Originally published in 1941, Arthur Koestler's modern masterpiece, "Darkness At Noon, " is a powerful and haunting portrait of a Communist revolutionary caught in the vicious fray of the Moscow show trials of the late 1930s.During Stalin's purges, Nicholas Rubashov, an aging revolutionary, is imprisoned and psychologically tortured by the party he has devoted his life to. Unde...
Originally published in 1941, Arthur Koestler's modern masterpiece, "Darkness At Noon, " is a powerful and haunting portrait of a Communist revolutionary caught in the vicious fray of the Moscow show trials of the late 1930s.During Stalin's purges, Nicholas Rubashov, an aging revolutionary, is imprisoned and psychologically tortured by the party he has devoted his life to. Under mounting pressure to confess to crimes he did not commit, Rubashov relives a career that embodies the ironies and betrayals of a revolutionary dictatorship that believes it is an instrument of liberation.A seminal work of twentieth-century literature, "Darkness At Noon" is a penetrating exploration of the moral danger inherent in a system that is willing to enforce its beliefs by any means necessary.
作者简介
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Born in Budapest in 1905, educated in Vienna, Arthur Koestler immersed himself in the major ideological and social conflicts of his time. A communist during the 1930s, and visitor for a time in the Soviet Union, he became disillusioned with the Party and left it in 1938. Later that year in Spain, he was captured by the Fascist forces under Franco, and sentenced to death. Relea...
Born in Budapest in 1905, educated in Vienna, Arthur Koestler immersed himself in the major ideological and social conflicts of his time. A communist during the 1930s, and visitor for a time in the Soviet Union, he became disillusioned with the Party and left it in 1938. Later that year in Spain, he was captured by the Fascist forces under Franco, and sentenced to death. Released through the last-minute intervention of the British government, he went to France where, the following year, he again was arrested for his political views. Released in 1940, he went to England, where he made his home. His novels, reportage, autobiographical works, and political and cultural writings established him as an important commentator on the dilemmas of the 20th century. He died in 1983.
A difficult read after Fahrenheit 451 (and why did I choose to read it on a Sunday afternoon?)...Now I sit on my bed and look at the gorgeous pines and white birches outside of my window, I’m just gla...A difficult read after Fahrenheit 451 (and why did I choose to read it on a Sunday afternoon?)...Now I sit on my bed and look at the gorgeous pines and white birches outside of my window, I’m just glad that I don’t have to convince myself of or against any political belief. (展开)
A difficult read after Fahrenheit 451 (and why did I choose to read it on a Sunday afternoon?)...Now I sit on my bed and look at the gorgeous pines and white birches outside of my window, I’m just gla...A difficult read after Fahrenheit 451 (and why did I choose to read it on a Sunday afternoon?)...Now I sit on my bed and look at the gorgeous pines and white birches outside of my window, I’m just glad that I don’t have to convince myself of or against any political belief. (展开)
Rubashov最后选择了"die in silence", 尽管他始终没有想明白是否这是值得的. 苏维埃起初的梦想在No.I的独裁下愈渐黑暗,Rubashov死前多羡慕摩西,尽管他没能去到the land of promise,至少也能在山头远远望一眼,明白所有的磨难是有意义的.Rubashov死在寂静的绝望里,甚至无法完成...
(展开)
The histories of nations can be understood as stories that members of a society tell themselves about where they came from and where they are going. The defining characteristic of the history of a totalitarian state (like the one in Darkness at Noon) is the political necessity of unquestioned adherence to a singular narrative that benefits the Party. In other words, the Party gets to define the...
