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Darkness at Noon
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
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Publisher's summary
A fictional portrayal of an aging revolutionary, this novel is a powerful commentary on the nightmare politics of the troubled 20th century. Born in Hungary in 1905, a defector from the Communist Party in 1938, and then arrested in both Spain and France for his political views, Arthur Koestler writes from a wealth of personal experience.
Imprisoned by the political party to which he has dedicated his life, Nicolas Rubashov paces his prison cell, examining his life and remembering his tempestuos career. As the old intelligentsia is eradicated to make way for the new, he is psychologically tortured and forced to confess to preposterous crimes. Comparing himself to Moses, led to the Promised Land but refused entry, he sees only darkness at the end of his life, where once he saw such promise for humanity.Frank Muller's narrative expertise is perfect for this haunting work. Rubashov's personal agony becomes Muller's as he presents Koestler's relevant and important questions.
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- By andrew on 11-17-10
By: William Gaddis
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The Royal Game
- A Chess Story
- By: Stefan Zweig
- Narrated by: Dan Mellins-Cohen
- Length: 2 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The fame of the The Royal Game is evident in the number of translations. The last work of the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig can be read today in over 60 languages. The first translation into English appeared in New York in 1944. In Germany, the book has become a constant bestseller. The first-person narrator learns of the presence of the world chess champion Mirko Czentovic on a boat trip from New York to Buenos Aires. Together with his acquaintance Mc Connor and other chess players, the first-person narrator manages to challenge the world champion to a game of chess.
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Brief but wonderful
- By Cat S. on 02-17-21
By: Stefan Zweig
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Nausea (New Directions Paperbook)
- By: Jean-Paul Sartre
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Sartre's greatest novel and existentialism's key text, now introduced by James Wood, and read by the inimitable Edoardo Ballerini. Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form, he ruthlessly catalogs his every feeling and sensation.
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Glad to have existed to enjoy reading this book!
- By mohammed on 08-11-21
By: Jean-Paul Sartre
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A Most Clever Girl
- A Novel of an American Spy
- By: Stephanie Marie Thornton
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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The year 1963: Reeling from the death of her mother and President Kennedy’s assassination, Catherine Gray shows up on Elizabeth Bentley’s doorstep demanding answers to the shocking mystery she just uncovered about her family. What she doesn’t expect is for Bentley to ensnare her in her own story of becoming a controversial World War II spy and Cold War informer.
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Loved it
- By Jasper Van Wyk on 10-20-21
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The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar [Classic Tales Edition]
- By: Maurice Leblanc
- Narrated by: B.J. Harrison
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
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Fine-art aficionado. Master of disguise. Jewelry expert. Historian. Gentleman. Burglar. Arsene Lupin is all of these and more. In 1905, Maurice Leblanc introduced his gentleman-burglar in the story "L'Arrestation d'Arsène Lupin". Shortly thereafter, the stories were collected as one single volume. In these charming adventures, Lupin orchestrates a myriad of extravagant heists in the very face of the determined Inspector Ganimard.
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The Original Gentleman Thief
- By David S. Mathew on 09-24-17
By: Maurice Leblanc
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The Collaborator
- By: Diane Armstrong
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 16 hrs and 16 mins
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It is 1944 in Budapest, and the Germans have invaded. Miklos Nagy risks his life and confronts the dreaded Adolf Eichmann in an attempt save thousands of Hungarian Jews from the death camps. But no one could have foreseen the consequences.... It is 2005 in Sydney, and Annika Barnett sets out on a journey that takes her to Budapest and Tel Aviv to discover the truth about the mysterious man who rescued her grandmother in 1944.
