Thought provoking and intellectually stimulating.

I enjoyed it but at time struggled to make sense of it until I went over it again. I found some sections intellectually stimulating.
It took longer than I expected to finish it.

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Eloquent self-justification

I'm 70 years late to this, which is doubtless why I wasn't that impressed, as it feels more like a historical relic than something still relevant today. Decided to read (listen) to this now because a) I've just finished Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism (and Simone de Beauvoir's The Mandarins) and this seemed like a good thematic follow-on (it really, really is), b) it was on my to read list, and c) it was about to drop out of the Audible "inckuded with membership" free selection.

I was listening to this at near double speed over three long weekend dog walks, so can't pretend to have paid full attention or caught everything. And there's definitely some interesting things here - as a document of its time its a valuable historical artefact. The idea of Ketman (basically hiding your inner thoughts) is useful - albeit this isn't the author's.

My problem is that the example of different responses to living under totalitarian regimes - the bulk of the book - feels obvious, with the anonymised stories of what *other* writers under Nazi and Soviet occupation did feeling more like "look, I may have worked with the Commies for a bit but now I'm a good guy - others were worse! Don't persecute me Joe McCarthy!"

This makes it feel more like an extended apologia rather than an insightful, personal analysis - and I was hoping for the latter.

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