2016年3月28日 星期一

Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler. Koestler : the literary and political odyssey of a twentieth-century skeptic / Michael Scammell



Koestler, Arthur, 1905-1983
書名Koestler : the literary and political odyssey of a twentieth-century skeptic / Michael Scammell
主要作者Scammell, Michael
ImprintNew York : Random House, c2009

 總圖2F人社資料區 PR6021.O4 Z84 2009  [鄰近架位館藏] 3417068 可流通

稽核項xxi, 689 p., [16] p. of plates : ill., ports., geneal. table ; 25 cm
附註Includes bibliographical references (p. [579]-585) and index
內容Part One: A Long Apprenticeship - The Author as Journalist (1905-1936) -- Chapter 1: Beginnings -- Chapter 2: A Budapest Childhood -- Chapter 3: Rise, Jew, Rise -- Chapter 4: Zionist -- Chapter 5: A Runaway and a Fugitive -- Chapter 6: First Steps in Journalism -- Chapter 7: Hello To Berlin -- Chapter 8: In the Gale of History -- Chapter 9: Red Days -- Chapter 10: Anti-Fascist Crusader -- Chapter 11: Marking Time -- Chapter 12: Prisoner of Franco -- Chapter 13: Turning Point -- Part Two: Fame and Infamy - The Author as Novelist (1936-1946) -- Chapter 14: The God That Failed -- Chapter 15: No New Certainties -- Chapter 16: Darkness Visible -- Chapter 17: Scum of the Earth -- Chapter 18: Darkness Unveiled -- Chapter 19: In Crumpled Battledress -- Chapter 20: The Novelists Temptations -- Chapter 21: Identity Crisis -- Chapter 22: Commissar or Yogi? -- Chapter 23: Return to Palestine -- Chapter 24: Welsh Interlude -- Chapter 25: The Logic of the Ice Age -- Part Three: Lost Illusions - The Author Activist (1946-1959) -- Chapter 26: Adventures among the Existentialists -- Chapter 27: French Lessons -- Chapter 28: Discovering America -- Chapter 29: Farewell to Zionism -- Chapter 30: A Married Man -- Chapter 31: To the Barricades -- Chapter 32: The Congress for Cultural Freedom -- Chapter 33: Back to the USA -- Chapter 34: Politically Unreliable -- Chapter 35: The Language of Destiny -- Chapter 36: The Phantom Chase -- Chapter 37: I Killed Her -- Chapter 38: Cassandra Grows Hoarse -- Chapter 39: Matters of Life and Death -- Part Four: Astride the Two Cultures - The Author as Polymath (1959-1983) -- Chapter 40: Cosmic Reporter -- Chapter 41: The Squire of Alpbach -- Chapter 42: Retreat From Rationalism? -- Chapter 43: A Naive and Skeptical Disposition -- Chapter 44: Seeking a Cure -- Chapter 45: Wunderkind -- Chapter 46: Chance Governs All -- Chapter 47: The Koestler Problem -- Chapter 48: An Easy Way of Dying
摘要The first authorized biography of one of the most influential and controversial intellectuals of the twentieth century, based on new research and full access to its subject's papers. Best known as the creator of the classic anti-Communist novel Darkness at Noon, Koestler is here revealed as a man whose personal life was as astonishing as his literary accomplishments. The young Hungarian Jew whose experience of anti-Semitism and devotion to Zionism provoked him to move to Palestine; the foreign correspondent who risked his life from the North Pole to Franco's Spain; the committed Communist for whom the brutal truth of Stalin's show trials inspired the angry novel that became an instant classic in 1940; the escape from occupied France by joining the Foreign Legion and his bluffing his way illegally to England, where his controversial 1943 novel Arrival and Departure was the first to portray Hitler's Final Solution. Scammell also gives a full account of the author's voluminous writings, making the case that the autobiographies and essays are fit to stand beside Darkness at Noon as works of lasting literary value.--From publisher description




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Paperback: 752 pages
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (June 5, 1990)
Language: EnglishAmazon.com: The Act of Creation (Arkana) (9780140191912): Arthur ...While the study of psychology has offered little in the way of explaining the creative process, Koestler examines the idea that we are at our most creative when rational thought is suspended--for example, in dreams and trancelike states. All who read The Act of Creation will find it a compelling and illuminating book.


Act of Creation

Koestler probes "bisociative" thinking--creativity and the new perceptions offered us by creative activity. An area of psychology that is often neglected, creativity is, according to Koestler, often suppressed by the daily near-automatic routine of our lives. He offers the suggestion that it is when our rational thought is suspended that we are at our most creative--in dreams and trances, when our minds are open to unexpected insight.

Betty (1975級)上周 (哪一年?) 聚會時,提到她參加過1973級東海 IE學長的同學會。73級與我們75級比較親,由於我跳修吳玉印先生開的"實驗計畫"課,他們班上有4-5人,還是我的同學。

畢業之後還與它們有交往的,最親近的,是張忠樸先生,他約8年前 (2016年補,約13.5年)過逝,對我是很大的感傷。尤其今年沒想到他創立的"尋智顧問公司網站"也收起來,更是一驚。

現在談另外一位游思俊博士。我2008年寫書時在網路上找一下,知道他可能還在AT&T服務,但願如此。 我在他讀博士時曾託他COPY一本創意學經典 Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler 。這本書人多知道 ,現在市面上竟還在賣1990年的企鵝板,不過可能很少人讀它。台灣國內只有吳靜吉博士曾介紹過此書。我們熟悉的 R. Ackoff在{解決問題的藝術}一書中說,他女兒認為研究創造力的,以此書最佳,不過 Ackoff 在該書坦承,他沒看過他。







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