- Hardcover: 267 pages
- Publisher: Macmillan Pub Co; Reprinted edition edition (February 1987)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0025652109
- ISBN-13: 978-0025652101
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 626 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
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.
Review
"A remarkable book. A grimly fascinating interpretation of the logic of the Russian revolution, indeed of all revolutionary dictatorships, and at the same time a tense and subtly intellectualized drama."
-- "The Times Literary Supplement" (London) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ruthless purge.,
By
This review is from: Darkness at Noon (School & Library Binding)
This is, quite rightly, the classic novel about a power struggle within a monolithic political party.To consolidate his power and to exert his own policies, a dictator uses the young guard to liquidate mercilessly his old fellow revolutionaries, who once were or still are critical of him. Koestler relates hauntingly how his idealistic dreams are shattered and how the main aim of his whole life is destroyed:"But when he asked himself, for what actually are you dying? He found no answer." (p.206) This is still a very modern work. It reminds us that a multi-party system and free elections are a must to eliminate all risks that a ruthless clique seizes power in a country. This book is a masterpiece. It contains a terrible quotation: "When the existence of the Church is threatened, she is released from the commandments of morality. With unity as the end, the use of every means is sanctified, even cunning, treachery, violence, simony, prison, death." (Dietrich von Nieheim, Bishop of Verden)
5.0 out of 5 stars
Is one man's life worth more than another's?,
By
This review is from: Darkness at Noon (Mass Market Paperback)
All through this book I thought about a medieval contraption I had once read about. It was a box designed to imprison somebody, but the box was too short for the prisoner to stand and not long enough for the prisoner to lie down. It is a cruel irony that the man who designed this contraption was the first man to be sentenced to it.Such is the irony of Rubashov's imprisonment, that this man who had stood by as his friends and lover were wrongfully accused and convicted would eventually suffer the same fate himself. That the same party that he had worked his life to build would one day turn on him. I enjoyed this book a lot. Koestler's book lays out a wonderful panorama of what happens when we put mankind above man, while attesting that the ends always to justify the means.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book that incites thought,
By
This review is from: Darkness at Noon (Mass Market Paperback)
The standout point of Darkness at Noon is the political discussion of Communism and the Russian Revolution. What makes the book great is that it takes a subject that has a good possibility of becoming boring and unreadable and is able to hold your attention. If you find political discussion interesting, this is a definate read, if not, it helps to understand a big part of history, Russia and communism.
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