Arthur Koestler’s Fiction and the Genre of the Novel: Rubashov and Beyond PDF
Preview Arthur Koestler’s Fiction and the Genre of the Novel: Rubashov and Beyond
Arthur Koestler’s Fiction and the Genre of the Novel Arthur Koestler’s Fiction and the Genre of the Novel Rubashov and Beyond Edited by Zénó Vernyik LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2021 The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Vernyik, Zénó, editor. Title: Arthur Koestler’s fiction and the genre of the novel : Rubashov and beyond / edited by Zénó Vernyik. Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Arthur Koestler’s Fiction and the Genre of the Novel, the first volume published in English in almost four decades to cover all of the author’s novels published in his lifetime, invites the reader to reassess Koestler’s novels both in terms of their contribution to the genre of the novel, and their enduring topicality”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2021025186 (print) | LCCN 2021025187 (ebook) | ISBN 9781793622259 (cloth) | ISBN 9781793622266 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Koestler, Arthur, 1905-1983—Criticism and interpretation. | LCGFT: Literary criticism. Classification: LCC PR6021.O4 Z5696 2021 (print) | LCC PR6021.O4 (ebook) | DDC 828/.91209—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025186 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025187 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Contents Contents Figure vii Foreword ix Matthias Weßel Acknowledgments xiii From Reviving the Dinosaur to Reconnecting with the Visionary: An Introduction to the Volume and an Overview of the State of Koestler Studies xv Zénó Vernyik PART I: BETWEEN GENRES AND SUBGENRES 1 “Bucco the Peasant” A Play Embedded in The Gladiators, Its Narrative Function and Relevance for Understanding Koestler’s Fiction 1 Henry Innes MacAdam 2 Can There Be Multiple Keys? The Age of Longing and the Genre of the Roman-à-clef 33 Zénó Vernyik PART II: THE POLITICAL NOVEL 3 Images of Revolution: Orwell’s Animal Farm and Koestler’s The Gladiators 61 Stephen Ingle v vi Contents 4 Bernard’s Vision of the Totalitarian State in Arrival and Departure: A Discourse Analytical View of Political Metaphors 85 Uwe Klawitter PART III: INVESTIGATING THE SELF AND ITS DILEMMAS THROUGH THE PRISM OF THE NOVEL 5 Beyond Communism: Reflections on Rubashov’s Character from the Perspectives of Identity, Ethics and Relevance 111 Alice Eged 6 Rubashov’s Heritage: The Tragedy of Futility— Portraying the Individual Where No Individuality Is Allowed 147 Krisztián Kacsinecz and Szilvia Deisler PART IV: THE ZIONIST NOVEL: NATION, IDENTITY AND RACE 7 Thieves in the Night: Land and Identity 177 Jenni Calder 8 Arthur Koestler and the Jewish Race According to Thieves in the Night 199 Motti Inbari PART V: THE NOVEL AS SUMMARY 9 The Call-Girls: A Valedictory Novel 223 Louis Gordon Index 247 About the Contributors 257 Figure Figure 1.1 Edith Simon’s sketches of (l-r) Bucco, Dossena, and Maccus. Reprinted by permission of Antonia Reeve, daughter of Edith Simon, and the Simon Studio (Edinburgh). 21 vii Foreword Foreword Foreword During the past few years an unforeseen dynamic of discoveries has started to shake what we know about and how we view Arthur Koestler’s literary work. At first glance, this seems more than unusual, considering the fact that Koes- tler died almost forty years ago. Yet, the author has aroused much curiosity with his life and work, hence both biographical and literary research on him has remained lively even after his death. It is thanks to this research that in 2015 the German manuscript of Dark- ness at Noon was found. This made it possible to publish a German edition based on Koestler’s original for the first time in 2018: all earlier editions were retranslations from English. The discovery of the lost German manuscript also allowed for a new translation into English by Philip Boehm in 2019. In addition, the original German text of The Gladiators was also only re- cently retrieved from an archive in Moscow. While this latter manuscript had been already discovered in the 1990s by Michael Scammell, the importance of the find for literary studies remained underestimated for a relatively long period of time: until after further archival research was carried out in Moscow in 2016. As with Darkness at Noon, the original German manuscript of The Gladiators was long considered lost, and its translations into English were consequently regarded as being the primary, canonical versions of those works. With the manuscripts now available, a new German edition is now under way, and a new translation into English is thus also quite conceivable. Research on Koestler’s English-language novels, which this volume is about, is in part directly affected by these developments. Henry Innes Mac- Adam, for example, utilizes the German manuscript of The Gladiators in his chapter to trace certain historical terms which Koestler makes use of. Ultimately, any research dealing with linguistic details, such as metaphors or subtleties of the characters’ speech, should now take the rediscovered original ix
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