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'''Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood''' (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.isherwoodfoundation.org/biography.html |title=Biography |website=Isherwoodfoundation.org |access-date=3 April 2020 |archive-date=27 June 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170627074926/http://www.isherwoodfoundation.org/biography.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Berg |editor-first=James J. |title=Isherwood on Writing |location=Minneapolis |publisher=] |year=2007 |page=19 |isbn=9781452912936 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G-DnN-8vDmAC }}</ref><ref>{{cite news | title = Variety Obituaries: 1905-1928 | series = ] |work=] |date=15 January 1986 |isbn=9780824008444 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g3rMvgEACAAJ | last1 = Bartelt | first1 = Chuck | last2 = Bergeron | first2 = Barbara }}</ref> His best-known works include '']'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical novel which inspired the musical '']'' (1966); '']'' (1964), adapted |
'''Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood''' (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.isherwoodfoundation.org/biography.html |title=Biography |website=Isherwoodfoundation.org |access-date=3 April 2020 |archive-date=27 June 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170627074926/http://www.isherwoodfoundation.org/biography.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Berg |editor-first=James J. |title=Isherwood on Writing |location=Minneapolis |publisher=] |year=2007 |page=19 |isbn=9781452912936 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G-DnN-8vDmAC }}</ref><ref>{{cite news | title = Variety Obituaries: 1905-1928 | series = ] |work=] |date=15 January 1986 |isbn=9780824008444 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g3rMvgEACAAJ | last1 = Bartelt | first1 = Chuck | last2 = Bergeron | first2 = Barbara }}</ref> His best-known works include '']'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical novel which inspired the musical '']'' (1966); '']'' (1964), adapted into ] directed by ] in 2009; and '']'' (1976), a memoir which "carried him into the heart of the ] movement".<ref>Katherine Bucknell and Kevin Clarke, exhibition text, "My Dearest Sweet Love: Christopher Isherwood & Don Bachardy", Schwules Museum, Berlin, 15 June – 26 August 2019</ref> | ||
== Biography == | == Biography == | ||
=== Early life and work === | === Early life and work === | ||
Isherwood was born in 1904 on his family's estate in ] near ] in the north-west of England.<ref>Parker, Peter. Isherwood, 2004, Picador, p. 6.</ref> He was the elder son of Francis Edward Bradshaw Isherwood (1869–1915), known as Frank, a professional soldier in the ], and Kathleen Bradshaw Isherwood, née Machell Smith (1868–1960), the only daughter of a successful wine merchant.<ref>Isherwood, Christopher, Kathleen and Frank, 2013, Vintage, p. 3.</ref> He was the grandson of John Henry Isherwood, squire of Marple Hall and ], Cheshire, and he included among his ancestors the Puritan judge ], who signed the death warrant of ] and served for two years as Lord President of the Council, effectively President of the English Republic.<ref>Isherwood, |
Isherwood was born in 1904 on his family's estate in ] near ] in the north-west of England.<ref>Parker, Peter. ''Isherwood'', 2004, Picador, p. 6.</ref> He was the elder son of Francis Edward Bradshaw Isherwood (1869–1915), known as Frank, a professional soldier in the ], and Kathleen Bradshaw Isherwood, née Machell Smith (1868–1960), the only daughter of a successful wine merchant.<ref>Isherwood, Christopher, ''Kathleen and Frank'', 2013, Vintage, p. 3.</ref> He was the grandson of John Henry Isherwood, squire of Marple Hall and ], Cheshire, and he included among his ancestors the Puritan judge ], who signed the death warrant of ] and served for two years as Lord President of the Council, effectively President of the English Republic.<ref>Isherwood, ''Kathleen and Frank'', 2013, Vintage, pp. 306, 309.</ref> | ||
Isherwood's father Frank was educated at the ] and ], fought in the ], and was killed in the ].<ref>Isherwood, Christopher, Kathleen and Frank, 2013, Vintage, p. 471.</ref> Isherwood's mother, Kathleen, was, through her own mother, a member of the wealthy Greene brewing family of ], and Isherwood was a cousin of the novelist ], who was also related to the brewing family.<ref>Parker, |
