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Book Reviews of Darkness at Noon

Darkness at Noon
Darkness at Noon
Author: Arthur Koestler
ISBN-13: 9780553265958
ISBN-10: 0553265954
Publication Date: 4/1/1984
Pages: 224
Rating:
  • Currently 3.7/5 Stars.
 37

3.7 stars, based on 37 ratings
Publisher: Bantam
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

7 Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

reviewed Darkness at Noon on + 813 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
The central figure, Rubashov, is a revolutionista communist. But, now it is his turn in the pit. He has displeased someone. Well, what should he have expected? This is his ordeal: to rewrite history; to right his wrongs against the party. As I read this, I reflect back to Kafkas The Trial, in which the central character is interrogated, imprisoned, and tried without ever being informed as to the nature of the charges against him. You have read of all of this before; you will read it again in the works of Isaac Singer. As do Kafka and Singer, Koestler will make you will feel all of the tedium and frustration of the hearing processthe inquisition to reinvent the truth.
reviewed Darkness at Noon on
Helpful Score: 1
One of the best I've ever read. Amazed that it was written over 60 years ago. If you have any interest in political or mid-20th century history, add this one to your list.
reviewed Darkness at Noon on + 36 more book reviews
This splendid novel is set in the tumultuous Soviet Union of the 1930s during the treason trials. Rubashov, the protagonist and a hero of the revolution, is arrested and jailed for things he has not done, though there is much about the current Soviet state that veered from his ideals as a revolutionary. His investigators, Ivanov and Gletkin, seek a public confession and interrogate him using a number of methods. Through the ordeal, Rubashov reaches an epiphany or two while his interrogators suffer the cruel fate of the Soviet machine. Darkness at Noon succeeds as political/historical novel, but even more so as a refreshing tale of the human spirit.
marciamarcia avatar reviewed Darkness at Noon on + 270 more book reviews
One of the most thought-provoking books I've ever read.
reviewed Darkness at Noon on + 20 more book reviews
if you have seen the movie "Burnt by the Sun" this is the perfect companion piece.Painful but fascinating.
reviewed Darkness at Noon on + 52 more book reviews
This book 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 decicated his life. As the pressure to confess proposterous crimes increases, he re-lives a career that imbodies 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. It is-as the TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT-has declared "A remarkable book, a grimly fascinating interpetation of the logic of the Russian Revolution, indeed of all revolutionary dictatorships, and at the same time a tense and subtly intellecturalized drama..."
..taken from the back cover of the book
reviewed Darkness at Noon on + 495 more book reviews
In Moscow,an aging revolutionary is imprisoned and psychologically tortured by the Party to which he has dedicated his life.