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Ruined by the reader
- By Hayworth on 02-24-20
By: Diane Armstrong
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The Gulag Archipelago, Volume 1
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 25 hrs and 56 mins
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Volume 1 of the gripping epic masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn's chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police that haunted Soviet society. Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
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Should be required reading in US schools
- By Richard on 01-01-21
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Monday Starts on Saturday
- By: Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky, Andrew Bromfield - translator, and others
- Narrated by: Ramiz Monsef
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Sasha, a young computer programmer from Leningrad, is driving north to meet some friends for a nature vacation. He picks up a couple of hitchhikers who persuade him to take a job at the National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy. The adventures Sasha has in the largely dysfunctional institute involve all sorts of magical beings - a wish-granting fish, a tree mermaid, a cat who can remember only the beginnings of stories, a dream-interpreting sofa, and many more.
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Maybe I should have read this one.
- By M. Gage on 08-08-18
By: Arkady Strugatsky, and others
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- A Novel
- By: Milan Kundera, Michael Henry Heim - translator
- Narrated by: Richmond Hoxie
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon, a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals—while her other lover, earnest, faithful, and good, stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel “the unbearable lightness of being."
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Love, Politics, and Strange Bedfellows
- By Mel on 07-01-12
By: Milan Kundera, and others
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The Wall
- By: John Hersey
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 29 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Riveting and compelling, The Wall tells the inspiring story of 40 men and women who escape the dehumanizing horror of the Warsaw ghetto. John Hersey's novel documents the Warsaw ghetto both as an emblem of Nazi persecution and as a personal confrontation with torture, starvation, humiliation, and cruelty - a gripping and visceral story, impossible to pause.
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Fascinating
- By Phil on 06-14-21
By: John Hersey
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Story of a Secret State
- Penguin Modern Classics
- By: Jan Karski
- Narrated by: Janusz Guttner
- Length: 18 hrs and 15 mins
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I do not pretend to have given an exhaustive picture of the Polish Underground, its organisation and its activities. Because of our methods, I believe that there is no one today who could give an all-embracing recital...This book is a purely personal story, my story. Jan Karski's Second World War memoir is a heroic act of witness: the courageous testimony of a man who risked everything for his country. First published in 1944, the book became an instant bestseller in the US while the war still raged in Europe.
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Outstanding
- By David on 10-20-11
By: Jan Karski
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What listeners say about Darkness at Noon
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- BikeMeister
- 12-28-15
Masterpiece-- Koestler and Muller
This story haunts me, both from the writing by Arthur Koestler and the telling by Frank Muller. It is a political and historical must-read, but with frank Muller narrating.... The best.
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7 people found this helpful
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- TJ
- 05-20-20
an amazing glimpse into the human condition
Frank Mueller once again brings a timeless classic even higher. the rhythm of this dark tale is incredible
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- GR
- 08-06-18
Beautifully Written, Terrifying Story
Beautifully written book with a thread of terror weaved throughout. The story makes you feel as if you're in cell with the protagonist. There are glimmers of hope for the said character, will he get out alive, will he not? Koestler is a master story teller.
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- Adam C.
- 02-05-18
very good
tells the tale of an imprisoned political leader and the danger of totalitarianism. uses a fictional story to describe paralleled events in the early to mid 20th century.
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- Brendan Martino
- 01-14-24
A True Masterpiece!!
Having now read it multiple times, Koestler's book is quickly becoming one of my favorite stories of all time. Set during the great Stalin purges of 1937-40, we follow N.S. Rubashov, an allegorical amalgamation of the old Bolshevik guard, from his arrest at home in the middle of the night to imprisonment and interrogation. Koestler is a master story teller and clearly draws on his own lived experience of being imprisoned. The scenes of Rubashov's discussions with the adjacent cell mate Number 402 through tap code are particularly enjoyable. The best scenes however were those of the intellectual duels between Rubashov and Ivanov and later Gletkin during interrogation. It is during these scenes that Koestler is able to vividly portray Marxist thinking and how in the pursuit of "socialist utopia" anything is permissible. Truth becomes irrelevant and is often a stumbling block to the construction of the perfect society. Ironically, we ultimately see a man brought down by the very ideology he fought so hard to triumph and now must clearly and unambiguously confront the consequences of his life's work before it brings his own life to an end. Cannot recommend highly enough!
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- Dmksoci
- 04-04-21
Oh, but for a narrator!
This novel is a classic by any measure, and yet the audiobook is brought low by the narration, a breathy repetitive monotone which inexplicably dives a few notes at the end of EVERY SENTENCE. It is really quite distracting, maddening even. I found that dropping the speed to .8 helped some. A different narrator would have helped A LOT. Please try a sample first so you will know what I mean.
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- justin
- 09-29-17
Very interesting
The pace started, what felt a little slow, but I came to appreciate it. Wonderfully narrated. Thought-provoking story
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- David C.
- 01-28-18
"Man counted in years, history in generations"
In all honesty, I had no awareness of "Darkness at Noon" until noting it at #8 of the 100 best modern novels. In time, I can likely see this among my all-time favorites.
"Darkness at Noon" is set during the 1938 Moscow Show Trials as Stalin was on a campaign to purge many of his co-founders of the Bolshevik Revolution. Though no names are
used- the USSR is merely referred to as The Party, Stalin as Number One and Hiltler as The Dictator- the characters are clear. Protagonist Nicholas Rubashov, Number Two of The Party, is arrested and interrogated at the direction of Number One under suspicion of conspiring with Western oppositional powers against The Party and The State. While the irony of being caught up in a byzantine prosecutorial system much of his own making isn't lost on him, Rubashov finds that his writings of the system's evolution as it passes from one generation to the next places himself in the uncomfortable position of trying to ascertain the most important role he can play to perpetuate a Party which he has dedicated the last 40 years of his life.
Written in 1940 while he was residing in Paris, Arthur Koestler was intimate with the story and circumstances on which the novel is based. Hungarian born and German raised, Koestler had been part of the Communist Party of Germany during the rise of Adolph Hitler. As Stalin and Hitler contested for control of Europe with competing totalitarian ideologies, Stalin's purges prompted Koestler to disavow the Communist Party and authoritarianism of which "Darkness at Noon" manifested. Originally written in German, its critical reception and timeliness led to global translation and blockbuster sales. Joining the French Foreign Legion after the Nazis invaded France but deserted and eventually made his way to England where he became a celebrated author made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire(CBE) in 1972.
While not previously familiar with Koestler his influence was obvious on the likes of Oriana Fallaci in her novel "A Man" about the prison ordeal of Greek resistance fighter Alexander Panagouli which is one of my all-time favorites. I plan to add "The Gladiators" and "Arrival and Departure" which bookend a trilogy along with "Darkness at Noon."
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- PJay II
- 05-28-24
Insightful picture of the cycle of corruption
This book portrays the dilemma of those caught in the grip of corrupt and brutal totalitarian rule but it is a brilliant platform for The insightful analysis of the cycles of modern civilization. Stick with it. As always, Frank Muller does a masterful job with the narration!
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- Michael
- 11-07-14
Darkly Uplifting
In one sense, this is just another dystopian novel about the historical abuses of the now defunct Soviet Union, in another sense; it describes the essential folly of man through the disillusioning of a true believer. The novel presents a believable character, a fearless communist intellectual that fought passionately for the cause and rose to the elite in the party, so far as to be colleges with Stalin. We watch as the protagonist’s friends do what is expedient by betraying him as the party devolves towards totalitarianism and barbarism.
Although this is not a cheerful story I found it uplifting and strangely positive, as the protagonist cleanly faces the truth of the dark side of his friends and the communist movement. While reading Darkness at Noon I could not help but think that, although the Soviet Union is now defunct, the Soviet era totalitarians are still in control of Russia, and the lies and oppression continue. Just watch Russian News (RT) for a while and count the number of negative Putin stories (generally zero).
The narration was excellent, matching the tone and spirit of the book remarkably well.
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13 people found this helpful