From Reviving the Dinosaur to Reconnecting with the Visionary: An Introduction to the Volume and an Overview of the State of Koestler Studies

Result code in IS VaVaI

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Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

From Reviving the Dinosaur to Reconnecting with the Visionary: An Introduction to the Volume and an Overview of the State of Koestler Studies

Original language description

The essay starts with an overview of the position of Arthur Koestler‘s fiction in the canon of English literature in the broadest sense. For this reason, it provides an analysis of how major English literary histories discuss Koestler‘s novels. This in turn is set in the context of a historical survey of Koestler Studies, comparing the discussion of Koestler‘s novels in recent sources on the author to their understanding in those published at various stages of his lifetime. This helps in identifying major claims about Koestler‘s status, themes, style and importance, as well as developments in these respects over the years. As it is shown, the consensus reached in Koestler‘s lifetime about him being more of a mixture of an original thinker and a journalist rather than a writer of literary fiction has not significantly changed over the decades, nor the conception that Darkness at Noon (1940) is the only novel of his which has proved to be an exception to this rule and could be considered a novel proper. The essay then clarifies its position, which is to challenge this understanding and argue for the possibility and necessity to understand Koestler as a writer of literary fiction. This is put in the context of recent scholarship in English that attempts to reinterpret Koestler‘s writing against the grain of a (reluctant, rather than enthusiastic) consensus, as well as that of contributions to this question by German and Hungarian sources, which often differ significantly from those in English in their understanding of the author‘s fiction. In this context, Koestler‘s links to writers and thinkers active in his lifetime are also briefly explored, along with his influence on younger generations. The chapter then argues that Koestler‘s fiction as a whole, rather than Darkness at Noon (1940) as an exception to the rule, is an important contribution to the genre of the novel and a whole range of its subgenres, of which the political novel is only one, using the volume‘s other chapters and their main claims as support. It further draws attention to the novels‘ highly topical themes and problems that could interest the 21st century reader, once again relying on a summary of relevant claims from the volume‘s various chapters.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

C - Chapter in a specialist book

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60204 - General literature studies

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Book/collection name

Arthur Koestler‘s Fiction and the Genre of the Novel: Rubashov and Beyond

ISBN

978-1-79362-225-9

Number of pages of the result

25

Pages from-to

„xv”-„xxxix”

Number of pages of the book

302

Publisher name

Lexington Books

Place of publication

Lanham, MD

UT code for WoS chapter

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