2017-10-02 08:37:142人喜欢
The histories of nations can be understood as stories that members of a society tell themselves about where they came from and where they are going. The defining characteristic of the history of a totalitarian state (like the one in Darkness at Noon) is the political necessity of unquestioned adherence to a singular narrative that benefits the Party. In other words, the Party gets to define the only story that citizens are permitted to tell about their society. When citizens stray from this narrative, they become political dissidents, as the Party’s version of history is tantamount to law. It’s not enough for the state, then, to merely to punish or torture dissidents: dissidents must openly and publicly proclaim their wrongs and, by doing so, confirm the only narrative about the Party that is permitted. In that sense, the forcibly extracted confessions of guilt—from Rubashov, Ivanov (though offstage), and others—are ways to reenact the historical arc of the society, smoothing out any wrinkles and conflicts so that a happy ending might be reached.
It’s important to understand that, for the image of the Party, confessions must be enacted in the form of a public performance. Truth in this society is a function of what is best for the Party, rather than fundamental facts to be uncovered. As such, truth cannot simply emerge or exist: it must be told, retold, and performed on the stage of the court. This performance is then reenacted by everyone who reads the official Party account of public trials, including Vera Wassiljovna, who reads it aloud to her father. Darkness at Noon moves between metaphors of a story and metaphors of a stage. Though the stage metaphor is more apparently theatrical (meant to underline the inauthentic, constructed nature of truth in this society), both metaphors imply that confessions are less about revealing guilt than they are about enacting and preserving the very laws, narratives, and fictions by which this society is held together.引自 Truth, Confession, and Performance
A mathematician once said that algebra was the science for lazy people—one does not work out x, but operates with it as if one knew it. In our case, x stands for the anonymous masses, the people. Politics mean operating with this x without worrying about its actual nature. Making history is to recognize x for what it stands for in the equation.
2017-09-24 10:22:371人喜欢
A mathematician once said that algebra was the science for lazy people—one does not work out x, but operates with it as if one knew it. In our case, x stands for the anonymous masses, the people. Politics mean operating with this x without worrying about its actual nature. Making history is to recognize x for what it stands for in the equation.引自 The First Hearing 14
A mathematician once said that algebra was the science for lazy people—one does not work out x, but operates with it as if one knew it. In our case, x stands for the anonymous masses, the people. Politics mean operating with this x without worrying about its actual nature. Making history is to recognize x for what it stands for in the equation.
2017-09-24 10:22:371人喜欢
A mathematician once said that algebra was the science for lazy people—one does not work out x, but operates with it as if one knew it. In our case, x stands for the anonymous masses, the people. Politics mean operating with this x without worrying about its actual nature. Making history is to recognize x for what it stands for in the equation.引自 The First Hearing 14
"... The ultimate truth is penultimately always a falsehood. He who will be proved right in the end appears to be wrong and harmful before it. “But who will be proved right? It will only be known later. Meanwhile he is bound to act on credit and to sell his soul to the devil, in the hope of history’s absolution “It is said that No. 1 has Machiavelli’s Prince lying permanently by his bedside...
2017-09-26 12:11:13
"... The ultimate truth is penultimately always a falsehood. He who will be proved right in the end appears to be wrong and harmful before it.
“But who will be proved right? It will only be known later. Meanwhile he is bound to act on credit and to sell his soul to the devil, in the hope of history’s absolution
“It is said that No. 1 has Machiavelli’s Prince lying permanently by his bedside. So he should: since then, nothing really important has been said about the rules of political ethics. We were the first to replace the nineteenth century’s liberal ethics of ‘fair play’ by the revolutionary ethics of the twentieth century. In that also we were right: a revolution conducted according to the rules of cricket is an absurdity. Politics can be relatively fair in the breathing spaces of history, at its critical turning points there is no other rule possible than the old one, that the end justifies the means. We introduced neo-Machiavellism into this country, the others, the counter-revolutionary dictatorships, have clumsily imitated it. We were neo-Machiavellians in the name of universal reason—that was our greatness, the others in the name of universal reason—that was our greatness, the others in the name of a national romanticism, that is their anachronism. That is why we will in the end be absolved by history, but not they. ...
“Yet for the moment we are thinking and acting on credit. As we have thrown overboard all conventions and rules of cricket-morality, our sole guiding principle is that of consequent logic. We are under the terrible compulsion to follow our thought down to its final consequence and to act in accordance to it. We are sailing without ballast, therefore each touch on the helm is a matter of life or death.
“A short time ago, our leading agriculturist, B., was shot with thirty of his collaborators because he maintained the opinion that nitrate artificial manure was superior to potash. No. 1 is all for potash; therefore B. and the thirty had to be liquidated as saboteurs. In a nationally centralized agriculture, the alternative of nitrate of potash is of enormous importance: it can decide the issue of the next war. If No. I was in the right, history will absolve him, and the execution of the thirty-one men will be a mere bagatelle. If he was wrong ...
"It is that alone that matters who is objectively in the right. The cricket-moralists are agitated by quite another problem: whether B. was subjectively in good faith when he recommended nitrogen. If he was not, according to their ethics he should be shot, even if it should subsequently be shown that nitrogen would have been better after all. If he was in good faith, then he should be acquitted and allowed to continue making propaganda for nitrate, even if the country should be ruined by it. ...
“That is, of course, complete nonsense. For us the question of subjective good faith is of no interest. He who is in the wrong must pay; he who is in the right will be absolved. That Is the law of historical credit; it was our law.
“History has taught us that often lies serve her better than the truth, for man is sluggish and has to be led through the desert for forty years before each step In his development. And he has to be driven through the desert with threats and promises, by imaginary terrors and imaginary consolations, so that he should not sit down prematurely to rest and divert himself by worshipping golden calves.
“We have learnt history more thoroughly than the others. We differ from all others in our logical consistency. We know that virtue does not matter to history, and that crimes remain unpunished; but that every error had its consequences and venges itself unto the seventh generation. Therefore we concentrated all our efforts on preventing error and destroying the very seeds of it. Never in history has so much power over the future of humanity been concentrated in so few hands as in our case. Each wrong idea we follow is a crime committed against future generations. Therefore we have to punish wrong ideas as others punish crimes: with death. We were held for madmen because we followed every thought down to its final consequence and acted accordingly. We were compared to the inquisition because, like them, we constantly felt in ourselves the whole weight of responsibility for the super-individual life to come. We resembled the great Inquisitors in that we persecuted the seeds of evil not only in men’s deeds, but in their thoughts. We admitted no private sphere, not even inside a man’s skull. We lived under the compulsion of working things out to their final conclusions. Our minds were so tensely charged that the slightest collision caused a mortal short-circuit. Thus we were fated to mutual destruction.”
“I was one of those. I have thought and acted as I had to; I destroyed people whom I was fond of, and gave power to others I did not like. History put me where I stood; I have exhausted the credit which she accorded me; if I was right I have nothing to repent of; if wrong, I will pay.
“But how can the present decide what will be judged truth in the future? We are doing the work of prophets without their gift. We replaced vision by logical deduction; but although we all started from the same point of departure, we came to divergent results. Proof disproved proof, and finally we had to recur to faith—to axiomatic faith in the rightness of one’s own reasoning. That is the crucial point. We have thrown all ballast overboard; only one anchor holds us: faith in one’s self. Geometry is the purest realization of human reason; but Euclid’s axioms cannot be proved. He who does not believe in them sees the whole building crash.
“No. 1 has faith in himself, tough, slow, sullen and unshakable. He has the most solid anchor-chain of all. Mine has worn thin in the last few years. ...
“The fact is: I no longer believe in my infallibility. That is why I am lost.”引自 1. “Extract from the diary of N. S. Rubashov, on the fifth day of imprisonment
The histories of nations can be understood as stories that members of a society tell themselves about where they came from and where they are going. The defining characteristic of the history of a totalitarian state (like the one in Darkness at Noon) is the political necessity of unquestioned adherence to a singular narrative that benefits the Party. In other words, the Party gets to define the...
