1941年8月1日胡適日記 說他看完
Darkness at Noon....作者很能體會這班共產黨的心理 描寫很有力量.....
同日日記說 讀爾遜威秘書Thomas W. Brahany, 1876-1964, 1917年3月-4月的日記很感興趣
他的作品現在網路很難找到呢.
The prodigal's returns [Unknown Binding] Thomas W Brahany (Author)
- Unknown Binding: 18 pages
- Publisher: W.F. Roberts (1928)
這本名著在20幾年之後台灣才有譯本:《黑色的烈日》（
Darkness at noon.）。臺北：前衛。 陳列編。
Koestler's incarceration in the
Spanish Civil War, by the
Phalange - documented in
Spanish Testament (1937), and revised 1942 as
Dialogue with Death, and which formed part of the basis for his novel
Darkness at Noon (1940).
Darkness at Noon (
German:
Sonnenfinsternis) is a novel by the
Hungarian-born
British novelist
Arthur Koestler, first published in 1940. His best-known work tells the tale of Rubashov, a an
Old Bolshevik and
October Revolutionary who is cast out, imprisoned, and tried for
treason against the very
Soviet Union he once helped to create.
The novel is set in 1938 during the
Stalinist purges and
Moscow show trials. It reflects the author's personal disillusionment with
Communism; Koestler knew some of the defendants at the Moscow trials. Although the characters have
Russian names, neither Russia nor the
Soviet Union are actually mentioned by name as the location of the book.
Joseph Stalin is described as "Number One", a barely-seen, menacing
dictator.
The novel was originally written in
German and translated into
English by
Daphne Hardy, while living with Koestler in Paris in early 1940. Koestler and Hardy fled
Paris in May 1940 just ahead of the German army. Koestler attempted suicide in
Bordeaux after hearing a false report that the ship taking Hardy to
England (along with the only manuscript) had been torpedoed and all hands lost. Koestler described the episode in
Scum of the Earth, his autobiography of that period. On reaching England, Hardy arranged to have the manuscript published and chose the title "Darkness at Noon".
Since the original German text has been lost, German versions, published under the title
Sonnenfinsternis (literally "solar eclipse") are
back translations from English.
Darkness at Noon is actually the second part of a trilogy, the first volume being
The Gladiators about the subversion of the
Spartacus revolt, and the third
Arrival and Departure about a refugee in
World War II.
The Gladiators was originally written in
Hungarian and
Arrival and Departure in English. Of these two, only
The Gladiators has had much success.
In
1998, the
Modern Library ranked
Darkness at Noon eighth on its list of the
100 best English-language novels of the 20th century
[edit] Characters
According to
George Orwell, "Rubashov might be called
Trotsky,
Bukharin,
Rakovsky or some other relatively civilised figure among the Old Bolsheviks".
[1]
Koestler drew on his own experience of being imprisoned by
Francisco Franco during the
Spanish Civil War described in his memoir
Dialog with Death. Like Rubashov, he was in
solitary confinement, expected to be
executed, paced his cell constantly, was permitted to walk in the courtyard in the company of other prisoners, and was not beaten himself but knew that others were beaten.
[edit] Plot summary
Nicolas Salmanovitch Rubashov, a man in his fifties, had been one of the leading figures in the
Bolshevik revolution, and has been active in supporting
Communist parties in other countries. As such, he was revered amongst Communist officials. During a
purge of the Communist Party, however, Rubashov is roused in the middle of the night and arrested. This brings back memories of his previous arrest in Germany, when he was
tortured under interrogation. He is taken to a new prison and placed in a cell.
Despite efforts to keep the prisoners isolated from each other, the men communicate through tapping on the pipes between the cells. He makes contact with another prisoner, identified throughout as No. 402, a
counter-revolutionary who supported the reign of the
Czar. After initial unsatisfactory contact with No. 402, the two men form a friendship of sorts, with No. 402 keeping Rubashov abreast of developments in the prison and Rubashov entertaining No. 402 with stories of his sexual exploits.
His first interrogation is conducted by an old friend, Ivanov, a man that Rubashov once talked out of
suicide. Ivanov tries persuading him to consider signing a
false confession — a confession in which he admits to conspiring to
assassinate No. 1, the new leader of the regime. In due course, Rubashov becomes aware that he has been implicated in the plot by another prisoner, Hare-Lip, the son of an old friend of Rubashov. (Hare-Lip himself has confessed under torture.) Ivanov implores Rubashov to sign a confession and Rubashov shows willingness to consider his proposition.
However, Ivanov is arrested in the meantime, ostensibly for being "too soft" on Rubashov. He is eventually
executed. Rubashov is then ruthlessly interrogated by Gletkin, a brutal man of
peasant stock who seemingly resents Rubashov's education and former
class privilege. Gletkin, a representative of new Communist party officials, unflinchingly advocates the use of torture to wring confessions from prisoners.
Once Gletkin takes over the interrogation of Rubashov, he resorts to methods like sleep deprivation and making Rubashov sit in front of a glaring lamp for hours on end. Worn down, Rubashov finally capitulates.
As Rubashov confesses to the false charges, he thinks of all of the times he betrayed agents in the past — the young
German Richard; and the
Dutch Little Loewie, who
hangs himself, and Arlova, Rubashov's own secretary-mistress. Rubashov recognises that his treatment is carried out with the same ruthless logic as that which he himself employed. Ultimately, his commitment to following his logic to its last conclusion — and his own lingering dedication to the Party — lead him to confess fully and publicly.
The final section of the novel is headed with a four-line quotation ("Show us not the aim without the way...") from the German
socialist Ferdinand Lasalle. The novel ends with Rubashov's execution.
[edit] Influence
The novel's
French title is
Le Zéro et l'Infini ("Zero and Infinity"). Like the English title, "Darkness at Noon", it reflects Koestler's life-long obsession with the meeting of opposites, and
dialectics.
Le Zéro et l'Infini sold more than 400,000 copies in
France.
American screenwriter and
Communist Party USA member
Dalton Trumbo told
The Worker that he had prevented
Darkness at Noon, among other anti-
Stalinist books, from being produced into a
Hollywood movie.
[2]
Darkness at Noon was very influential for
George Orwell, who used ideas from it in
Nineteen Eighty-Four (especially the segment where
Winston Smith is interrogated by
O'Brien)
[3] and also wrote an essay about it.
[4]
In 1954, at the end of a long inquiry and a
show trial,
Communist Romania sentenced to death former high-ranking
Romanian Communist Party member and government official
Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu.
[5][6] According to his collaborator
Belu Zilber, Pătrăşcanu read
Darkness at Noon in
Paris while envoy to the
1946 Peace Conference, and took the book back to Romania.
[5][6]
- ^ George Orwell, Arthur Koestler. Essay, at www.george-orwell.org
- ^ Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley, "Hollywood's Missing Movies: Why American Films Have Ignored Life under Communism", in Reason Magazine, June 2000
- ^ Arthur Mizener, "Truth Maybe, Not Fiction," in The Kenyon Review, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Autumn, 1949): 685.
- ^ "Arthur Koestler", by George Orwell (1944).
- ^ a b (Romanian) Stelian Tănase, "Belu Zilber. Part III" (fragments of O istorie a comunismului românesc interbelic, "A History of Romanian Interwar Communism"), in Revista 22, Nr.702, August 2003
- ^ a b Vladimir Tismăneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political History of Romanian Communism, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2003, ISBN 0-52-023747-1 p.75, 114
[edit] External links
李筱峯
#燦爛的星辰
【9月5日】
他原本是一個共產黨員，但是看透了蘇聯的「大清洗」，發表一本控訴史達林主義的著名政治小說《中午的黑暗》！他的思想也逐漸趨向自由主義。他就是今天的冥誕壽星，匈牙利猶太裔的英國作家阿瑟．庫斯勒（Arthur Koestler）。
庫斯勒於1905年的今天生於布達佩斯。14歲時移居維也納，後在維也納大學學習工程學和心理學。但是他很有個性，竟然在大學畢業前一月，燒掉大學入學許可書，放棄結業考試。
庫斯勒一生曲折離奇，他曾移居特拉維夫、耶路撒冷；當過德國的報社記者，1938年赴莫斯科採訪後，看破共產黨，所以有前述的《中午的黑暗》一書。
1939年他以倫敦《新聞紀事報》（News Chronicle）記者，報導西班牙內戰新聞，卻被佛朗哥的法西斯軍逮捕，判處死刑，所幸最後獲赦免，這個經驗使他寫下《與死亡對話》。
二戰期間，庫斯勒曾被關入納粹佔領下的法國拘留營，最後逃出，輾轉抵達英國，但又再度入獄。經歷過多處牢獄，他說：「英國的本頓維爾監獄是我的最愛。」
1940年庫斯勒出版《中午的黑暗》（台灣曾有譯本《獄中記》）。此小說探討了政治革命的崇高「目的」與所採取的「手段」之間的衝突。擅寫政治小說的喬治歐威爾評價這部小說，說：「其最具價值之處，在於它是一份莫斯科『招供』的解釋，由一個從內部了解極權主義手段的人所寫。」
此書出版的隔年，當時擔任中華民國駐美大使的胡適，讀到這本書，在日記中這樣寫著：
「讀完了Darkness at Noon。這部小說寫一個蘇俄革命老同志，被「刷新」而關在監裡，受種種拷問，終於自承種種罪名，並在公庭上宣佈自己的罪狀。結果還是槍斃了。…描寫很有力量...」（《胡適日記》1941年8月1日）
1941年到1942年庫斯勒加入英軍，為BBC工作。
庫斯勒著作甚豐，有小說、戲劇、傳記，還有評論及歷史。
令人遺憾的是，78歲那年，庫斯勒因長期受病魔折磨，1983年3月3日他和妻子服藥自盡！
