you are making consensual, mutually initiated, monogamous, nonaggressive, amorous love, or else something very dark and unpleasant is taking place: rape—or, more commonly, “date-rape,”—a term that occurs with disarming frequency in this book. As for the notion that someone might indeed be disposed to sexual domination, and even occasionally to force, and yet be appealing to women—well, this has apparently never occurred to Cesarani, even as a hypothesis. As a consequence, there is something tedious and “sexually correct” about his account of Koestler’s adventures. Cesarani doesn’t like the younger Koestler’s multitude of relationships, his “relentless pursuit of women.” Koestler himself explained reasonably enough that he habitually sought female companionship and comfort, but for Cesarani, “there comes a point when his rationalizations for sleeping around ring hollow.”
Worse for poor Koestler, he preferred women. If he had bisexual leanings, he suppressed them: “To him, heterosexuality was the norm, men were dominant partners and women were submissive.” Worse still, Koestler was not always faithful to one woman at a time: nor, indeed, were his women always faithful to him. Celia Paget briefly abandoned Koestler for a weeklong fling with Albert Camus, prompting an outburst from Cesarani, who finds it “extraordinary” that “people who constantly talked about friendship and loyalty” spent so much time in bed with their friends. Describing Koestler’s occasional taste for threesomes, Cesarani writes of “another gruesome triangular encounter.” The reader is constantly aware of the author’s presence, hovering pruriently and commenting sniffily upon the copulations of his protagonists. “Conventional morality seems to have had little purchase in these circles.” Quite.
Why should it? Even if we exclude as special pleading the claim (advanced by Koestler’s fellow Hungarian George Mikes) that if Koestler did not take no for an answer he was only practicing the sexual mores of his birthplace, the fact remains that sleeping around, “betraying” one’s lover or one’s spouse, treating women as submissive, and behaving in a generally “sexist” manner was hardly a trait peculiar to Arthur Koestler. Cesarani may not be old enough to remember the world before the sexual revolutions of the 1960s, and he may lack personal experience of the conventions and the morals of the European intelligentsia. But as a historian he should surely hesitate before chastising his subject for attitudes and assumptions that were widely shared in his cultural and social milieu. To the best of my knowledge, the overwhelming majority of the Hungarian, Austrian, Russian, German, and French intellectuals who pass through the pages of Cesarani’s book shared most of Koestler’s views on such matters, even if they were not always so assiduous or so successful in practice. You have only to read their memoirs. Even the English were a lot less conventionally well behaved back then; but since their misdemeanors often involved partners of the same sex, Cesarani would probably find less to reprove.
The present-minded primness of Cesarani’s tone is often unintentionally funny and self-revealing. What sounds like a rather entertaining luncheon gathering of Koestler and some women friends becomes a “grisly assembly of ex-lovers.” When poor Cynthia Jeffries (Koestler’s last wife) takes up German and cooking, she earns Cesarani’s lasting disapproval for these “strikingly submissive gestures.” And Cesarani wholly deplores “Koestler’s assumption that a life of promiscuity and deception is normal and should be pleasurable, were it not for the inconvenience of a bad conscience.” If Koestler was ever made uncomfortable by his conscience—and there is not much evidence that he was—it was surely as nothing to the discomfort that he has caused his biographer by so obviously enjoying bodily pleasures and
Worse for poor Koestler, he preferred women. If he had bisexual leanings, he suppressed them: “To him, heterosexuality was the norm, men were dominant partners and women were submissive.” Worse still, Koestler was not always faithful to one woman at a time: nor, indeed, were his women always faithful to him. Celia Paget briefly abandoned Koestler for a weeklong fling with Albert Camus, prompting an outburst from Cesarani, who finds it “extraordinary” that “people who constantly talked about friendship and loyalty” spent so much time in bed with their friends. Describing Koestler’s occasional taste for threesomes, Cesarani writes of “another gruesome triangular encounter.” The reader is constantly aware of the author’s presence, hovering pruriently and commenting sniffily upon the copulations of his protagonists. “Conventional morality seems to have had little purchase in these circles.” Quite.
Why should it? Even if we exclude as special pleading the claim (advanced by Koestler’s fellow Hungarian George Mikes) that if Koestler did not take no for an answer he was only practicing the sexual mores of his birthplace, the fact remains that sleeping around, “betraying” one’s lover or one’s spouse, treating women as submissive, and behaving in a generally “sexist” manner was hardly a trait peculiar to Arthur Koestler. Cesarani may not be old enough to remember the world before the sexual revolutions of the 1960s, and he may lack personal experience of the conventions and the morals of the European intelligentsia. But as a historian he should surely hesitate before chastising his subject for attitudes and assumptions that were widely shared in his cultural and social milieu. To the best of my knowledge, the overwhelming majority of the Hungarian, Austrian, Russian, German, and French intellectuals who pass through the pages of Cesarani’s book shared most of Koestler’s views on such matters, even if they were not always so assiduous or so successful in practice. You have only to read their memoirs. Even the English were a lot less conventionally well behaved back then; but since their misdemeanors often involved partners of the same sex, Cesarani would probably find less to reprove.
The present-minded primness of Cesarani’s tone is often unintentionally funny and self-revealing. What sounds like a rather entertaining luncheon gathering of Koestler and some women friends becomes a “grisly assembly of ex-lovers.” When poor Cynthia Jeffries (Koestler’s last wife) takes up German and cooking, she earns Cesarani’s lasting disapproval for these “strikingly submissive gestures.” And Cesarani wholly deplores “Koestler’s assumption that a life of promiscuity and deception is normal and should be pleasurable, were it not for the inconvenience of a bad conscience.” If Koestler was ever made uncomfortable by his conscience—and there is not much evidence that he was—it was surely as nothing to the discomfort that he has caused his biographer by so obviously enjoying bodily pleasures and
Similar Books