Isherwood's father Frank was educated at the ] and ], fought in the ], and was killed in the ].<ref>Isherwood, Christopher, Kathleen and Frank, 2013, Vintage, p. 471.</ref> Isherwood's mother, Kathleen, was, through her own mother, a member of the wealthy Greene brewing family of ], and Isherwood was a third cousin of the novelist ], who was also related to the brewing family.<ref>Parker, ''Isherwood'', 2004, Picador, p. 54.</ref> Frank and Kathleen christened their first son Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood, which Isherwood simplified on becoming a ] in 1946.<ref>Isherwood, Christopher, Lost Years, 2001, Vintage, p. 78.</ref> Christopher was enrolled at ], Surrey beginning in 1914, where he met W. H. Auden who became a life-long friend and colleague and left for Repton in 1918. | ||
] | ] | ||
At ], his boarding school in ], Isherwood met his lifelong friend ], with whom he invented an imaginary English village called Mortmere, as related in his fictional autobiography, ''Lions and Shadows'' (1938).<ref>Isherwood, Christopher, ''Lions and Shadows'', 2013, Vintage, p. 71-82.</ref> He went up to ], as a history scholar, wrote jokes and limericks on his second year ] and was asked to leave without a degree in 1925.{{citation needed|date=January 2022}} | At ], his boarding school in ], Isherwood met his lifelong friend ], with whom he invented an imaginary English village called Mortmere, as related in his fictional autobiography, ''Lions and Shadows'' (1938).<ref>Isherwood, Christopher, ''Lions and Shadows'', 2013, Vintage, p. 71-82.</ref> He went up to ], as a history scholar, wrote jokes and limericks on his second year ] and was asked to leave without a degree in 1925.{{citation needed|date=January 2022}} | ||
At Christmas 1925, he was reintroduced to a prep school friend ]. Through Auden, Isherwood met the younger poet |
At Christmas 1925, he was reintroduced to a prep school friend, ]. Through Auden, Isherwood met the younger poet ], who printed Auden's first collection, ''Poems'' (1928).<ref>Sutherland, John, ''Stephen Spender: A Literary Life'', 2004, Oxford University Press, p. 84.</ref> Upward, Isherwood, Auden, and Spender were identified as the most exciting new literary group in England in the 1930s. Auden dubbed Isherwood the novelist in what came to be known as the ] or Auden Generation.<ref>Spender, Stephen, ''World Within World'', 1966, University of California Press, p. 101</ref> With ] and ], Auden and Spender later attracted the name the MacSpaunday Poets, with which Isherwood is also associated. | ||
After leaving Cambridge, Isherwood worked as a private tutor and later as secretary to a string quartet led by the violinist ] while he completed his first novel. This was ''All the Conspirators'', published in 1928, about the struggle for self-determination between children and their parents. In October 1928, Isherwood enrolled as a medical student at ], but he left after six months.<ref>Isherwood, Christopher, ''Lions and Shadows'', 2013, Vintage, p. 235.</ref> | After leaving Cambridge, Isherwood worked as a private tutor and later as secretary to a string quartet led by the violinist ] while he completed his first novel. This was ''All the Conspirators'', published in 1928, about the struggle for self-determination between children and their parents. In October 1928, Isherwood enrolled as a medical student at ], but he left after six months.<ref>Isherwood, Christopher, ''Lions and Shadows'', 2013, Vintage, p. 235.</ref> | ||
=== Sojourn in Berlin === | === Sojourn in Berlin === | ||
In March 1929, Isherwood joined Auden in Berlin, where Auden was spending a post-graduate year. His primary motivation for making the trip was the sexual freedom that Weimar Berlin offered, as he later wrote: "To Christopher, Berlin meant Boys."<ref>Isherwood, Christopher, |
In March 1929, Isherwood joined Auden in Berlin, where Auden was spending a post-graduate year. His primary motivation for making the trip was the sexual freedom that Weimar Berlin offered, as he later wrote: "To Christopher, Berlin meant Boys."<ref>Isherwood, Christopher, ''Christopher And His Kind'', New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976, p. 2.</ref> The ten-day visit changed Isherwood's life. He began an affair with a German boy whom he met at a cellar bar called The Cosy Corner,<ref>Isherwood, Christopher, ''Christopher and His Kind'', 2012, Vintage, pp. 3–4.</ref> and he was "brought face to face with his tribe" at ]'s ].<ref>Isherwood, Christopher, ''Christopher and His Kind'', 2012, Vintage, p. 16. See also Auden's 1929 Berlin Journal which makes clear that he and Isherwood visited Hirschfeld together and went around the museum in March / April.</ref> Isherwood visited Berlin again in July and relocated there in November.<ref>Isherwood,''Christopher and His Kind'', 2012, Vintage, p. 12.</ref> | ||
