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Scum of the Earth (Paperback)

by Arthur Koestler (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Eland Publishing Ltd; New edition edition (24 Oct 1991)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0907871070
  • ISBN-13: 978-0907871071
  • Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 13.2 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 735,974 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #11 in  Books > Fiction > 20th Century Classics > Koestler, Arthur

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Product Description

The Guardian

By far the best book to come out of the collapse of France.


Charles Osbourne, The Sunday Telegraph

A powerful and moving story.
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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Prison camp psychology and the Fall of France, 4 Feb 2002
This is one of the strongest books I have ever read. It details Koestler's internment in France as an "undesirable alien" in the early part of the war, and then his struggle to keep out of the clutches of the Gestapo as the Germans march in and the country collapses in 1940.

It begins almost as travel writing, with Koestler and his girlfriend lazing around in pleasantly bohemian fashion on the Riviera, the increasing tension in 1939 Europe seemingly a million miles away. But back in Paris, Koestler is arrested by the increasingly paranoid French authorities and interned at Le Vernet along with a ragbag collection of other foreigners. Mostly leftists, intellectuals and Jews, they include Spanish Civil War veterans, Russian émigrés, German refugees and sundry unlucky Eastern European immigrants and petty criminals. His description of the people and the hardships encountered during his three months of internment with the dregs of the European Left stands comparison with any other prison camp autobiography, including One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. These are the beaten and bloody remnants of the once heroic International Brigades, betrayed by Stalin, by France and by each other -the titular Scum of the Earth.

The rest of the book follows Koestler through his release, his return to Paris, his attempts to leave for England legitimately, and his final chaotic escape through a disintegrating France. Again, the observations on the mentality of the French people and the French state faced with Hitler are incredibly acute and clear-eyed. However the most vivid feeling you take from the book is the hysterical fear, despair and disgust that grows on Koestler as the Nazis advance.

I'd recommend this book to everybody . It should be read anyone interested in 1930s radicalism and it's destruction on the anvil of the Nazi-Soviet pact, and by anyone interested in how and why France was invaded in 6 weeks in 1940. But it has strong draws on other levels as well. It deals fascinatingly with Koestler's favoured theme of Ends vs. Means, and with the psychology of political prisoners, but then it is also a skewed travelogue of France as Koestler staggers round the South West disguised as a Swiss Foreign Legionnaire trying to dodge the Panzers.

Koestler's reputation as a man has (rightly) taken a battering after David Cesarani's recent biography but nonetheless this is a very fine book. I would say it is the equal of his great novel, Darkness at Noon - it deals with similar themes but in a more direct, conversational way. Like his friend George Orwell, Koestler had the ability to write about politics with enormous common-sense and without catcalling or bandying jargon around. He refuses to be a propagandist and he gives all the people and points of view he encounters a fair and compassionate hearing, however blinkered, prejudiced or stupid they may be.

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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Forgotten classic of wartime, 21 Mar 2002
By A Customer
..What lends this book its immediacy is that it was written, and published, while the war was still in progress and the good guys weren't winning; also that instead of the usual Nazis v (mainly) Jews, it is French v (mainly) leftists of all descriptions. But this doesn't convey the book's flavour. It's a human story, rich in resonances. Even if you don't read 'war books', ignore the rather off-putting title and get swept away! Then for a more soothing view of the tail-end of the war, read Love and War in the Appenines.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars History Come Alive, 8 April 2009
By Stanley J. Marut (Hampshire, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Scum of the Earth (Paperback)
I have just rediscovered Koestler and I'm glad I did. Apart from reading the two volume autobiography, I read this in between. What started out as a browse before finishing my other Koestler volume, I found that I was unable to put this book down. Koestler is so eloquent and is a delight to read. His description of the fall of France in 1939/1940 as an alien is unbelieveable. It appears that foreigners in France at that time were treated abominably. Not only was this reportage of events in France at that sad time, it was also a highly readable adventure story.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Despair in France........1940
The feeling of being hunted....the germans closing in.....few autobiographical accounts seem as devoid of hope as this classic account of novelist Koestlers attempts to flee the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by DOGG

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