Days of Wrath

This Andre Malraux novel from 1936 contains elements and themes that would appear four years later in Arthur Koestler's landmark Darkness at Noon. With Malraux, the prisoner is a communist in a Nazi jail; with Koestler, the prisoner is an old communist imprisoned by new communists. Malraux's work is impressionistic and poetic in parts as it plumbs the imagination and memory of Kassner, who is picked up after a routine but heroic act that saves the lives of several of his comrades. The account of his time in prison has parallels with Koestler's work, such as the tapping between cells that becomes a lifeline of communication. Kassner's airplane flight to safety through a storm in mountainous terrain is done in a dreamlike and hypnotic style. Full of philosophy and abstractions, Days of Wrath returns movingly in the end to the importance of the human touch.