{{CSS image crop|Image = Jean ross.jpg|bSize = 310|cWidth = 160|cHeight = 190|oTop = 15|oLeft = 70|Location = right|Description = ], a British expatriate and ] singer upon whom Isherwood based the character of Sally Bowles|Link = Jean Ross}} | {{CSS image crop|Image = Jean ross.jpg|bSize = 310|cWidth = 160|cHeight = 190|oTop = 15|oLeft = 70|Location = right|Description = ], a British expatriate and ] singer upon whom Isherwood based the character of Sally Bowles|Link = Jean Ross}} | ||
In Berlin, Isherwood completed his second novel, ''The Memorial'' (1932), about the impact of the First World War on his family and his generation. He also continued his habit of keeping a diary. In his diary, he gathered raw material for ''Mr. Norris Changes Trains'' (1935), inspired by his real-life friendship with ],<ref>Isherwood |
In Berlin, Isherwood completed his second novel, ''The Memorial'' (1932), about the impact of the First World War on his family and his generation. He also continued his habit of keeping a diary. In his diary, he gathered raw material for ''Mr. Norris Changes Trains'' (1935), inspired by his real-life friendship with ],<ref>Isherwood, ''Christopher and His Kind'', 2012, Vintage, p. 76.</ref> and for ''Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), his portrait of the city in which ] was rising to power — enabled by poverty, unemployment, increasing attacks on Jews and Communists, and ignored by the defiant hedonism of night life in the cafés, bars, and brothels. ''Goodbye to Berlin'' included stories published in the leftist magazine, ''New Writing'', and it included Isherwood's 1937 novella ''Sally Bowles'', in which he created his most famous character, based on a young Englishwoman, ], with whom he briefly shared a flat.<ref>Isherwood, ''Christopher and His Kind'', 2012, Vintage, p. 61.</ref> | ||
In the United States, the Berlin novels were published together as '']'' in 1945.<ref>Isherwood, Christopher, Diaries: Volume One: 1939–1960, 2011, Vintage, p. 910.</ref> In 1951, ''Goodbye to Berlin'' was adapted for the New York stage by ] using the title '']'', taken from Isherwood's opening paragraphs.<ref>Isherwood, |
In the United States, the Berlin novels were published together as '']'' in 1945.<ref>Isherwood, Christopher, ''Diaries: Volume One: 1939–1960'', 2011, Vintage, p. 910.</ref> In 1951, ''Goodbye to Berlin'' was adapted for the New York stage by ] using the title '']'', taken from Isherwood's opening paragraphs.<ref>Isherwood, ''Diaries: Volume One: 1939–1960'', 2011, p. 912.</ref> The play inspired the hit Broadway musical '']'' (1966), later adapted to film as '']'' in 1972. | ||
In 1932, Isherwood started a relationship with a |
In 1932, a 27-year-old Isherwood started a relationship with a 16-year-old German boy, Heinz Neddermeyer.<ref>{{cite book|last=Parker|first=Peter|author-link=Peter Parker (author)|title=Isherwood: A Life Revealed|year=2005|orig-year=2004|pages=205–206|publisher=]|location=London|isbn= 978-0-330-32826-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CdF2UXFgcFcC|url-access=subscription|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>Isherwood, ''Christopher and His Kind'', 2012, Vintage, pp. 92–94.</ref> They fled Nazi Germany together in May 1933, traveling initially to Greece. Neddermeyer was refused entry to England in January 1934,<ref>Isherwood, ''Christopher and His Kind'', 2012, Vintage, pp. 164–166.</ref> launching an odyssey in search of a country where they could settle together. They lived in the Canary Islands, Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam, and ], while trying to obtain a new nationality and passport for Neddermeyer. | ||
In May 1937, while he and Isherwood were living in Luxembourg, Neddermeyer was suddenly expelled |
In May 1937, while he and Isherwood were living in Luxembourg, Neddermeyer was suddenly expelled to Germany. Neddermeyer was arrested the next day by the Gestapo for draft evasion and reciprocal ]. Neddermeyer was sentenced to three and a half years of hard labor and military service. He married in 1938 and the couple had one child, a son, born in 1940. Neddermeyer survived the war and in 1956 sent Isherwood a letter asking for money to help escape East Germany, which Isherwood provided. The last known contact between the two men was a note of condolence from Neddermeyer to Isherwood on the death of Isherwood's mother in 1960. <ref>{{cite web | url=http://gayhistory.wikidot.com/heinz-neddermeyer | title=Heinz Neddermeyer - Gay History Wiki }}</ref> | ||
During this period, Isherwood returned often to London where he took his first movie-writing job, working with Viennese director ] on the film '']'' (1934).<ref>Parker, |
During this period, Isherwood returned often to London where he took his first movie-writing job, working with Viennese director ] on the film '']'' (1934).<ref>Parker, ''Isherwood'', 2004, Picador, p. 271.</ref> He collaborated with Auden on three plays – '']'' (1935), '']'' (1936), and '']'' (1938) – all produced by ] and ]'s ]. He also worked on ''Lions and Shadows'' (1938), a fictionalized autobiography of his education — both in and out of school — in the 1920s. | ||
