Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
 
Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind (Hardcover)

by David Cesarani (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


11 used from £7.11
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover 13 used & new from £8.93
Paperback (New edition) 3 used & new from £14.45

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested in These Sponsored Links

  (What is this?)
   Homeless charity: Shelter opens new browser window
www.Shelter.org.uk/homeless  -  Shelter, the UK housing & homeless charity. Donate £10 a month today. 
   Cheap Books opens new browser window
www.AbeBooks.co.uk  -  Find all your books cheap & second hand at AbeBooks. 
   The Homeless opens new browser window
www.Ask.com  -  Find the Best Results for The Homeless. 
  
 

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Scum of the Earth

Scum of the Earth

by Arthur Koestler
4.8 out of 5 stars (4)  £8.09
The Invisible Writing (Vintage Classics)

The Invisible Writing (Vintage Classics)

by Arthur Koestler
£7.69
Darkness at Noon

Darkness at Noon

by Arthur Koestler
4.9 out of 5 stars (10)  £5.49
Arrival and Departure (Vintage Classics)

Arrival and Departure (Vintage Classics)

by Arthur Koestler
4.7 out of 5 stars (3)  £6.99
Dialogue with Death

Dialogue with Death

by Arthur Koestler
£15.95
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Hardcover: 656 pages
  • Publisher: The Free Press; 1st Free Press Ed edition (31 Dec 1999)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0684867206
  • ISBN-13: 978-0684867205
  • Product Dimensions: 24.1 x 16.3 x 3.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 954,883 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #73 in  Books > Poetry, Drama & Criticism > History & Criticism > Literary Theory & Movements > Marxist

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

Should we judge the work by the man, or vice versa? Ezra Pound was a Fascist and an anti-Semite; he was also a good poet. Arthur Koestler was a remarkable man, in his failings as much as his virtues, and David Cesarani's new biography pulls no punches in examining this dichotomy.

Koestler was born in Budapest in 1905 to Jewish parents. In his adult years he courted Zionism, socialism, anti-communism, and from the 1960s onward, science and the paranormal, crossing ideological frontiers as frequently as geographical ones. He wrote his best work before he was 40--Darkness at Noon, Scum of the Earth and Arrival and Departure --and its bravery in expressing a disillusionment with Soviet communism was considerable; George Orwell certainly owed him a debt when he wrote Nineteen Eighty-four. His later work increasingly invited, and received, ridicule. And that is where Koestler has stood for years now, as a majorly minor writer. Cesarani's intention is to reclaim Koestler in the light of his Jewishness, which he believes has been neglected, not least by the writer himself.

However, the strongest personality to emerge from this book is not the anti-communist, or the Jew, but the misogynist bully, who was almost certainly a rapist and possibly a serial one. Muscular of mind and body, Koestler drank, drove, crashed and cavorted as though his soul depended on it. Yet when it suited him he was stimulating and exciting company, as numerous friends attest. So where is the man?

Koestler was an intellectual, a mainly continental affliction, whose skill lay as an assimilator, rather than an originator, of ideas. Malcolm Muggeridge described him as "all antennae and no head". In allowing the contradictions of the man to issue forth in such detail Cesarani runs the risk of obscuring the main tenet of his thesis, but these questions are as relevant as they are awkward; consider the moral arbiters of Bill Clinton today. Whichever way, this is a provocative and searching book, which will not leave you unmoved.--David Vincent --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.



Synopsis

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.

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
 
(2)
(2)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind
54% buy the item featured on this page:
Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind 5.0 out of 5 stars (3)
Scum of the Earth
17% buy
Scum of the Earth 4.8 out of 5 stars (4)
£8.09
Darkness at Noon
14% buy
Darkness at Noon 4.9 out of 5 stars (10)
£5.49
Arrow in the Blue: The First Volume of an Autobiography - 1905-31
8% buy
Arrow in the Blue: The First Volume of an Autobiography - 1905-31
£9.98
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A perfect example of the art of biography, 10 Nov 1999
By lawrences@eggconnect.net (Southampton, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind - Arthur Koestler and the Quest for Belonging (Paperback)
This is just about as good an example of the art of biography as you are likely to come across. It has all the basic requirements of content based on meticulous research, a thoughtful introduction and a challenging conclusion, an exhaustive index, and a comprehensive record of notes and sources, but it is also a very good read! Lucid, perceptive and, at least as far I was concerned, compulsive. No mean feat for a book almost 600 pages long. Koestler himself is brought brilliantly alive in all his contradictions and complexities, but so also are many of the other figures in his life. His second wife, Mamaine, for example, is so vivid that I kept turning back to the photo of her and Koestler sitting on their sofa just to see her face again. Then there are the figures that pass across the pages and grow to resemble a roll-call of many of the century's major writers and thinkers - Bertrand Russell, Orwell, Camus, Sartre, de Beauvoir and so on. Plus some more incidental ones like Cyril Connolly and Timothy 'Turn on tune in drop out' Leary. On top of all this the author uses the character of Koestler to raise and consider some fundamental universal issues, such as the importance of an individual's sense of self and the part homelessness can play in creativity. Marvelous stuff.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A perfect example of the art of biography, 10 Nov 1999
By lawrences@eggconnect.net (Southampton, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind - Arthur Koestler and the Quest for Belonging (Paperback)
This is just about as good an example of the art of biography as you are likely to come across. It has all the basic requirements of content based on meticulous research, a thoughtful introduction and a challenging conclusion, an exhaustive index, and a comprehensive record of notes and sources, but it is also a very good read! Lucid, perceptive and, at least as far I was concerned, compulsive. No mean feat for a book almost 600 pages long. Koestler himself is brought brilliantly alive in all his contradictions and complexities, but so also are many of the other figures in his life. His second wife, Mamaine, for example, is so vivid that I kept turning back to the photo of her and Koestler sitting on their sofa just to see her face again. Then there are the figures that pass across the pages and grow to resemble a roll-call of many of the century's major writers and thinkers - Bertrand Russell, Orwell, Camus, Sartre, de Beauvoir and so on. Plus some more incidental ones like Cyril Connolly and Timothy 'Turn on tune in drop out' Leary. On top of all this the author uses the character of Koestler to raise and consider some fundamental universal issues, such as the importance of an individual's sense of self and the part homelessness can play in creativity. Marvelous stuff.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
5.0 out of 5 stars A perfect example of the art of biography, 10 Nov 1999
By lawrences@eggconnect.net (Southampton, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind - Arthur Koestler and the Quest for Belonging (Paperback)
This is just about as good an example of the art of biography as you are likely to come across. It has all the basic requirements of content based on meticulous research, a thoughtful introduction and a challenging conclusion, an exhaustive index, and a comprehensive record of notes and sources, but it is also a very good read! Lucid, perceptive and, at least as far I was concerned, compulsive. No mean feat for a book almost 600 pages long. Koestler himself is brought brilliantly alive in all his contradictions and complexities, but so also are many of the other figures in his life. His second wife, Mamaine, for example, is so vivid that I kept turning back to the photo of her and Koestler sitting on their sofa just to see her face again. Then there are the figures that pass across the pages and grow to resemble a roll-call of many of the century's major writers and thinkers - Bertrand Russell, Orwell, Camus, Sartre, de Beauvoir and so on. Plus some more incidental ones like Cyril Connolly and Timothy 'Turn on tune in drop out' Leary. On top of all this the author uses the character of Koestler to raise and consider some fundamental universal issues, such as the importance of an individual's sense of self and the part homelessness can play in creativity. Marvelous stuff.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject





















i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.