Christopher Hitchens Reviews Arthur Koestler's

[Guy Berger]

Not sure who has read Arthur Koestler's excellent (and unsettling) novel Darkness at Noon, but Christopher Hitchens has a very interesting review of his work on Slate.

In this demi-monde, the name of Arthur Koestler, who was born in Budapest on Sept. 5, 1905, would be pre-eminent. He is remembered today for his milestone novel Darkness at Noon and for his co-editing of the great anti-Stalinist collection of essays by disillusioned intellectuals The God That Failed. But he also wrote an imperishable series of memoirs relating his adventures and experiences in the Soviet Union, the Spanish Civil War, the partition of Palestine (where he lived briefly) in 1947/8, and the intellectual combats that defined the Cold War from its inception.

Another such veteran, the German Victor Klemperer, once used the expression "a seismic people" to define the embattled Jews of that period in history. Koestler's life often seems to have registered the 20th century, on a personal Richter scale, in advance. His first allegiance was to Zionism, but he laid it aside, rather than gave it up, on encountering a communist ideology that seemed more universal (and possibly no less messianic: Koestler was always very frank about the religionlike role that Marxism played in his life). He witnessed the rise of Nazism in Germany, went as a believer to the USSR in a time of purges and famines, and was sent as a Comintern agent to Spain. There he endured the first of many spells in prison—this one under sentence of death from Gen. Franco. Released after an international campaign, he acted as a brilliant propagandist for the communist cause until the signing of a pact between Hitler and Stalin, which broke his main spring.

From the first page of Darkness at Noon you become aware that the daily realization of impending execution is a powerful stimulus, both to reflection and to fatalism. Koestler's chief character, Nicholas Rubashov, is modeled on those former Bolshevik intellectuals who made full "confessions" of fantastic and abominable crimes at the Moscow show trials of the late 1930s. And, because Koestler had by no means forgotten what he had learned about the dialectic, he decided to place Rubashov in a dilemma from which he himself had escaped. What if the opponent of Stalin is still half-convinced that Stalin is morally wrong but may be "historically" right? He may decide to put his name on the confession and hope that history will one day vindicate him. His last duty to the Party may, in other words, be suicide.

We now know that this is not how the confession of Nikolai Bukharin, for example, was in fact obtained. Stalin's men employed less subtle means of inducement and persuasion. But we do not know that this paradox was not alive in Bukharin's own mind, even at the end. If you once accept a certain logic of history, how can you exempt yourself from it? Apart from Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor, there is no finer example in fiction of a pitiless interrogator facing a victim with the intention of saving his soul. Indeed, the teamwork of the two questioners, Ivanov and Gletkin, is so logically and artistically represented that it actually had the effect of converting some people to communism! Rubashov has one fatal weakness, which is that of the open-minded intellectual: "the familiar and fatal constraint to put himself in the position of his opponent, and to see the scene through the other's eyes." His dogmatist jailers suffer from no such disadvantage. This is a crux that has relevance well beyond the time and place in which it was set. Orwell's more widely read Nineteen Eighty Four, which has many points of similarity with Darkness at Noon, makes the same terrifying point that the fanatics don't just want you to obey them: They want you to agree with them...

Guy

[Kalo]

I saw this and it makes me want to read the book. I like Hitchins as a writer, especially on literary topics. His politics can get nutty, though.

Edited September 16, 2005 by Kalo

[1ngram]

Dealing with the same area, and much better that Koestler in my opinion, is "The Case of Comrade Tulayev" by Victor Serge, one of the very great novels of the Twentieth Century.

[Chalupa]

I read both "Darkness at Noon" and "The God That Failed" back in college. Both are very good. The class I read them for was called "Political Disillusionment" and was taught as a seminar(about 10 students) where the professor did no lecturing. He would start each class with a question about the readings and then let each one us lead a discussion. It was one of those classes that made me feel like I was the dumbest kid in the class, if not the entire school. I worked my ass off and still only managed a "C". Despite the low grade I still fell it was definitely the best class of my college career. Some of the other books we read for the course were "Bread and Wine" by Ignazio Silone, "Animal Farm" and "Homage to Catalonia" by Orwell, and (my favorite) "Kaputt" by Curzio Malaparte. "Kaputt" is masterpiece. It's too bad that it is not more widely known. Malaparte besides being a writer also helped design the "Casa Malaparte" which was used in the movie "Contempt" by Godard.

http://www.routledge-ny.com/ref/architectu...rge/pg4i_lg.jpg

Edited September 16, 2005 by Chalupa

[BruceH]

I actually read Darkness At Noon (as well as Orwell's 1984) in high school. (Did I mention what a popular guy I was in high school?)

[trane_fanatic]

I am on the opposite end of the scale from him politically, but enjoy his writing.

[Guy Berger]

I am on the opposite end of the scale from him politically, but enjoy his writing.

←

Koestler or Hitchens? I think to be the opposite of Hitchens politically you have to end up somewhere near Pat Buchanan.

Guy

[trane_fanatic]

I am on the opposite end of the scale from him politically, but enjoy his writing.

←

Koestler or Hitchens? I think to be the opposite of Hitchens politically you have to end up somewhere near Pat Buchanan.

Guy

←

I shoulda been more specific. I meant his position on the Iraq conflict (he is an avid supporter of it w/ that whole "war on terror" argument). Jon Stewart and him got into a heated debate a few weeks ago on it. Come to think of it, Pat Buchanan is against the war too. He was on Stewart's show to promote his book too. Which means I should probably get my info from a real news program. That's probably all the politics I'm allowed to bring up here w/o angering the mods.

Edited September 24, 2005 by trane_fanatic

[Guy Berger]

I shoulda been more specific. I meant his position on the Iraq conflict (he is an avid supporter of it w/ that whole "war on terror" argument).

On everything besides Iraq, Hitchens is fairly far to the left, though not as far as he used to be. I guess political moderation just doesn't agree with some people.

Guy

[Big Wheel]

I shoulda been more specific. I meant his position on the Iraq conflict (he is an avid supporter of it w/ that whole "war on terror" argument).

On everything besides Iraq, Hitchens is fairly far to the left, though not as far as he used to be. I guess political moderation just doesn't agree with some people.

Guy

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I think Hitchens's douchebaggish style also has a lot to do with why people detest him. When it comes to Iraq he just can't seem to bring himself to be intellectually honest--instead lumping his opponents together as "objectively pro-Saddam".

[trane_fanatic]

I shoulda been more specific. I meant his position on the Iraq conflict (he is an avid supporter of it w/ that whole "war on terror" argument).

On everything besides Iraq, Hitchens is fairly far to the left, though not as far as he used to be. I guess political moderation just doesn't agree with some people.

Guy

←

Here's the video from The Daily Show I was talking about from a while back. Some people (like me) could be fooled by watching this clip w/o knowing more about him.

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_dai...x.jhtml?start=1

Row 3, 3rd from left

Edited September 24, 2005 by trane_fanatic