In January 1938, Isherwood and Auden traveled to China to write '']'' (1939) about the ].<ref name="Isherwood, Christopher 2012, pp. 304, 310">Isherwood |
In January 1938, Isherwood and Auden traveled to China to write '']'' (1939), about the ].<ref name="Isherwood, Christopher 2012, pp. 304, 310">Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind, 2012, Vintage, pp. 304, 310.</ref> They returned to England the following summer via the United States and decided to emigrate there in January 1939.<ref name="Isherwood, Christopher 2012, p. 326">Isherwood, ''Christopher and His Kind'', 2012, Vintage, p. 326.</ref> | ||
=== Life in the United States === | === Life in the United States === | ||
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| image1 = Isherwood and Auden by Carl van Vechten, 1939.jpg | | image1 = Isherwood and Auden by Carl van Vechten, 1939.jpg | ||
| width1 = 190 | | width1 = 190 | ||
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| caption1 = Isherwood (left) and ] (right), photographed by ], 1939 | ||
| image2 = Bachardy, Donald (1934-viv.) - 1954 foto Van Vechten.jpg | | image2 = Bachardy, Donald (1934-viv.) - 1954 foto Van Vechten.jpg | ||
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While living in Hollywood, California, Isherwood befriended ], an up-and-coming young writer who would be influenced by Isherwood's ''Berlin Stories'', most specifically in the traces of the story "Sally Bowles" that surface in Capote's famed novella '']''.<ref>{{cite web | title=Year with Short Novels: Breakfast at Sally Bowles' | url=http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/short-novels-breakfast-at-sally-bowles/ | magazine=] | date=1 July 2010 | access-date=12 November 2012 | author=Norton, Ingrid | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110819185024/http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/short-novels-breakfast-at-sally-bowles/ | archive-date=19 August 2011 }}</ref> | While living in Hollywood, California, Isherwood befriended ], an up-and-coming young writer who would be influenced by Isherwood's ''Berlin Stories'', most specifically in the traces of the story "Sally Bowles" that surface in Capote's famed novella '']''.<ref>{{cite web | title=Year with Short Novels: Breakfast at Sally Bowles' | url=http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/short-novels-breakfast-at-sally-bowles/ | magazine=] | date=1 July 2010 | access-date=12 November 2012 | author=Norton, Ingrid | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110819185024/http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/short-novels-breakfast-at-sally-bowles/ | archive-date=19 August 2011 }}</ref> | ||
Isherwood also befriended ], a British novelist and playwright who had also moved to California, and who became one of the few people to whom Isherwood showed his work in progress.<ref name="test">, '']''. Retrieved 3 March 2014</ref> | Isherwood also befriended ], a British novelist and playwright who had also moved to California, and who became one of the few people to whom Isherwood showed his work in progress.<ref name="test">, '']''. Retrieved 3 March 2014.</ref> | ||
Isherwood considered becoming an American citizen in 1945 but balked at taking an oath that included the statement that he would defend the country. The next year he applied for citizenship and answered questions honestly, saying he would accept non-combatant duties like loading ships with food. The fact that he had volunteered for service with the Medical Corps also helped. At the naturalisation ceremony, he found he was required to swear to defend the nation and decided to take the oath since he had already stated his objections and reservations. He became an American citizen on 8 November 1946.<ref>Bucknell (ed.), pp.40, 77–8</ref> | Isherwood considered becoming an American citizen in 1945 but balked at taking an oath that included the statement that he would defend the country. The next year he applied for citizenship and answered questions honestly, saying he would accept non-combatant duties like loading ships with food. The fact that he had volunteered for service with the Medical Corps also helped. At the naturalisation ceremony, he found he was required to swear to defend the nation and decided to take the oath since he had already stated his objections and reservations. He became an American citizen on 8 November 1946.<ref>Bucknell (ed.), pp. 40, 77–8.</ref> | ||
