seems calm, wise and sometimes even happy. The methods of the interrogators with Rubashov were not "hard", that means he wasn't subjected to physical torture. Instead, he was kept with inadequate sleep and insufficient food, the interrogations took place at night and it was part of the idea that the prisoner should lose his sense of day and night by being woken up at all times of the day. There were also continual repetitions of questions, a strong disturbing neon lamp and total lack of privacy. Rubashov had the painful feeling that the interrogator could go on indefinitely. The second hearing is between Ivanov and Rubashov and takes place in his own cell. Ivanov convinces him to capitulate and to write a public confession, even though he didn't commit these crimes. The third hearing takes place in another room with Gletkin as interrogator. Gletkin took Ivanov's place because there were doubts about him and his conversations with Rubashov. Rubashov fears Gletkin, because he is a product of his work. Gletkin has no own history and no doubts about No.1 or the party. Gletkin accuses Rubashov again of working on a plan to kill No. 1. Several names and actions are put in a order so that Rubashov cannot deny their existence and Gletkin can go on with his accusations. The examination of Rubashov takes more than a week. At the end he breaks down, loses his will, wants only to sleep and signs a confession. He will be taken to a public trial. At the trial he repeats his confession, calls himself a traitor and says the opposition is eradicated. Rubashov is sentenced to be shot. His body got shot, but whether his will still persisted isn't said, but history did rehabilitate him. Rubashov's unfinished work "The Maturity of the Masses" "The amount of individual freedom which a people may conquer and keep, depends on the degree of its political maturity. The aforementioned pendulum motion seems to indicate that the political maturing of the masses does not follow a continuous rising curve, as does the growing up of an individual, but that it is governed by more complicated laws." (page 135) Before the third hearing begins, Rubashov is writing down his still unfinished thoughts about the Maturity of the Masses. Koestler presents an highly elaborated social theory in his novel which is the only optimistic and utopian part in the whole book of Darkness at Noon I think that this part of the book and especially the end of the novel are extremely autobiographical. It shows that Koestler was an ardent socialist, even he was a highly critical one. The question whether Rubashov died fulfilled or the title of the book "Darkness at Noon" According to Rubashov, fulfillment lies in the oceanic sense of life. Koestler took this term from Sigmund Freud (the famous psychologist we heard of in our German lessons)who used it for man's religious and mystical experience. This oceanic sense enables men to find the essential humanity in other living men. The party said that a man is the quotient of one million divided by one million, just the opposite. "Perhaps now would come the time of great darkness. Perhaps later, much later, the new movement would arise - with new flags, a new spirit knowing both: of economic fatality and the oceanic sense." (page 211) Personally, I think that the title "Darkness at Noon" means that the present and near future is dark, shaped by totalitarian regimes (who don't understand the oceanic sense) and a unfair capitalistic system (the economic fatality), but half of the way to the utopia lies already behind us and that a further step towards this goal depends on the Maturity of the Masses.
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Summary: Deep Book
Review: Koestler examines the final weeks of a condemned man in Darkness at Noon. The tables have turned for the character in this book as he realizes that the party he helped create has changed and now wishes to destroy him. During his incarceration, the character examines his past actions and realizes that there are patterns to the political process. The complexity of the process corresponds to the amount of technology available to the society. I found this book interesting, although complicated at times. As a story, it was a bit dull, but as a book expressing ideas on political Darwinism, it was interesting. Well worth reading, however it is not a quick read. Careful reading is a mandatory.
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Summary: What made Rubashov change his mind about capitulating?
Review: What made Rubashov change his mind about deciding to capitulate to the preposterous accusations that were being made against him? Nicolas Salmanovitch Rubashov had been the Commissar of the people during the "golden age" of the Russian Revolution and was now imprisoned for what the Party called "political divergencies". The Party to which Rubashov had dedicated his life, was now about to put him to his death. His death, to the Party would not be a mistake. "The Party does not make mistakes, the Party is the embodiment of the revolutionary idea in history...at every bend in her course she leaves the mud which she carries and the corpses of the drowned. He who has not absolute faith in history does not belong in the Party ranks" (Koestler p.34). Rubashov had used logic to carry out the plans of the Party his whole life, only until the period shortly before his imprisonment by Ivanhov had he began to think that the Party and the State no longer represented the interests of the Revolution. The time that he had spent with himself and his thoughts had opened up the "grammatical fiction" thought within himself. He was thinking in the realm of individualism while the Party thought in the realm of collectivism. Rubashov was determined to die in silence. The interviews between Ivanhov and Rubashov consisted of reminding Rubashov of the reasoning and logical thought process of the Party. Ivanhovs way of thinking and arguing was Rubashovs own. Everything that Ivanhov said would echo in his head. The humanism and guilt that Rubashov had felt could not be explained logically, it was in the "grammatical fiction". History has shown that most of the great revolutionaries fell from temptations such as the ones being experienced by Rubashov. Ivanhov said, "To sell oneself to one's own conscience is to abandon mankind"(p.125). Although there was a new methodology in the Party, Rubashov was beginning to realize that to die in silence was the easy way out. The success of the Revolution was still important to Rubashov. He was beginning to realize that Ivanhov was correct and his consequential logic was beginning to make more sense. Yes, the Party was turning into more of an absolute dictatorship, but was it necessary? Rubashov was now thinking that yes, it might be. He had began to develop his own theory on the "relativity of the masses". This pendulum that swings back and forth from absolutism to democracy, from democracy back to absolute dictatorship was to be expected. "A people's capacity to govern itself democratically is thus proportionate to the degree of its understanding of the structure and functioning of the whole social body" (p. 135). The Party believed that the peasants had to be led, that they were too ignorant to do otherwise. Rubashov wrote in his diary that, "As the only moral criterion which we recognize is that of social utility, the public disavowal of one's conviction in order to remain in the Party's ranks is obviously more honorable than the quixotism of carrying on a hopeless struggle" (p 137). Honor and decency were replaced by reason and therefore, he can see the consequent logic in his capitulating. "Questions of personal pride...must be cut off root and branch" (p. 137) To remain useful to society, he has to confess. As long as Rubashov capitulates and remains in the swing, for the benefit of the Party, History can ultimately prove No.1 wrong.
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Summary: Simply Terrifying!
Review: Somehow I managed to read volumes about the Stalinist Soviet Union before I finally read this book. My reaction was one of terror and dread. I think this book - using the flexible format of political fiction - will be the last word on Stalinism and the age of Revolution which began with Robespierre and (hopefully) ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This was one of the few books whose strangeness unsettled me and left me in a state of wonder. Perhpas not quite on the level of Orwell's "1984" in terms of a dysutopia, but "Darkness at Noon" has the advantage of being more grounded in real life.
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Summary: A tale of faith twisted into something evil.
Review: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is easy to forget that for fifty years, it was both vital and hostile. This novel was written during the days when Stalin's Soviet Union was a threat to the west, and it is partly a document of that time. Comrade Rubasov, the protagionist, is an old Bolshevik; a man so loyal to the party that he will allow it to destroy him, if it serves its intrests. Koestler develops Rubasov's pyschology so completely; that his eventual confession to totally ridiculous charges during one of Stalin's purges, seems completely reasonable in light of his unlimited devotion to his revolutionary ideals. Koestler's insight into the mind of a committed revolutionary gives the novel its universal weight.Middle eastern terrorists, the Shining Path in Peru, and Timothy McVeigh; are all examples of people so committed to an ideal that anything is justified to advance it. Koestler writes about the narrow boundary between belief, and fanaticism. Dark, somber, lovely
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