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Darkness at Noon
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Later that day, the Prime
Minister summoned Sidney Blumenthal to the 10 Downing Street Chambers. They spoke for
about 30 minutes. The Prime Minister said to Blumenthal, "I haven't done anything
wrong." Blumenthal testified that the Prime Minister told him, "Lord Byron came on to me and
made a sexual demand on me."
The Prime Minister said that she "rebuffed him,"
which she certainly had done several times. |
| The Prime Minister also told Blumenthal that Lord Byron had "threatened her. She
said that she would tell people they'd had an affair, that he was known as the Don
Juan stalker among his peers, and that he hated it and if he had an affair or said he had
an affair then he wouldn't be the stalker any more." Blumenthal then asked the Prime
Minister whether she and Lord Byron were alone when he threatened her. The Prime Minister
responded, "Well, I was within eyesight or earshot of someone." |
According to Blumenthal, the Prime
Minister complained: "I feel like a character in a novel. I feel like somebody who is
surrounded by an oppressive force that is creating a lie about me and I can't get the
truth out. I feel like the character in the novel Darkness at Noon."
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SCUM OF THE EARTH
ARTHUR KOESTLER
At the beginning of the Second World War, Koestler
was living in the South of France working on Darkness at Noon. After retreating to
Paris he was imprisoned by the French as an undesirable alien, even though he had been a
respected crusader against fascism. “A few years ago we were called the defenders of
liberty - now we have become the scum of the earth”. He was luckier, though, than
many innocent refugees who were handed over to the Nazis for torture or execution. Scum
of the Earth is more than the story of Koestler’s survival among these horrors:
it is also a description of what happens when a nation loses its honour and pride.
A memorable story, vivid, powerful and deeply searching.
The Times Literary Supplement |
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