Some Notes on Arthur Koestler

Extract

Arthur Koestler is unique among modern novelists for two reasons. Firstly he has written novels which have achieved wide popularity without in any way sacrificing their claim to be serious literature. Secondly, his political philosophy is sufficiently mature to enable him to analyse left-wing politics from a left-wing standpoint and yet to arrive at conclusions far more balanced and critical than we are entitled to expect from any British political commentator starting from the same assumptions.

The popularity of his two novels, Darkness at Noon and Arrival and Departure, has been achieved by his use of all the reader-appeals of the modern best-seller. His subject matter is extremely palatable to those types of middle-class intelligentsia who frequent the circulating libraries. Koestler’s chief appeal, of course, is his topicality. The setting of his novels is in modern Russia and Germany. But one has only to compare his grasp of political realities with the tedious platitudes and gross over-simplifications of such a political novelist as Philip Gibbs to appreciate Koestler’s mature and informed political criticism through characters and vividly localised details.