''Arrival and Departure'' (1943) is the third novel of

Arthur Koestler Arthur Koestler (, ; ; ; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was an Austria-Hungary, Austro-Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest, and was educated in Austria, apart from his early school years. In 1931, Koestler j ...

's trilogy concerning the conflict between morality and expedience (as described in the postscript to the novel's 1966 Danube Edition). The first volume, '' The Gladiators'', is about the subversion of the

Spartacus Spartacus (; ) was a Thracians, Thracian gladiator (Thraex) who was one of the Slavery in ancient Rome, escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major Slave rebellion, slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Historical accounts o ...

revolt, and the second, ''

Darkness at Noon ''Darkness at Noon'' (, ) is a novel by Austrian-Hungarian-born novelist Arthur Koestler, first published in 1940. His best known work, it is the tale of Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik who is arrested, imprisoned, and tried for treason against the ...

'', is the celebrated novel about the Soviet

show trials A show trial is a public trial in which the guilt or innocence of the defendant has already been determined. The purpose of holding a show trial is to present both accusation and verdict to the public, serving as an example and a warning to ...

. ''Arrival and Departure'' was Koestler's first full-length work in English, ''The Gladiators'' and ''

'' having originally been written in German. It is often considered to be the weakest of the three. In a December 1943 review,

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...

wrote, "As a novel this book does not succeed.... But as an allegory it does succeed" and "is also notable for what must be one of the most shocking descriptions of

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

terrorism that have ever been written". Yet in 1944 Orwell concluded that "''Arrival and Departure'' is not a satisfactory book. The pretence that it is a novel is very thin; in effect it is a tract purporting to show that revolutionary creeds are rationalisations of neurotic impulses".Orwell, George
"Arthur Koestler"
in ''Dickens, Dali & Others: Studies in Popular Culture'', New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1946, p. 197. (Although the book was published in 1946, it indicates that the essay was written in 1944.) In a November 1943 review,

Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; June 10, 1915April 5, 2005) was a Canadian-American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only write ...

wrote that ''Arrival and Departure'' "raises the following questions: When we have succeeded in understanding what it is in the growth of our minds, our early histories, that drives us to serve causes, is it then proper for us to abandon those causes? What if it is proved to us that our hunger for justice is a sign of neurosis, are we absolved from our responsibility for justice? Is it a sign of health to seek satisfaction for one's self and of morbidity to recognize and obligation to ethical values?"

Plot

Written during the middle of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, ''Arrival and Departure'' reflects Koestler's own plight as a Hungarian refugee. Like Koestler, the main character, Peter Slavek, is a former member of the

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

party. He escapes to "Neutralia," a neutral country based on Portugal, where Koestler himself had gone, and flees from there. (

Harold Rosenberg Harold Rosenberg (February 2, 1906 – July 11, 1978) was an American writer, educator, philosopher and art critic. He coined the term Action Painting in 1952 for what was later to be known as abstract expressionism. Rosenberg is best known for h ...

wrote in a book review in '' Partisan Review'' that "there ought to be a law against such place-names.") Reflecting Koestler's later relationship with science and particularly his disagreement with various movements within psychiatry, the main character emerges from treatment psychically neutered, and the critical question of the novel is how much of his later trauma and political activity is due to a small incident in his childhood.

References

1943 British novels Novels by Arthur Koestler Jonathan Cape books 20th-century Hungarian novels {{1940s-novel-stub