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ReconsiderationsThis could be Arthur Koestler apostrophizing the condemned Rubashov in his novel Darkness at Noon (1940): There is nothing more difficult than to be a stepson of the time; there is no heavier fate than to live in an age that is not your own. Stepsons of the time are easily recognized: in personnel departments, Party district committees, army political sections, editorial offices, and on the street. Time loves only those it has given birth to itself: its own children, it own heroes, it own labourers. Never can it come to love the children of a past age, any more than a woman can love the heroes of a past age, or a stepmother love the children of another woman.In fact, it is from Vasily Grossman’s masterpiece of World War II, Life and Fate (1959). If Fascism doesn’t kill Krymov, the graying commissar of the novel, then his own obsolescence under Stal ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 25 March 2007, on page 33 Copyright © 2008 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/stepson-of-the-time-2613
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