Darkness at Noon (Time Reading Program)

I was assigned this book as part of a history class (part of my undergrad), and I was worried--during the semester, I can never find time to read anything simply for enjoyment's purpose and was nervous about the idea of a fictional book assigned in a history class. But I was so surprised by how much I loved this book! The writing was amazing and I felt not only like I learned so much (so my professor can rest easy) but it was a book that I would recommend to others not just for its historical value but simply because of its value as good literature. It was not a super long read but the character's were compelling and the dynamics of the cult of personality and free will in Stalinist Russia was really interesting. I highly recommend!!

Set during the Stalinist purges and show trials, `Darkness at Noon' presents a fictionalized account of the interrogation and breaking of a (former) communist leader `Rubashov'. Under Stalin, 'former communists' were limited to those persons about to be executed, already executed, or waiting to be uncovered. As an original Bolshevik, a leader of the 1917 revolution, Rubashov's disillusionment was simply inadmissible to Number One (as Stalin is referred to by Koestler). Koestler explores the journey of Rubashov from the knock at the door through the final denouement. The reader observes Rubashov, who plays the role of narrator, as he undergoes the psychological change from a determination to resist to nearly total capitulation. Rubashov manages to hold to some crumbs of self-respect, but yields to the logic of the revolution as more important than any individual even when the accusations are complete fabrications. `Darkness at Noon' is precisely imagined with its details of Rubashov pacing the floor of his small isolation cell, the coded tapping between adjacent cells, and the deprivation of physical comforts that make the subsequent small graces, such as limited outdoor exercise, become precious by comparison. This much of the tale was informed by Rubashov's experiences as a prisoner during the Spanish Civil War. Koestler's examination of the psychological destruction of the prisoner is fascinating, although at times it briefly lapses into stultifying disquisitions on the distorted Stalinist political philosophy. Koestler himself was a German communist through much of the 1930's before immigrating to Britain, leaving the party and becoming an influential ex-communist. George Orwell's excellent essay about Koestler is readily available on the Internet (google `arthur koestler orwell'). Darkness at Noon was the middle book of an unusual trilogy of loosely related subjects: Gladiators and Arrival and Departure (20th Century Classics). Readers may also wish examine Victor's Serge's The Case of Comrade Tulayev (New York Review Books Classics). Highly recommended for anyone interested in the era of communism in its Stalinist form or more broadly in the perverse ability of humans to place greater meaning in abstract and abstruse ideology than in the actual lives of other humans.

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. Now that I've read it again I think I can begin to understand the praise that has been heaped on it since its publication. 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 descriptions found in history texts such as Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsarand Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him of the fate of millions during the purges. Further, whereas these 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 in Darkness at Noon go a long way toward 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 explaining why so many millions of people actively participated in the denunciations that accompanied the purges and show trials. During the height of the proceedings against him during his Presidency, former President Clinton compared himself to Rubashov. 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 dialogues with his interrogators. Pick up this book and read it.

A faded photograph on the wall depicts the bearded, solemn, serious men that were the delegates to the first Congress of the Party. It is decades later and only a few like Comrade Nicolas Salmanovitch Rubashov have survived. Late one night Rubashov is awakened, arrested, and taken to cell number 404. Like so many others, he now expects to be interrogated, tortured, and shot. Harsh steps echo down the prison corridor toward his cell, but this time it is only the guard bringing soup. Darkness at Noon is an authentic and chilling look at Stalin's Russia in the late 1930s. Arthur Koestler, formerly a member of the Communist Party, completed this superb historical fiction in Paris as WWII was just beginning. In a short forward he says that the characters in this book are fictitious, but that the historical circumstances which determined their actions are real. The life of the man N. S. Rubashov is a synthesis of the lives of a number of men that were victims of the so-called Moscow Trials. Several of them were personally known to the author. He dedicates this book to their memory. Suffering from a toothache, subjected to endless interrogation, deprived of sleep, Rubashov struggles to delay his inevitable, final confession. He questions his own past and motivations. Was he unconsciously disloyal? Is he guilty? Does it matter whether he is guilty? Should he remain silent, argue, or simply capitulate? Rubashov finds meaning in politics, history, and philosophy. We see him wrestling with the meaning of suffering, senseless suffering versus meaningful suffering. We sympathize with him as he questions the morality of betraying his life-long beliefs, despite his recognition that he himself has been betrayed. He clearly knows that he is guilty of betraying others. In his exhausted and muddled state, his motivation for living seems driven by a desire to explore more fully a new idea, the law of the relative maturity of the masses. He only needs time to sort out his questions and to resolve his doubts. Koestler reveals much about Rubashov through flashbacks. We recognize that Rubashov's own ethics and morality were undermined as he participated in the destruction of well-meaning, loyal party members that unintentionally became guilty of political divergencies. He allowed his lover to be imprisoned, and even joined the chorus that condemned her. Nonetheless, Koestler persuades us to have sympathy for Rubashov, now a victim of his own ideology. I was unfamiliar with Arthur Koestler and I was unprepared when I opened this little book. I was captivated as Rubashov gradually awoke from a disturbing dream of betrayal, only to discover that he was being awakened by the secret police. I carried Darkness at Noon to work and shared it with a colleague. His teenage son was the next reader. Darkness at Noon is a classic that you will share with others.

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,

Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon" is a manifesto decrying the totalitarian tactics of the Soviet Union during the 1930's. A political prisoner himself, Koestler had a lot to say about the treatment of those who were considered threats to the Communist ideal. Although Koestler does not name the Party or the associated countries, the implications are obvious, including the identity of the Party's leader, who is known simply by the name "No. 1."The novel concerns a fifty-ish man named Rubashov, a high-ranking Party official, who is imprisoned for suspected acts of dissension against the Party. Placed in a lonely cell, he communicates with the occupant of the neighboring cell by tapping on the interposing wall. He finds that his anonymous neighbor holds a grudge against him for reasons he refuses to reveal. The prison is filled with people considered "enemies" of the Party, victims of snitching and backstabbing from various levels of bureaucracy. An old friend and battalion commander of Rubashov's, named Ivanov, turns out to be his primary inquisitor. Rubashov and Ivanov have long discussions about the ideals of the Party and how Rubashov is losing faith in a system he once fought so vehemently to establish. The Party's ideals were noble in the beginning, but it gradually became inefficient and underhanded. During his imprisonment, Rubashov recalls Arlova, a secretary with whom he had an affair, who was fired from her job and sentenced to death for suspected political dissension. Rubashov had the chance to save her by testifying in her defense, but doing so could have damaged his own career. When Ivanov shows some sympathy for Rubashov, he is "removed" and replaced with a stricter interrogator named Gletkin, who uses draconian tactics to wear Rubashov down to the point of confession. Rubashov is accused of various attempted acts of governmental sabotage, including a planned assassination of No. 1. The reader sees that it is not relevant to his "trial" whether or not he actually committed these crimes; they are merely trying to get rid of those who threaten the stability of the Party. Koestler demonstrates how the creation of the Soviet Union formed a nation of political prisoners. These are the problems of a government that is concerned more with theory than with practice; that is concerned more with ideals than with individuals.