Original German Version of "Darkness at Noon" discovered

[galanx]

A doctoral student looking to find some minor details about Arthur Koesler for his dissertation has apparently found the original German edition of "Darkness at Noon".


"Darkness at Noon" is one of the greatest of the novels written about 20th Century totalitarianism, matched only by "1984" and "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich".

The only version that has been available in any language is an English translation made by Koestler's 22-year-old assistant/girlfriend, as they prepared to flee France in 1940

Foreseeing more trouble ahead, Koestler planned to escape to England and pressed Hardy—who had attended a German school in The Hague where her father was a diplomat—into translating his novel into English before it was too late. She did so at top speed and at times virtually as he wrote it. In her journal she describes herself bent over a tiny table behind a curtain strung down the middle of their studio apartment, while Koestler wrote furiously at the kitchen table on the other side. Hardy was twenty-two years old at the time, somewhat unsure of her ability as a writer (she had left school at fourteen to pursue her art studies), and had absolutely no experience as a translator. When lost for a word or a phrase she consulted Koestler, whose own English was far from fluent at the time.

The reviewer (author of a biography of Koestler) says that the English translation both stultifies and softens the harshness of the original's description of Soviet brutality:

As a result, Hardy softened Rubashov’s fate by civilizing his surroundings and cushioning his pain. At the beginning of his second interrogation, for example, Rubashov awakes from a dream about his past in which he is arrested and struck in the face by “a revolver butt.” This detail is omitted in the English translation, but it is important, because the scene is set in Germany when Rubashov was there as a Soviet agent, so we can deduce that this brutal arrest was by the Nazis. The similarities between Nazi and Soviet atrocities later became a cliché of Western journalism, but were new when Koestler wrote about them, and though neither regime was specified—the setting was obviously Soviet—the parallel was one of the themes of Koestler’s novel.

(The first half of the article is mostly about the discovery and what had happened to the original; the second more on the dfferences and the political repercussions)

For a deeper look into the underlying moral issue, though based on the NYRB article, from Bernard Avishai
(ignore the title)

Ivanov dismisses Dostoyevsky, but Koestler relies on our familiarity with Dostoyevsky’s most famous dialogues to frame Rubashov's responses. He ventures (not quite cogently) that Raskolnikov, Crime and Punishment's hero, finds out how “twice two are not four when mathematical units are human beings.” Rubashov cannot seem to get out the point he wants to make, which is that he cannot account for why matter matters—why people, including himself, should not be mere means to higher ends, which is usually another’s ends.
So Rubashov's burgeoning guilt is more physically intolerable than any strike from the butt of a gun.

Avishai: What 'Darkness At Noon' Tells Us About Our Current Political Moment

 

[hitmouse]

"Darkness at Noon" is one of the greatest of the novels written about 20th Century totalitarianism, matched only by "1984" and "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich".

It is a pretty good book but I would dispute your assertion of a supreme tryptich of 20th century novels about totalitarianism.

 

[galanx]

Alternative selections?

 

[Ogma]

We by Zamyatin?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

"Darkness at Noon" is one of the greatest of the novels written about 20th Century totalitarianism,

Yet I can't remember a word of it. But it was a long time a go I read it and don't have my copy now.

matched only by "1984" and "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich".

I do remember those.
Also I remember some of Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Riech", First Circle, Animal Farm, The War Against The Jews, Brave New World, "That Hideous Strength", Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451, "Dr. Zhivago"

Even Harry Harrison's "To the Stars" trilogy could be regarded at same level as 1984 as warning about totalitarian* regimes.
Even "Dune" is quite allegorical about Oil and totalitarian regimes.
Or Wilford Greatorex "1990" book1 & Book2?

I can't imagine that "1984", "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and "Darkness at Noon" are top three books on warning about totalitarian regimes. Certainly three significant books and quite different from each other!

[* The problem is that the totalitarian regimes take little notice, other than perhaps to ban book and incarcerate or kill author if possible and the sleepy middle class wake up when it's too late. Perhaps such books encourage some people to be activists. Perhaps after 50 years of reading such books I'm jaded and disillusioned about ability to influence the majority. It seems easier to whip people up to extremism with a few YouTube videos ]

 

[hitmouse]

The Aerodrome by Rex Warner

 

[galanx]

"Darkness at Noon" is one of the greatest of the novels written about 20th Century totalitarianism, matched only by "1984" and "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich".

Specifically Communist/Nazi regimes, though other authoritarianisms could come close- and I should have written 'works' to allow Elie Wiesel's "Night"

Ogma said

We by Zamyatin?

A great novel, amd the forerunner of many science fiction novels, but lacks the 20th Century connection, with all those glass houses and assigned sex partners.
Could be described as the shining totalitarian future the Communists wanted to create- corresponding to "The Gernsback Continuum"- rather than the crapsack world they came up with.

Ray McCarthy said:

Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Riech": Not fiction, "The War Against The Jews", ditto. Many great histories, of course: Robert Conquest's "The Great Terror; I highly recommend "The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia" by Richard Avery.

First Circle, Animal Farm: I considered these two for my list; both are better as literature, but lack the emotional punch of their more famous siblings.

Brave New World- same problem as We; it references the 20th C. totalitarians even less; more a commentary on the direction of modern consumer culture- it may speak to our current age more meaningfully.

"That Hideous Strength": Not fully developed, and loses the necessary realism- though Lewis could have written a great dystopia if he had wanted to.

"Lord of the Flies": more the "universal human condition" a la 2001: A Space Odyssey.
"Fahrenheit 451": not developed enough, and again more a happy consumer/conformist society than modern totalitarianism
"Dr. Zhivago": Again, great story but too sweeping and romantic/adventure (yes, the novel too)

Others
"The Master and Margarita", too fantastic
"The Power and the Glory" Graham Greene: setting too small

Or maybe I'm adjusting my conditions to make sure only my previously selected ones fit?

 

[galanx]

The Aerodrome by Rex Warner

Hadn't heard of it, though it sounds good.

 

[galanx]

Could also add Jacobo Timerman's "Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number", though it shares the same problem as Greene- even an Argentine military junta looks small compared to Hitler and Stalin.

Another might be "A Small Town called Hibiscus", set in the Cultural Revolution. I was living in Beijing when the movie came out in 1986, unprecedented for its exposure of what had happened. At my campus it was absolutely packed, and had an overwhelming impact- a lot of the audience had lived through the turmoil shown, and much worse. It won the Golden Rooster Award (China's Academy Award) for Best Film in 1987; ironically it would probably be considered too subversive to be released nowadays.

 

[GOLLUM]

Thanks for posting this Galanx.

I'm a big fan of Darkness At Noon and view it as one of the best novels written (in its current version) in the 20th Century (that I have read). Hopefully the German edition is made available (or translated more fully into English)

I have a particular interest in German authors as it is a second language of mine... Only Latin American literature is possibly closer for me.