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The title stems from the idea that if in theory, one could fire an arrow into the sky, it could carry on indefinitely (obviously without gravity and atmospheric friction). EARLY CHILDHOOD The first section deals with his family and early childhood. Koestler was born in 1905 , as Kösztler Artur (Hungarians put the Surname first), in Budapest , Hungary to a German-speaking Hungarian family of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, and ''Arrow in the Blue'' discusses his life in Budapest, and many things the political situation there (the Austro-Hungarian Empire was disintegrating at this point) to Hungarian football team loyalties. His father, Henrik, was an eccentric Industrialist and Inventor whose business ideas revealed flawed judgement; for example, he invested for a while in the manufacture of a kind of Radioactive soap. THE OPERATION Koestler describes an early childhood experience that provides an insight into his decision to take his own life many years later. As a child he was taken by his parents on unexpected outing. The destination turned out to be a dentist's practice, he was strapped into a chair and operated on without anesthetic whilst restrained in a chair with leather straps. This brutal experience left a profound mark in his Psyche . A few years later he was ill in bed with a pain in his abdomen. A doctor visited him at home and after examining him made a light-hearted comment that he would have to cut him open. The young Koestler detected some seriousness in the doctors voice, in fact he was diagnosed with Appendicitis . He was later driven in an ambulance to the hospital certain he was about to die. At the hospital he was anesthetised with chloroform. This was terrifying as the mask was forcibly held over his mouth and nose and the loss of consciousness was accompanied by a feeling of Asphyxiation . Following the operation an infection set in and he was scheduled for a follow-up procedure. He dreaded each day as the date of the operation drew near, his fear a fixation on the chloroform mask he would need to endure. At this time he read a Baron Münchhausen fable; the Baron in the Bog. In this story the Baron rides into a bog and sinks on his mount up to his head. Despite his efforts he cannot escape the cloying mud. At the last moment he reaches out of the bog, grasps the to of his head and lifts himself and his horse to firm ground. This inspires Koestler who speaks to his mother to arrange that he may apply the Chloroform mask rather than have it administered. This banishes the fear for him and he is able to face up to the operation. Many years later during his period of imprisonment during the Spanish Civil War he dreaded the nights as this was when prisoners were taken from their cells for execution. Each evening he lived in fear that his cell would be opened and he would be taken away and shot. He overcame this fear by finding some glass which could be used to slash his wrists. Each evening he planned to kill himself before the guards did their rounds and took away the prisoners selected for execution – each night he was able to sleep before his planned "exit". Facing a drawn out death from Parkinson's Disease ; Koestler repeated the lesson that he learnt as a child facing the anesthetists hand and pulled himself out of the bog. LATER CHILDHOOD AND EARLY ADULTHOOD When Artur was 14, his family moved to Vienna , Austria . In 1918, Hungary obtained its independence from Austria and flirted for a while with Bolshevism . Koestler studied Science and Psychology at the University Of Vienna , where he became involved in Zionism . After completing his studies, he worked as a News Correspondent . From 1926 to 1929 he lived in the British Mandate Of Palestine , partly in a '' Kibbutz '', which he also fictionalised in '' Thieves In The Night '' ( 1946 ), several years before ''Arrow in the Blue''. Some commentators, such as David Cesarani , have claimed that Koestler played down his Jewish-loyalties during this period in this book. He joined the German Communist Party in 1931 , but left it after the Stalin ist purges of 1938 (''Arrow in the Blue'' cuts off in 1931 ). During this period he traveled extensively in the Soviet Union and climbed Mount Ararat in Turkey . In Turkmenistan , he met the black American writer Langston Hughes . In 1931 , he was a member of a Zeppelin expedition to the North Pole . |
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