Totalitarian Novels: Darkness at Noon and Regret
The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast
Hillsdale College
4.6 • 621 Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
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Summary
On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah and Juan discuss discuss what distinguishes Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon from the rest of the novels covered in the course before introducing Hillsdale College president Dr. Larry P. Arnn.
Totalitarian novels depict regimes that exert complete and pervasive control over the lives of their subjects. George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Arthur Koestler, and C.S. Lewis imagine the terrible possibilities of unchecked modern tyranny. Join Larry P. Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, and Hillsdale College students in this exploration of 1984, Brave New World, Darkness at Noon, and That Hideous Strength.
The course includes four lectures and four conversations, each about 30 minutes long. It is structured with one lecture about each book followed by a conversation between Dr. Arnn and the students about themes from that book.
Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon fictionalizes the experience of an old Bolshevik revolutionary after Stalin’s rise to power. Through his arrest and interrogations, Rubashov regrets the deaths on his hands and his role in creating a new generation of cruel Bolsheviks who are dedicated to the leadership of the party rather than the ideals of the revolution.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Hillsdale College Online Courses podcast. |
| 0:12.3 | I'm Jeremiah Regan. |
| 0:13.6 | And I'm Juan Davalos, and we are back today with totalitarian novels. |
| 0:18.0 | We're going to lecture number five today, darkness at noon regret. |
| 0:21.9 | So, Darkness at Noon by author Arthur Kersler, say that five times fast, might be the least well-known of these totalitarian novels, but it's Dr. Arns' favorite, and it's very compelling because of the four novels we feature in this course, it's the only one that imagines circumstances within a real regime. |
| 0:41.8 | 1984, Brave New World and that hideous strength, |
| 0:44.9 | all envision a potential future in England or elsewhere |
| 0:48.2 | in which totalitarianism has set in. |
| 0:50.9 | But darkness at noon investigates the Soviet regime in Russia and the way that it |
| 0:55.8 | treats its own people. Yeah, and an interesting subject in this lecture is how we go actually |
| 1:01.6 | into the cell of this main character as he wrestles with the regrets of the brutal reality |
| 1:08.4 | of the revolution that he helped build. He has time to contemplate the actions he took and the lives that were lost because of those |
| 1:15.7 | actions. |
| 1:16.6 | And there's a very interesting plot device in which his original interrogator is an old party |
| 1:21.5 | Bolshevik like the protagonist himself. |
| 1:23.7 | The protagonist's name is Rubikov. |
| 1:26.0 | So Rubikov is questioned by a man very much like him, |
| 1:29.7 | and there's a degree of compassion between them. But then his interrogator is himself |
| 1:35.6 | imprisoned and tried for crimes against the regime, and is replaced by Glenkin, a new, |
| 1:41.7 | zealous, young Bolshevik. And that gives Rubikhov some pause. He looks at the aims he |
| 1:48.5 | had in helping to establish and support this Soviet regime. And he looks at the type of men it's |
| 1:56.4 | producing now. Cold, calculating, cruel, brutal, impressive in a certain way, impressive in their devotion |
... |
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