He began living with the photographer William "Bill" Caskey. In 1947, the two traveled to South America. Isherwood wrote the prose and Caskey took the photographs for a 1949 book about their journey entitled ''The Condor and the Cows''. | He began living with the photographer William "Bill" Caskey. In 1947, the two traveled to South America. Isherwood wrote the prose and Caskey took the photographs for a 1949 book about their journey entitled ''The Condor and the Cows''. In a 1949 letter to ], Isherwood discussed gay relationships like his own:<ref name="ibson">{{cite book |last1=Ibson |first1=John |title=Men without Maps: Some Gay Males of the Generation before Stonewall |date=22 October 2019 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-65611-3 |page=13 |language=en}}</ref> | ||
{{blockquote|Homosexual relationships can be and frequently are happy. Many men live together for years and share their lives and their work, just as heterosexuals do. This truth is particularly disturbing and shocking even to “liberal people,” because it cuts across the romantic, tragic notion of homosexual fate.}} | |||
=== Meeting Don Bachardy === | === Meeting Don Bachardy === | ||
On ] 1953, at the age of 48, he met the teenager ] among a group of friends on the beach at ]. Reports of Bachardy's age at the time vary, but Bachardy later said |
On ] 1953, at the age of 48, he met the teenager ] among a group of friends on the beach at ]. Reports of Bachardy's age at the time vary, but Bachardy later said: "At the time I was probably 16."<ref>The biographical film ''Chris & Don: A Love Story''.</ref> In fact, he was 18.<ref>Bachardy was born in May 1934, meaning that in February 1953 he was 18 years old.</ref> Despite the age difference, this meeting began a partnership that, though interrupted by affairs and separations, continued until Isherwood's death.<ref>Parker, ''Isherwood'', 2004.</ref> | ||
During the early months of their affair, Isherwood |
During the early months of their affair, Isherwood finished — and Bachardy typed — the novel on which he had worked for some years, ''The World in the Evening'' (1954). Isherwood also taught a course on modern English literature at Los Angeles State College (now ]) for several years during the 1950s and early 1960s. | ||
The 30-year ] between Isherwood and Bachardy raised eyebrows at the time, with Bachardy, in his own words, "regarded as a sort of ]",<ref>, by ], ''],'' Volume 30, Number 16, 2 July 1985.</ref> but the two became a well-known and well-established couple in ]n society with many Hollywood friends. | The 30-year ] between Isherwood and Bachardy raised eyebrows at the time, with Bachardy, in his own words, "regarded as a sort of ]",<ref>, by ], ''],'' Volume 30, Number 16, 2 July 1985.</ref> but the two became a well-known and well-established couple in ]n society with many Hollywood friends. | ||
] | ] | ||
''Down There on a Visit'', a novel published in 1962, comprised four related stories that overlap the period covered in his Berlin stories. In the opinion of many reviewers |
''Down There on a Visit'', a novel published in 1962, comprised four related stories that overlap the period covered in his Berlin stories. In the opinion of many reviewers, Isherwood's finest achievement was his 1964 novel ''A Single Man'', that depicted a day in the life of George, a middle-aged, gay Englishman who is a professor at a Los Angeles university.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/8751943/The-Britons-who-made-their-mark-on-LA.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/8751943/The-Britons-who-made-their-mark-on-LA.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=The Britons who made their mark on LA|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=11 September 2011|access-date=5 July 2018|issn=0307-1235}}{{cbignore}}</ref> The novel was adapted into a film of the same name in 2009. | ||
During 1964 Isherwood collaborated with ] ] on the screenplay for the ] film adaptation of '']'', ]'s caustic satire on the American funeral industry. | During 1964, Isherwood collaborated with ] ] on the screenplay for the ] ] of '']'', ]'s caustic satire on the American funeral industry. | ||
=== Final years and death === | === Final years and death === | ||
