Arrival and Departure

Arrival and Departure

Summary

This was the third novel of Arthur Koestler's trilogy on ends and means - the other two are THE GLADIATORS and DARKNESS AT NOON - and the first he wrote in English. The central theme is the conflict between morality and expediency, and in this novel Koestler worked it out in terms of individual psychology. Peter Slavek starts out as a brave young revolutionary, but suffers a breakdown. On the analyst's couch he is made to discover, in Koestler's own words, 'that his crusading zeal was derived from unconscious guilt'.

Reviews

  • Arthur Koestler has developed a descriptive power which is at once irresistible and unbearable...It is brilliantly done. Not the least impressive thing is the incidental picture, casually built up by a touch of colour here and there, of the city itself, with its polyglot population of every nation.
    Daily Telegraph

About the author

Arthur Koestler

Arthur Koestler (1905-1983) was an extraordinary polymath, writer and political polemicist. His most famous works include the novels Darkness at Noon and Arrival and Departure, his autobiographical writings, including Spanish Testament and Scum of the Earth, and his visionary non-fiction, including The Ghost in the Machine, The Case of the Midwife Toad and The Sleepwalkers.
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