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Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind
A portrait of the author of Darkness at Noon--a groundbreaking fictional expose of Soviet-era horrors--reveals the literary genius, and violent soul, behind his legend
656 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1998
About the author
David Cesarani
63 books30 followersDavid Cesarani OBE was an English historian who specialised in Jewish history, especially the Holocaust.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 1, 2012
I don't think I've ever encountered an author's life more devastating to his legacy than is Arthur Koestler's. This book, which is no hatchet job, shows Koestler at his worst as a hypocrite, a drunk, a rapist, and an arrogant, domineering and doctrinaire ass.
I really love Koestler's books, though more for their artistic and psychological heaviness than for the truths they may present. For instance, Darkness at Noon is a classic, but I've never really bought the reasons the Koestler presented for why Old Bolsheviks participated in their own demise in the Communist show trials. I don't think they were acting out of some final ideological service to the party, as Koestler suggests, but rather out of severe torture and the hope that they could save themselves or at least their family and friends.
Author David Cesarani hits upon this tendency of Koestler's in one passage I highlighted, about his tendency to see deeper meaning in his many drunken driving accidents:
"Cars were one bizarre channel through which destiny spoke to him. ... Recalling the weeks up to mid-March, he cataloged a series of car accidents. On 28 February he cut across the path of a truck and nearly ended up dead; the next day he accidentally rammed Janine Graetz's stationary car; the same afternoon she was caught by the police for speeding; and the following morning he collided with another vehicle in a snowstorm. On 10 March he drove to Yale University and almost caused a pile-up by stopping suddenly on the road. 'But what does it all mean?' he asked plaintively. The obvious answer is that he was an appalling driver who was often drunk while at the wheel. But Koestler was never one to see the obvious when a vast, self-serving and utterly unprovable cosmic theory could be maneuvered into place to obscure it while at the same time meeting some dramatic need in his life."
All I can say is that it is a good thing that an writer's works can ultimately stand apart from their actual lives.
I really love Koestler's books, though more for their artistic and psychological heaviness than for the truths they may present. For instance, Darkness at Noon is a classic, but I've never really bought the reasons the Koestler presented for why Old Bolsheviks participated in their own demise in the Communist show trials. I don't think they were acting out of some final ideological service to the party, as Koestler suggests, but rather out of severe torture and the hope that they could save themselves or at least their family and friends.
Author David Cesarani hits upon this tendency of Koestler's in one passage I highlighted, about his tendency to see deeper meaning in his many drunken driving accidents:
"Cars were one bizarre channel through which destiny spoke to him. ... Recalling the weeks up to mid-March, he cataloged a series of car accidents. On 28 February he cut across the path of a truck and nearly ended up dead; the next day he accidentally rammed Janine Graetz's stationary car; the same afternoon she was caught by the police for speeding; and the following morning he collided with another vehicle in a snowstorm. On 10 March he drove to Yale University and almost caused a pile-up by stopping suddenly on the road. 'But what does it all mean?' he asked plaintively. The obvious answer is that he was an appalling driver who was often drunk while at the wheel. But Koestler was never one to see the obvious when a vast, self-serving and utterly unprovable cosmic theory could be maneuvered into place to obscure it while at the same time meeting some dramatic need in his life."
All I can say is that it is a good thing that an writer's works can ultimately stand apart from their actual lives.
October 9, 2011
Despite its limitations, which were astounding, the purview made availible is astonishingly human. It is worth it for the anecdote about Koestler and Langston Hughes in the USSR.
I read this with my friends and we uproariously dismembered it, a blunted blood lust. Strangely, I never progressed to read any of K's books, only his contribution to The God That Failed
I read this with my friends and we uproariously dismembered it, a blunted blood lust. Strangely, I never progressed to read any of K's books, only his contribution to The God That Failed
September 26, 2017
A very thorough biography. Not always comfortable to read because of Koestler's obvious character flaws - but very illuminating regarding his views on Palestine, the Soviet Union and the postwar period in general. Does not shy away from difficult truths without ever being judgemental.
November 17, 2020
I only knew Arthur Koestler from a quoting by Ken Wilber talking about holons, which for me is beautiful theoretical and abstract metaphor that can help to understand a little more about the mystery of life.
Not having read one book of Arthur Koestler it is funny to read that Ken Wilber is not mentioned once in this very well written biography on Arthur Koestler by David Cesarani.
Arthur Koestler appears in the biography as a restless wanderer curious for meaning, belonging, understanding and sex. Which ofcourse is a very big partly lie, because it doesn't describe all the other fragments of his life. And there is far more 'unknown' than known which I nor David Cerarani can mention. It is somehow part of the invisible writing you and I can try to bring to life to fill in a few blancs, fragments of life intertwined to be unraveled to see the individual tree's and the wood as a whole in a little more revealing perspective.
As far as I interpret well, Arthur Koestler saw his stumbling into the unknow, looking for the hidden logic of life as the most important part of his work and which gave him far less recognition then his journalistic and literary work, for which he was a big time personage in and around and after WOII.
The final chapter of the biography is an accumulation of trying to give a sense to the chaotic, tyrannic, contradictive, curiousing, interesting and circumstantial life or lives of a man who opposed life as much as he tried to understand it. I loved or better expressed: was curious and wanting to read more and more, about where all this restlesness and contradiction was going to lead to ………………..
The road is probably the goal of life in itsself !? (free after Georgy Konrad)
But it is funny to see the name of Ken Wilber was not mentioned once in the biography, which is probably due cause of the time of writing of the biography (before 1998). As far as I can see Ken Wilber went on where Arthur Koestler ended and to my opinion succeeded to write down, a theoretical comprehensive foundation of an integral approach towards a better understanding of life not only as an objective outsider observer but also as a subjective human that is part of what he/she tries to understand. Not by excluding but more and more trying to include all different kinds of scientific and also subjective approaches. Not to let them fight who is truer then the other but to give them "all" there legitimate place within the probably never ending wholing.
Thank you David Cesarani for this intriguing biography of a curious homeless mind looking for some true invisible roots ............................... towards something like it's true identity 😉.
At some stage of life when we start to see some of the illusinary cultural way of behaving in society of which one starts to see the ridicule. But at the same time the individal is still part this which starts to see it is not making sense anymore. Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf expresses well this stage of life. You find out somehow that your cultural roots are false or at least wrongly understood, you want to escape from yourself, the "falseness" and the “fakeness” you start to see everywhere, which at large are one’s own projections, not that easy to get rid off. Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked himself: what does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to be a Jew? What does it mean for Arthur Koestler to be Arthur Koestler, for me to be me? Georgy Konrad answered this question by saying: by your walk of life. That at least Arthur Koestler did in a disturbing phosphoric adventurous way.
Not having read one book of Arthur Koestler it is funny to read that Ken Wilber is not mentioned once in this very well written biography on Arthur Koestler by David Cesarani.
Arthur Koestler appears in the biography as a restless wanderer curious for meaning, belonging, understanding and sex. Which ofcourse is a very big partly lie, because it doesn't describe all the other fragments of his life. And there is far more 'unknown' than known which I nor David Cerarani can mention. It is somehow part of the invisible writing you and I can try to bring to life to fill in a few blancs, fragments of life intertwined to be unraveled to see the individual tree's and the wood as a whole in a little more revealing perspective.
As far as I interpret well, Arthur Koestler saw his stumbling into the unknow, looking for the hidden logic of life as the most important part of his work and which gave him far less recognition then his journalistic and literary work, for which he was a big time personage in and around and after WOII.
The final chapter of the biography is an accumulation of trying to give a sense to the chaotic, tyrannic, contradictive, curiousing, interesting and circumstantial life or lives of a man who opposed life as much as he tried to understand it. I loved or better expressed: was curious and wanting to read more and more, about where all this restlesness and contradiction was going to lead to ………………..
The road is probably the goal of life in itsself !? (free after Georgy Konrad)
But it is funny to see the name of Ken Wilber was not mentioned once in the biography, which is probably due cause of the time of writing of the biography (before 1998). As far as I can see Ken Wilber went on where Arthur Koestler ended and to my opinion succeeded to write down, a theoretical comprehensive foundation of an integral approach towards a better understanding of life not only as an objective outsider observer but also as a subjective human that is part of what he/she tries to understand. Not by excluding but more and more trying to include all different kinds of scientific and also subjective approaches. Not to let them fight who is truer then the other but to give them "all" there legitimate place within the probably never ending wholing.
Thank you David Cesarani for this intriguing biography of a curious homeless mind looking for some true invisible roots ............................... towards something like it's true identity 😉.
At some stage of life when we start to see some of the illusinary cultural way of behaving in society of which one starts to see the ridicule. But at the same time the individal is still part this which starts to see it is not making sense anymore. Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf expresses well this stage of life. You find out somehow that your cultural roots are false or at least wrongly understood, you want to escape from yourself, the "falseness" and the “fakeness” you start to see everywhere, which at large are one’s own projections, not that easy to get rid off. Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked himself: what does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to be a Jew? What does it mean for Arthur Koestler to be Arthur Koestler, for me to be me? Georgy Konrad answered this question by saying: by your walk of life. That at least Arthur Koestler did in a disturbing phosphoric adventurous way.
October 7, 2024
Eindelijk gelezen, het boek stond al jarenlang in mijn kast: een biografie van de schrijver en journalist Arthur Koestler (1905-1983). Ik heb van hem al enkele boeken gelezen: 'Darkness at noon' zeer zeker, maar ook boeken over zijn gevangenschap in Spanje en in het Franse Le Vernet en zijn boek over Joodse kolonisten in Palestina in de jaren dertig ('Thieves in the night').
Dit boek behandelt al zijn boeken, zijn bewogen leven en zijn moeilijk karakter. Arthur Koestler werd geboren in Boedapest in wat toen nog het Oostenrijks-Hongaarse dubbelmonarchie was. Hij was van Joodse afkomst, een feit dat in deze biografie benadrukt wordt. Hij heeft een belangrijks stuk van de twintigste eeuwse geschiedenis meegemaakt, niet alleen als getuige (journalist), ook als betrokkene. In zijn jonge jaren was hij beïnvloed door het zionisme, later raakte hij betrokken bij de communistische partij, waarmee hij eind jaren '30 brak en waarover hij zijn succesroman 'Darkness at Noon' (1940) schreef. In de jaren '30, nog voor hij het communisme verliet, bracht hij vele dagen in doodsangst door in de gevangenschap van Franko's troepen in Spanje. Daarover schreef hij het autobiografische boek 'Spanish testament' (1937). Later, bij het begin van de oorlog met nazi-Duitsland werd hij door de Franse politie gearresteerd als verdachte buitenlander en in het kamp in Le Vernet opgesloten, waarover hij 'Scum of the earth' (1941) schreef.
In de na-oorlogse jaren verbleeef Koestler vooral in Engeland en was hij betrokken bij de anti-communistische propaganda in de Koude Oorlog. Hij wordt minder een romanschrijver en journalist maar maakt meer essays. Nog later verschuift zijn belangstelling meer naar de wetenschap (vooral menswetenschappen) en in een laatste periode zelfs naar parapsychologie.
Arthur Koestler was een rusteloze geest: hij woonde in Oostenrijk, Duitsland, Frankrijk, de Verenigde Staten en reisde veel zoals naar Palestina /israël en later toen hij al beroemd was naar vele landen waar hij vaak gevraagd werd een lezing te geven of een congres bij te wonen.
Hij was driemaal getrouwd en had daarnaast talrijke minnaressen en affaires. Koestler was geen gemakkelijk man, hij was vaak agressief, zocht dikwijls ruzie in discussies, dronk vaak teveel en behandelde zijn vrouwen niet als gelijke. Er is zelfs sprake van een verkrachting in dit boek. Het was moeilijk samenleven met hem. Het liefst had hij iemand als Cynthia (zijn derde vrouw) die onderdanig was en haar leven helemaal ten dienste van hem plaatste. Het ging zover dat Cynthia (die veel jonger was dan Arthur) in 1983 mee zelfmoord pleegde met de oude, door ziekte getergde schrijver. Deze dubbele zelfmoord gaf aanleiding tot vele controverses, die in dit boek ook besproken worden.
De biografie van David Cesarani is goed onderbouwd, zeer gedetailleerd ook en is allesbehalve een hagiografie. Cesarani laat niet na de talrijke kleine kanten van Koestler te belichten. Daarom is dit een evenwichtige biografie die ook ontluisterend werkt voor wie Koestler vooral gevierde schrijver ziet..
Dit boek behandelt al zijn boeken, zijn bewogen leven en zijn moeilijk karakter. Arthur Koestler werd geboren in Boedapest in wat toen nog het Oostenrijks-Hongaarse dubbelmonarchie was. Hij was van Joodse afkomst, een feit dat in deze biografie benadrukt wordt. Hij heeft een belangrijks stuk van de twintigste eeuwse geschiedenis meegemaakt, niet alleen als getuige (journalist), ook als betrokkene. In zijn jonge jaren was hij beïnvloed door het zionisme, later raakte hij betrokken bij de communistische partij, waarmee hij eind jaren '30 brak en waarover hij zijn succesroman 'Darkness at Noon' (1940) schreef. In de jaren '30, nog voor hij het communisme verliet, bracht hij vele dagen in doodsangst door in de gevangenschap van Franko's troepen in Spanje. Daarover schreef hij het autobiografische boek 'Spanish testament' (1937). Later, bij het begin van de oorlog met nazi-Duitsland werd hij door de Franse politie gearresteerd als verdachte buitenlander en in het kamp in Le Vernet opgesloten, waarover hij 'Scum of the earth' (1941) schreef.
In de na-oorlogse jaren verbleeef Koestler vooral in Engeland en was hij betrokken bij de anti-communistische propaganda in de Koude Oorlog. Hij wordt minder een romanschrijver en journalist maar maakt meer essays. Nog later verschuift zijn belangstelling meer naar de wetenschap (vooral menswetenschappen) en in een laatste periode zelfs naar parapsychologie.
Arthur Koestler was een rusteloze geest: hij woonde in Oostenrijk, Duitsland, Frankrijk, de Verenigde Staten en reisde veel zoals naar Palestina /israël en later toen hij al beroemd was naar vele landen waar hij vaak gevraagd werd een lezing te geven of een congres bij te wonen.
Hij was driemaal getrouwd en had daarnaast talrijke minnaressen en affaires. Koestler was geen gemakkelijk man, hij was vaak agressief, zocht dikwijls ruzie in discussies, dronk vaak teveel en behandelde zijn vrouwen niet als gelijke. Er is zelfs sprake van een verkrachting in dit boek. Het was moeilijk samenleven met hem. Het liefst had hij iemand als Cynthia (zijn derde vrouw) die onderdanig was en haar leven helemaal ten dienste van hem plaatste. Het ging zover dat Cynthia (die veel jonger was dan Arthur) in 1983 mee zelfmoord pleegde met de oude, door ziekte getergde schrijver. Deze dubbele zelfmoord gaf aanleiding tot vele controverses, die in dit boek ook besproken worden.
De biografie van David Cesarani is goed onderbouwd, zeer gedetailleerd ook en is allesbehalve een hagiografie. Cesarani laat niet na de talrijke kleine kanten van Koestler te belichten. Daarom is dit een evenwichtige biografie die ook ontluisterend werkt voor wie Koestler vooral gevierde schrijver ziet..
January 10, 2020
The book has a tremendous amount of information on Koestler. The biggest detraction is that the author continually inserts his opinions in contradiction to what Koestler has written about himself. Some of this, considering Koestler's political and literary trajectory, is probably appropriate but it happens a bit too much and it is usually the author trying to insist that Koestler was more bound to his Jewish identity than Koestler would admit.
September 5, 2024
I have returned to this biography many times because Koestler's writing holds a mirror to some key political events of the 20th Century. The biographer has a perspective that Koestler's "homeless mind" is a symptom of his unease with accepting his Jewish culture. He overstates this perspective perhaps, but the complex nature of his subject is revealed.
April 9, 2020
What an interesting not so well known figure in history ...the writing was dry
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews