Do You like book Darkness At Noon (1984)?
If you liked the parts in 1984 that everyone else thought was boring or too political you might like this book. If you've never considered that revolution takes more than rebellion (and that intrigues you) you should give it a shot (the book, not the rebellion). If you need a book with a lot of fluffy dialogue and no unanswered questions and something that will brighten your day... you should probably stick with the Babysitters Club or something.I liked it. If there was a three and a half star option this book would perch nicely there.I'll have to put-off writing a more extensive review 'til later but for now let me say that this was one of those books that was arduous getting through but I'm definitely glad I finished it. I probably would have given up on it very early on (and had I picked it back up I would have most likely set it down again several times throughout) if not for the occasional paragraph or quotation that shed light on areas of politics, revolution, and humanity in general that are so commonly left in the shadows of literature. Again, pardon my lack of examples (hopefully I'll be able to expand this review in time).
—Joel
This is definately not an easy read! A better part of the first half was spent wondering what its all about. There are men in prison, some cases of discussion about suicide and other human ills, lots of twisted ethics and twisted logic, and of corse a lot more prision and political discourse that I honestly did not understand. The only solid truth about this is that its pretty thought provoking. The discussions between Ivanov and Ruboshov in prison are somewhat confusing, but further analysis reveals Koestler's succussful attempt to potray the quetion of whether the end justifies the means, and of the question of truth.I cannot state with accuracy or near accuracy that I got the plot line. But there is this man Rubshov in prison, exchanging conversation with fellow inmates. He is later taken to Gletkin (and indeed to the Gletkins of the world) for what seems an hearing of his case. He pleads guilty, and consequenty sentenced to death.The surpirising thing, though I dug through most of the text, and events, and the logic discussed, is that I emerged with the feeling satisfaction for what is a beautifully excecuted ending. Only thing is that I doubt that I got half of what this book seems intented to offer! Perhaps a background check of the book and author would help meunderstand it better.
—Moses Kilolo
Oh, how I do love those Russians! Plus I'm hoping reading this will make me feel better about my own life, which lately feels like a grim, freezing Stalinist dystopia of gray hopeless days. It could be worse, right?-----I've got a lot of work to do tonight, and somehow I thought this would be an excellent time to go back and review Darkness at Noon. MUCH bigger priority than getting work done, wouldn't you say....?Well, so, okay, this book was a little bit bleak. Yeah, not the feel-good date novel of the year, not this one! Darkness at Noon conveys the brutality and claustrophobia of the prison cell and interrogation room, and you kind of do feel like you're there, toothache and hunger and all, and okay let's be honest: it isn't much fun.This story, such as it is, covers the madcap adventures of one Mr. Rubashov, a revolutionary who is in the process of being purged by the vaguely Stalinesque "Number One," leader of the Party that Rubashov helped to create. Now, if you think this sounds reminiscent of the delightful 1960s television show The Prisoner, think again! Actually, I bet whoever dreamed up The Prisoner had read this book a few times....But don't get excited. There are no bicycles, womb chairs, or hot mod girls in striped shirts here. There is only the cell, and the Party, and Rubashov's thoughts -- oh, and his pince-nez, and the tapping guy next door, and a few tortured memories.... but really there's pretty much only Rubashov, and the Party.This was a helpful book for a girl who grew up in Berkeley, California, where they put red diapers on their babies and give the children Che Guevara dolls to play with (Barbie's considered counter-revolutionary). As a good homegrown lefty, I've always been a bit baffled by the Red Scare, and why exactly people get soooooo hysterical about communism. I mean, obviously I understand why people get so freaked out about Stalin, but I mean like communism and all that sort of thing more generally.... and this book did give me a better sense of what that's about. I think I do get a bit more what it is that freaky people like Ayn Rand or whoever are reacting against: it's this idea of subordinating one's self -- in this book, the first-person singular pronoun is called a "grammatical fiction" -- in service of a presumed "greater good," and it's about the deeply unpleasant places one arrives at in following that line of thought to its logical conclusion.I didn't love this book, but I thought it was successful at conveying this idea well through the form of the novel. The reader is in Rubashov's head -- truly stuck just with him and his thoughts while he sits in solitary confinement awaiting his torture and death -- and what works well here is that disorienting experience of occupying the person of an individual who's in denial of his and everyone else's own individual personhood. Koestler's really emphasized the individuality and humanity of all the book's characters -- even minor ones -- in a way that makes them each distinctive and memorable, and this heightens the sense that there is something seriously wrong with Rubashov's world view. You get (or I got) the eerie feeling of this empty character who's hollowed himself out into a sort of vessel for the Party, but who still retains some sense of individual humanity he suddenly experiences while confronting death. Then I think that there's some trick there on the reader when this soulless, unsympathetic character begins experiencing cognitive dissonance in confronting his own sense of individual humanity, and the reader sort of gets sucked along after him, even if we started out ahead.... at least, that's kind of what happened to me.On the one hand, this book is agitprop, and on the other, it's a pretty decent novel.... but really there aren't two hands, or if there are, they're cuffed together, or intertwined or something. I mean, there really isn't a novel here without the political stuff, and I sort of feel like I took two main things away from this. First, Darkness at Noon is not just about Stalin but is a specific critique of the left which says that at its extreme, this political philosophy crushes the individual in service of Humanity. Okay, so this is obvious, overly rehearsed stuff, as is its counterpart that the right's extreme crushes Humanity in service of the individual. Blah blah blah blah, who cares, right? I mean, I do. But it's not news.Though I did benefit from and appreciate the anti-communist perspective, what I ultimately took away from this was beyond the narcissism of left/right differences. When you turn out the lights, those colors and distinctions go away, and then there you are, in a dark cell. Torture and murder by the state certainly didn't start with Stalin or end with -- ahem -- any recent administrations, and personally if I were arrested and tortured, I wouldn't be too overly concerned with the political nuances of the state doing it. I take Darkness at Noon to be saying, on some level, that the state is just scary. Politics is dangerous, because it leads to this construction of "ends" and "means," and that just doesn't usually go anywhere good. I mean, therein lies the road to extraordinary rendition via unmarked planes to Syria or whatever.... and a lotta other real icky stuff.This book got me thinking about a troubling phenomenon I've always been stuck on, which is how so many activists and such with lovely leftist politics (I don't really know any right-wing activists, so I can't speak on that) very often treat the individuals in their lives like total shit. I mean, clearly not all, but enough to be noticeable, and I've always really wondered about that. My difficulty dealing with really political people on a personal level is one major reason why I'm not more politically active myself, and this book fed into my bias about that. Can most people only really focus on either the individual in the foreground or humanity in the background? Do we lack the lens to see both clearly at the same time? I think Koestler's saying people can't, or at least, people can't in a totalitarian communist state, which is perhaps not a point that needs much belaboring.Anyway, this was a pretty good book, and I'm glad that I read it. While reading Kiss of the Spider Woman afterwards, I couldn't stop drawing parallels between Valentin and Rubashov, and thinking about how much happier Rubashov could have been if only they'd given him a gay cinophile for a cellmate.... Alas, it was not to be.By the way, apparently Bill Clinton commented during the whole Lewinsky shitshow that he felt like Rubashov in Darkness at Noon, which to me seems like a very shocking and self-indicting statement, considering the details of the novel (here's a little article about that)
—Jessica
