L' Etreinte Du Crapaud (Le Gout Des Idees)

by Arthur Koestler, Georges Fradier (Translator)

Le 26 septembre 1926, un biologiste autrichien nomme Paul Kammerer se tua d'un coup de revolver. Dans les milieux scientifiques, on considera ce suicide comme le denouement d'une bataille tantot obscure, tantot scandaleuse, autour des doctrines fondamentales de l'Evolution. Aux disciples de Lamarck, apotres de l'heredite des caracteres acquis, les experiences de Kammerer menees pendant plus de quinze ans sur des generations d'amphibiens tels que la salamandre et le fameux crapaud accoucheur, apportaient des arguments apparemment decisifs. D'ou la fureur du camp celui des neo-darwinistes, adeptes des mutations fortuites preservees par la selection naturelle. A leur tete, le savant anglais William Bateson insinua que les experiences etaient truquees mais reussit a ne pas en examiner les resultats - s'arrangeant en particulier pour ne pas voir une piece les rugosites nuptiales du dernier specimen de crapaud accoucheur... Un biologiste americain devait administrer le coup de se trouvant a Vienne, il y fit une decouverte qu'il publia, et a la suite de laquelle Kammerer se suicida. Longtemps intrigue par cette curieuse affaire, Arthur Koestler s'attendait, lorsqu'il decida de reprendre l'enquete, a raconter la triste histoire d'un savant qui trahit sa le suicide de Kammerer etait, en effet, passe pour un aveu, et toute son oeuvre en est restee discreditee. Or, en analysant la documentation de l'epoque et en se renseignant aupres de tous les survivants du drame, Koestler s'apercut peu a peu qu'il procedait a la rehabilitation d'un homme qui, tres probablement, fut la victime d'une trahison.

216 pages, Paperback

Published January 16, 2018

About the author

Darkness at Noon (1940), novel of Hungarian-born British writer Arthur Koestler, portrays his disillusionment with Communism; his nonfiction works include The Sleepwalkers (1959) and The Ghost in the Machine (1967).


Arthur Koestler CBE [*Kösztler Artúr] was a prolific writer of essays, novels and autobiographies.

He was born into a Hungarian Jewish family in Budapest but, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria. His early career was in journalism. In 1931 he joined the Communist Party of Germany but, disillusioned, he resigned from it in 1938 and in 1940 published a devastating anti-Communist novel, Darkness at Noon, which propelled him to instant international fame.

Over the next forty-three years he espoused many causes, wrote novels and biographies, and numerous essays. In 1968 he was awarded the prestigious and valuable Sonning Prize "For outstanding contribution to European culture", and in 1972 he was made a "Commander of the British Empire" (CBE).

In 1976 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and three years later with leukaemia in its terminal stages. He committed suicide in 1983 in London.