Darkness At Noon

Author Arthur Koestler - born in Budapest, schooled in Vienna - was a communist in the 1930s (even visiting the Soviet Union) who became disillusioned of the Communist Party in 1938. Arthur was captured and imprisoned in Francisco Franco's Fascist Spain in 1938 - being sentenced to death. He was saved from that ultimate fate by Great Britain - moving to Paris (where he presumably wrote the majority of the book I am about to discuss). Arrested again by Fascist forces in France during World War Two due to his political views, he was again released and went to Great Britain. The Book - Darkness at Noon - was released by Macmillan in May of 1941.

(The biography above was cribbed from my copy of the tome published sometime in or after 1989). 

Koestler himself states in the prologue of the book the following:

The characters of this book are fictitious. The historical circumstances which determined their actions are real. The life of the man N.S. Rubashov is the synthesis of the lives of a number of men who were victims of the so-called Moscow Trials. Several of them were personally known to the author. 

The background of the Moscow Trials, however, is not essential knowledge to have before reading the novel. Indeed, the lack of explicit knowledge may - in fact - be helpful in "enjoying" the book as it is. However, I do believe Koestler's own history - in particular his arrest in Spain by the Franco regime - play an essential part to how he tells this story - in particular the peculiarities of being in a cell and of waiting to be "liquidated." As well, it would have given Koestler knowledge of the different forms of authoritarianism (specifically the Soviet (Stalin) and Fascist (Franco)) which he presents at least a bit within the text.

At this point I should interject that until a decade ago, the only known manuscript of Darkness at Noon was the 1941 version that was translated by Koestler's roommate/girlfriend in France - Daphne Hardy. Given the specifics of France (especially in 1939/1940) and Hardy's lack of reference materials (dictionaries for example) and knowledge (peculiar to Koestler), the writing does seem at time a bit odd. The original German manuscript was found in 2015 and was later retranslated and published (under the same name) in 2019. The manuscript was published in German in 1944 - after being retranslated by the author from the 1941 translated manuscript. The more you know.

The book is broken down into four parts - the 1st Hearing (Interrogation), the 2nd Hearing (Interrogation), the 3rd Hearing (Interrogation) and The Grammatical Fiction. The book itself is linear in the main - but with a vast number of memories/recollections that take the reader into the past of Rubashov - former member of the Central Committee of the Party, former Commisar of the People, former Commander of the 2nd Division of the Revolutionary Army, bearer of the Revolutionary Order for Fearlessness before the Enemy of the People - and his history within the party.

Darkness at Noon primarily shows the tortured logic of - in this case the Stalin regime in the Soviet Union (as specifically described by Koestler), but also in general - a totalitarian regime that is run by the dictates and whims of one man. A society where "truth" is defined by one man. A society where "truth" is changed to fit the current parameters (or as needed), where "truth" is discarded the moment it becomes inconvenient. And, of course, where authors of the "truth" as previously known are "liquidated" when that "truth" is no longer "true."

At the beginning of the second chapter - Koestler writes a long piece presented as being from Rubashov's diary on his fifth day of confinement:

But how can the present decide which will be judged truth in the future? We are doing the work of prophets without their gift. We replaced vision by logical deduction; but although we all started from the same point of departure, we came to divergent results. Proof disproved proof, and finally we had to recur to faith - to axiomatic faith in the rightness of one's own reasoning. That is the crucial point. We have thrown all ballast overboard; only one anchor holds us: faith in one's self. Geometry is the purest realization of human reason; but Euclid's axioms cannot be proved. He who does not believe in them sees the whole building crash.

No. 1 has faith in himself, tough, slow, sullen and unshakeable. He has the most solid anchor-chain of all. Mine has worn thin in the last few years...

The fact is: I no longer believe in my own infallibility. That is why I am lost.

In many ways, the paragraphs above are the material thesis of Darkness at Noon. A lamentation of an important man - a man who was integral to the establishment of a society - who no longer believes in the same tenets of the society as the all-knowing leader does. And yet, at the same time, believes in the righteousness of revolution as it was formed. A dis-believer who believes (vice versa).

Darkness at Noon is on the one hand, a simple allegory of the Soviet tribunals of the 1930s by a man who had specific knowledge of many of the people who were put on trial (and executed), A book that was written at the time - of the time. (There is an interesting discussion of Mahatma Ghandi and his specific style of protest - protests that were ongoing at the time of the writing and publishing of the book - within the story itself.) On the other hand, it is an advanced allegory of all totalitarian regimes. One does not need to read this as a story of Stalin. It could have been Hitler. Mussolini. Mao. Pol Pot. Idi Amin. Jorge Videla. And numerous other autocrats that have run similar campaigns. Or plan to.

While many have noted parallels to George Orwell's "1984" in our specific time frame, it was Koestler's framing of Stalinist Russia as a novel that led Orwell to pen 1984 (and later Animal Farm). If you have not read Darkness at Noon - I recommend it highly. Not because it is a pleasant read - for it is not. However, it is a read that gives a certain level of understanding to the irrationality of our times.

(In my New Years aspiration list, I stated that I wanted to read 8 books this year. Alas, I am off to a poor start as this is only Book 1 of the year. Next on the list - Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood).