Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century SkepticRandom House Publishing Group, 29.12.2009 - 720 Seiten From award-winning author Michael Scammell comes a monumental achievement: the first authorized biography of Arthur Koestler, one of the most influential and controversial intellectuals of the twentieth century. Over a decade in the making, and based on new research and full access to its subject’s papers, Koestler is the definitive account of this fascinating and polarizing figure. Though best known as the creator of the classic anti-Communist novel Darkness at Noon, Koestler is here revealed as much more–a man whose personal life was as astonishing as his literary accomplishments. Koestler portrays the anguished youth of a boy raised in Budapest by a possessive and mercurial mother and an erratic father, marked for life by a forced operation performed without anesthesia when he was five, growing up feeling unloved and unprotected. Here is the young man whose experience of anti-Semitism and devotion to Zionism provoked him to move to Palestine; the foreign correspondent who risked his life from the North Pole to Franco’s Spain, where he was imprisoned and sentenced to death; the committed Communist for whom the brutal truth of Stalin’s show trials inspired the superb and angry novel that became an instant classic in 1940. Scammell also provides new details of Koestler’s amazing World War II adventures, including his escape from occupied France by joining the Foreign Legion and his bluffing his way illegally to England, where his controversial novel Arrival and Departure, published in 1943, was the first to portray Hitler’s Final Solution. Without sentimentality, Scammell explores Koestler’s turbulent private life: his drug use, his manic depression, the frenetic womanizing that doomed his three marriages and led to an accusation of rape that posthumously tainted his reputation, and his startling suicide while fatally ill in 1983–an act shared by his healthy third wife, Cynthia–rendered unforgettably as part of his dark and disturbing legacy. Featuring cameos of famous friends and colleagues including Langston Hughes, George Orwell, and Albert Camus, Koestler gives a full account of the author’s voluminous writings, making the case that the autobiographies and essays are fit to stand beside Darkness at Noon as works of lasting literary value. Koestler adds up to an indelible portrait of this brilliant, unpredictable, and talented writer, once memorably described as “one third blackguard, one third lunatic, and one third genius.” |
Inhalt
13 | |
23 | |
ZIONIST | 33 |
A RUNAWAY AND A FUGITIVE | 46 |
FIRST STEPS IN JOURNALISM | 56 |
HELLO TO BERLIN | 66 |
IN THE GALE OF HISTORY | 77 |
Chapter Nine RED DAYS | 88 |
A MARRIED | 337 |
TO THE BARRICADES | 350 |
THE CONGRESS | 362 |
BACK TO THE USA | 371 |
POLITICALLY UNRELIABLE | 382 |
THE LANGUAGE OF DESTINY | 394 |
THE PHANTOM CHASE | 404 |
I KILLED HER | 419 |
ANTIFASCIST CRUSADER | 101 |
MARKING TIME | 116 |
PRISONER OF FRANCO | 125 |
TURNING POINT | 140 |
THE GOD THAT FAILED | 155 |
NO NEW CERTAINTIES | 164 |
DARKNESS VISIBLE | 173 |
SCUM OF THE EARTH | 183 |
DARKNESS UNVEILED | 193 |
IN CRUMPLED BATTLEDRESS | 203 |
THE NOVELISTS TEMPTATIONS | 214 |
IDENTITY CRISIS | 227 |
COMMISSAR OR YOGI? | 238 |
RETURN TO PALESTINE | 250 |
WELSH INTERLUDE | 262 |
THE LOGIC OF THE ICE | 273 |
LOST ILLUSIONS | 285 |
FRENCH LESSONS | 299 |
DISCOVERING AMERICA | 313 |
FAREWELL TO ZIONISM | 325 |
CASSANDRA GROWS HOARSE | 427 |
MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH | 443 |
ASTRIDE THE TWO CULTURES | 455 |
THE SQUIRE OF ALPBACH | 470 |
RETREAT FROM RATIONALISM? | 478 |
A NAIVE AND SKEPTICAL | 489 |
SEEKING A CURE | 502 |
WUNDERKIND | 516 |
CHANCE GOVERNS ALL | 527 |
THE KOESTLER PROBLEM | 539 |
AN EASY WAY OF DYING | 551 |
EPILOGUE | 566 |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | 573 |
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY | 579 |
NOTES AND SOURCES | 587 |
ཁབ ོགླ ོཚྕ བི རྩ རྫ ཎྜ | 626 |
667 | |
668 | |
682 | |
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-century Skeptic Michael Scammell Keine Leseprobe verfügbar - 2009 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
Adele Aldor Alpbach American Arabs Arrival and Departure Arrow Arthur Koestler asked autobiography Beauvoir Berlin Britain British Budapest Burnham called Camus Celia Commissar Communist Connolly Crossman Cynthia Daphne Darkness at Noon David Astor death diary dinner Dorothee English essay Europe European Eva Zeisel feel felt France French friends German Gollancz Henrik Hungarian Hungary idea intellectual interview Invisible Writing Irgun Jabotinsky Janine Jewish Jews journalist knew Koestler wrote later Le Vernet letter literary living London look Malraux Mamaine Mamaine's Manès Sperber meeting ment Michael Foot months Moscow Münzenberg Nazi Németh never night novel Orwell Palestine Paris party play Polanyi political prison published Rubashov Russian Sartre Scum seemed Seville Silone social Soviet Union Sperber story talk thought tion took turned Verte Rive Vienna weeks wife Willert Willi Münzenberg Yogi York young Zionist