2017-10-02 08:37:142人喜欢
The histories of nations can be understood as stories that members of a society tell themselves about where they came from and where they are going. The defining characteristic of the history of a totalitarian state (like the one in Darkness at Noon) is the political necessity of unquestioned adherence to a singular narrative that benefits the Party. In other words, the Party gets to define the only story that citizens are permitted to tell about their society. When citizens stray from this narrative, they become political dissidents, as the Party’s version of history is tantamount to law. It’s not enough for the state, then, to merely to punish or torture dissidents: dissidents must openly and publicly proclaim their wrongs and, by doing so, confirm the only narrative about the Party that is permitted. In that sense, the forcibly extracted confessions of guilt—from Rubashov, Ivanov (though offstage), and others—are ways to reenact the historical arc of the society, smoothing out any wrinkles and conflicts so that a happy ending might be reached.
It’s important to understand that, for the image of the Party, confessions must be enacted in the form of a public performance. Truth in this society is a function of what is best for the Party, rather than fundamental facts to be uncovered. As such, truth cannot simply emerge or exist: it must be told, retold, and performed on the stage of the court. This performance is then reenacted by everyone who reads the official Party account of public trials, including Vera Wassiljovna, who reads it aloud to her father. Darkness at Noon moves between metaphors of a story and metaphors of a stage. Though the stage metaphor is more apparently theatrical (meant to underline the inauthentic, constructed nature of truth in this society), both metaphors imply that confessions are less about revealing guilt than they are about enacting and preserving the very laws, narratives, and fictions by which this society is held together.引自 Truth, Confession, and Performance
nm$l厂牌一哥
臉譜出版社2006版
微不足道
臉譜出版社2006版
八百里
MACMILLAN1941版
不是汉子是妹子
Bantam1984版
1 有用 Echo毓歌 2019-11-29 17:24:16
生娃前读了四分之一，剩下的在泵奶期间读完了 11.28.2019
0 有用 watsonhu 2011-12-09 17:14:57
Sympathy is a fatal disaster for a revolutionary!!
1 有用 自在娇莺恰恰恰 2014-06-27 00:21:54
第一本读起来很畅快的！临刑前的对话真唏嘘。人参与这种荒诞剧并演完一生，好值得愤而罢演，推桌而起
0 有用 Chandler 2017-10-02 08:22:33
Incredible
1 有用 Nussknacker 2018-10-29 08:41:28
A difficult read after Fahrenheit 451 (and why did I choose to read it on a Sunday afternoon?)...Now I sit on my bed and look at the gorgeous pines and white birches outside of my window, I’m just gla... A difficult read after Fahrenheit 451 (and why did I choose to read it on a Sunday afternoon?)...Now I sit on my bed and look at the gorgeous pines and white birches outside of my window, I’m just glad that I don’t have to convince myself of or against any political belief. (展开)
0 有用 sonbugs 2022-05-03 15:23:06
Rubashov最后一闪而过地想法:为Party事业献身40年不如去当宇航宇。对什么失望都不如对人类失望？
0 有用 亚洲鲸鱼之王🐳 2021-12-02 15:47:26
counter-counter-counter-revolutionary
1 有用 Echo毓歌 2019-11-29 17:24:16
生娃前读了四分之一，剩下的在泵奶期间读完了 11.28.2019
0 有用 Xel 2019-02-11 14:42:42
需要重读的书
1 有用 Nussknacker 2018-10-29 08:41:28
A difficult read after Fahrenheit 451 (and why did I choose to read it on a Sunday afternoon?)...Now I sit on my bed and look at the gorgeous pines and white birches outside of my window, I’m just gla... A difficult read after Fahrenheit 451 (and why did I choose to read it on a Sunday afternoon?)...Now I sit on my bed and look at the gorgeous pines and white birches outside of my window, I’m just glad that I don’t have to convince myself of or against any political belief. (展开)