Arthur Koestler:
The Homeless Mind
By David Cesarani
Free Press, $30
ISBN 0684867206

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Arthur Koestler's novel of ideas, Darkness at Noon, was originally published in England in 1940 to great acclaim. It has been called "one of those books that has ceased to be a work of literature and has instead become a monument." In 1998, the editorial board of the Modern Library named it the eighth best novel of the century.

But Darkness at Noon was just one work among many others -- reportage, essays, autobiography, history of science and the paranormal, as well as other novels -- on a wide range of subjects by its author. Koestler (1905-1983) was one of the major intellectual voices on the Cold War and other issues in the English-speaking world of his time. A native of Hungary, he was a complex, controversial activist whose life and writings bore testimony to a relentless search for identity, meaning, and community.

Biographer David Cesarani painstakingly chronicles Koestler's life, times, and writings in his Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind. He points out that "Koestler was the classic homeless mind: the emigre' in search of roots, the secular skeptic yearning for a faith and a Messiah."

Koestler portrayed that search in different ways throughout his life. The biographer gives us crucial information and interpretation that helps us understand certain omissions, shadings, and emphases.

Koestler lived primarily in England, but traveled widely. He was in Palestine during the 1920s, in Germany as the Nazis were coming to power in the early 1930s, and later in Spain during the civil war there. He wrote about what he saw. Koestler "was an acute observer, combining a clear perception of things and places with an ability to describe them precisely and concisely. He was not less perceptive in evaluating and portraying people." Many cultural icons turn up in these pages, including Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Isaiah Berlin, and George Orwell.

In private, Koestler could be charming, generous, and a good and loyal friend. But Cesarani reveals a disturbing side of his subject that is in sharp contrast. He was sometimes violent and often irresponsible, particularly with alcohol.

Cesarani's examination of this man of great intelligence, vast intellectual curiosity, and notable independence of mind is enlightening.

Roger Bishop is a regular contributor to BookPage.