Darkness at Noon: A Novel by Arthur
Koestler
Philosophical, Political, Unforgettable
Originally published in 1941, Arthur Koestlers modern masterpiece,
Darkness At Noon, is a powerful and haunting portrait of a Communist
revolutionary caught in the vicious fray of the Moscow show trials of the
late 1930s.During Stalins purges, Nicholas Rubashov, an aging
revolutionary, is imprisoned and psychologically tortured by the party he
has devoted his life to. Under mounting pressure to confess to crimes he
did not commit, Rubashov relives a career that embodies the ironies and
betrayals of a revolutionary dictatorship that believes it is an instrument of
liberation.A seminal work of twentieth-century literature, Darkness At Noon
is a penetrating exploration of the moral danger inherent in a system that is
willing to enforce its beliefs by any means necessary.
Personal Review: Darkness at Noon: A Novel by Arthur Koestler
On Modern Library's list of The 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century,
Arthur Koestler's 'Darkness at Noon' tops out at number 8. I mention this

for two reasons: First off, its inclusion on that list influenced my decision to
buy it (regardless of how suspect it is for a publisher to commission such a
ranking when many of the list's items are in its catalog), and secondly, I
think that for Koestler's classic, the phrase 'novel of the 20th century'
means more than a publication date. It is 'of the 20th century' in the sense
that that period's unique identity, especially concerning the Russian
revolution and shortly afterward, is fused to the narrative, and now
preserves it like a mosquito in amber.
Novels are tied to the age in which they were written by language and
events - but authors transcend those limits when they focus on universal
characters. The setting for 'Darkness' is an event - the singular episode of
the Moscow Trials of the 1930's - but its true subject is the realization, the
dejected awareness, that Stalin's goal was entrenchment of power, and not
the zealous pursuit of worldwide revolution. As such, it is a tragedy - not
only because of the executions following the trials, but because it details
Koestler's view of the murder of communist idealism.
Koestler begins with a melancholy disclaimer - the characters are fictitious,
the history is genuine. His main character is "a synthesis of ...a number of
men who were victims of the so-called Moscow Trials. Several of them
were personally known to the author. This book is dedicated to their
memory." From there, he introduces N. S. Rubashov, newly incarcerated,
a true revolutionary and a partisan commander during the Civil War. He is
now accused of involvement in an opposition plot to assassinate Stalin.
He expects to be shot.
Through Rubashov's memories and conversations with his inquisitors,
Koestler portrays a changing Party. The Bolshevik zest for revolution is
gone, hunted down and stopped with a bullet to the back of the neck.
Rubashov now must reevaluate everything he has fought and sacrificed
for, including an ideology that doggedly assumed that the end justified any
means. As he paces in his cell, he remembers the victims of such extreme
reasoning, one of which he has now become. "We have thrown overboard
all conventions," he muses, near the end, "our sole guiding principle is that
of consequent logic; we are sailing without ethical ballast."
Koestler's disillusionment is complete; not only are the trials an absurd
conclusion to the principle of consequential logic, but the madness of the
purges is rooted in the same blueprint for revolution that the Bolsheviks
once celebrated. One leads to the other like night after day. That their
intentions were good makes no difference, and one of Rubashov's last
thoughts is that the Revolution was a failure that left a desert where there
should have been the promised land.
Even after all these years, a book like this can be surprising - to one who
was raised with the constant threat of Soviet bogeymen, reading about
communists as human beings is almost disconcerting. And Koestler's style
is incredibly engaging - the scene where one of the prisoners is taken to be

executed, described from Rubashov's point of view, had my heart
thumping, and Rubashov never even left his cell. However, no matter how
close to reality Koestler's fiction is, it is still his recreation, his fantasy that
we are reading, crafted to highlight his own view.
Does that negate his insights? No - but from that melancholy preface I feel
that the author had a definite strategy of portraying certain viewpoints in
sympathetic light. Rubashov's conclusions are Koestler's, not necessarily
any of the participants in the trials, and the author's emotional appeal for
their absolution based on their intentions rather than their actions is
cunningly buried in the text. Those men 'personally known by the author'
may very well have thought the same as Rubashov, but sadly, we'll never
know - and neither was Koestler privy to those final, private thoughts.
'Darkness at Noon' deserves its classic status - most 'serious' authors have
an agenda of some sort, and so I can't fault Koestler for his. It reminds me
of the blurbs that used to adorn the covers of bombshell books back in the
seventies - "The Most Important Book You'll Read This Year!" From the
West's viewpoint, the propaganda uses for the idea that communism was a
failed prospect would have been important indeed.
I'll never have read enough to verify whether 'Darkness at Noon' belongs
on the 'Best novels of the 20th century' list, but I won't dispute it either. It is
an excellent, but slanted, account, though only in the context of its time is
one even aware of the necessity of the slant. That, more than anything
else, makes it 'of' the 20th century, and we should be so lucky never to live
through it's like again.
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