"Darkness At Noon" stands as an unequaled fictional portrayal of the nightmare politics of our time. Its hero is an aging revolutionary, imprisoned and psychologically tortured by the Party to which he has dedicated his life. As the pressure to confess preposterous crimes increases, he re-lives a career that embodies the terrible ironies and human betrayals of a totalitarian movement masking itself as an instrument of deliverance. Almost unbearably vivid in its depiction of one man's solitary agony, "Darkness At Noon" asks ...
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"Darkness At Noon" stands as an unequaled fictional portrayal of the nightmare politics of our time. Its hero is an aging revolutionary, imprisoned and psychologically tortured by the Party to which he has dedicated his life. As the pressure to confess preposterous crimes increases, he re-lives a career that embodies the terrible ironies and human betrayals of a totalitarian movement masking itself as an instrument of deliverance. Almost unbearably vivid in its depiction of one man's solitary agony, "Darkness At Noon" asks questions about ends and means that have relevance not only for the past but for the perilous present.
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The classic discussion of communism from political and psychological viewpoint . Told from the viewpoint of an imprisoned senior communist (a thinly disguised Trotsky) who knows what his fate will be.
Rated among the top ten novels of the twentieth century, and deservedly so.
JIM12
Jun 27, 2014
DARKNESS AT NOON
This is a classic novel based on real life experiences. Arthur Koestler was a former communist and intellectual, He grew up in Europe and eventually became a British subject by choice. After experiencing the terror of totalitarianism of both the Nazi and Communist regimes he wrote two volumes (of which this was the first) trying to explain to those who never understood the horror of total government. Naturally the Communist Party banned people from reading the book, which shows its power.
We currently live in a world that seems hell-bent on repeating these trajedies. The more government and less freedom we have the closer we get to disaster. Those who worship government use fear and ignorance to further their aims. It is only through knowledge we can avert more of this.