Isherwood and Bachardy lived together in ] for the rest of Isherwood's life. Isherwood was diagnosed with ] in 1981, and died of the disease on 4 January 1986 at his Santa Monica home, aged 81. His body was donated to medical science at ], and his ashes were later scattered at sea.<ref>Wilson, Scott. ''Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons'', 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 23105). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.</ref> Bachardy became a successful artist with an independent reputation, and his portraits of the dying Isherwood became well known after Isherwood's death.<ref>Bachardy, Don, ''Christopher Isherwood: Last Drawings'', Faber and Faber: 1990, {{ISBN|978-0571140756}}</ref> | Isherwood and Bachardy lived together in ] for the rest of Isherwood's life. Isherwood was diagnosed with ] in 1981, and died of the disease on 4 January 1986 at his Santa Monica home, aged 81. His body was donated to medical science at ], and his ashes were later scattered at sea.<ref>Wilson, Scott. ''Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons'', 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 23105). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.</ref> Bachardy became a successful artist with an independent reputation, and his portraits of the dying Isherwood became well known after Isherwood's death.<ref>Bachardy, Don, ''Christopher Isherwood: Last Drawings'', Faber and Faber: 1990, {{ISBN|978-0571140756}}</ref> | ||
== Philosophical views == | |||
=== Association with Vedanta === | === Association with Vedanta === | ||
] circa 1972]] | ] circa 1972]] | ||
] had introduced British writer ] to ] (Hindu-centered philosophy) and meditation. After migrating to America in 1937,<ref>''Aldous Huxley: A Biography'' |
] had introduced British writer ] to ] (Hindu-centered philosophy) and meditation. After migrating to America in 1937,<ref>Sawyer, Dana, ''Aldous Huxley: A Biography'', 2002, p. 101.</ref> Heard and Huxley became Vedantists attending functions at the ], under the guidance of founder ], a monk of the ] of India. Both were initiated by the Swami.<ref>Sawyer, ''Aldous Huxley: A Biography'', 2002, p. 111.</ref> Heard and Huxley introduced Isherwood to the Swami's Vedanta Society.<ref>{{cite web |last=Braubach |first=Mary Ann |url=http://huxleyonhuxley.com/about/synopsis/ |title=Huxley on Huxley |publisher=Cinedigm |date=2010 |access-date=5 August 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141108065138/http://huxleyonhuxley.com/about/synopsis/ |archive-date=8 November 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Over time, Isherwood developed a close friendship with Huxley, with whom he sometimes collaborated. Isherwood became a dedicated Vedantist himself and was initiated by Prabhavananda, his guru.<ref name="ReferenceB">Isherwood, ''My Guru and His Disciple''.</ref> | ||
The process of conversion to Vedanta was so intense that Isherwood was unable to write another novel between the years 1939–1945, while he immersed himself in study of the Vedanta Scriptures, even becoming a monk for a time at the Society.<ref name="ReferenceB"/><ref name="Izzo">{{cite book |last1=Izzo |first1=David Garrett |title=Christopher Isherwood: His Era, His Gang, and the Legacy of the Truly Strong Man |date=2001 |publisher=Univ of South Carolina Press |isbn=978-1570034039 |pages=163–64 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mPkBlBCmfbsC&pg=PA83 |access-date=1 June 2017 }}</ref> For the next 35 years Isherwood collaborated with the Swami on translations of various Vedanta scriptures, including the ], writing articles for the Society's journal, and occasionally lecturing at the Hollywood and Santa Barbara temples. For many years he would come to the Hollywood temple on Wednesday nights to read the '']'' for a half an hour, then the Swami would take questions from the devotees.<ref name="Hinduism Today">{{cite web |title=Christopher Isherwood 1904–1986; Vedantist Writer/Seeker, An Inner Man of Wit, Warmth and Depth |url=https://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=366 |website=Hinduism Today |publisher=Himalayan Academy |access-date=1 June 2017}}</ref> | The process of conversion to Vedanta was so intense that Isherwood was unable to write another novel between the years 1939–1945, while he immersed himself in study of the Vedanta Scriptures, even becoming a monk for a time at the Society.<ref name="ReferenceB"/><ref name="Izzo">{{cite book |last1=Izzo |first1=David Garrett |title=Christopher Isherwood: His Era, His Gang, and the Legacy of the Truly Strong Man |date=2001 |publisher=Univ of South Carolina Press |isbn=978-1570034039 |pages=163–64 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mPkBlBCmfbsC&pg=PA83 |access-date=1 June 2017 }}</ref> For the next 35 years Isherwood collaborated with the Swami on translations of various Vedanta scriptures, including the ], writing articles for the Society's journal, and occasionally lecturing at the Hollywood and Santa Barbara temples. For many years he would come to the Hollywood temple on Wednesday nights to read the '']'' for a half an hour, then the Swami would take questions from the devotees.<ref name="Hinduism Today">{{cite web |title=Christopher Isherwood 1904–1986; Vedantist Writer/Seeker, An Inner Man of Wit, Warmth and Depth |url=https://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=366 |website=Hinduism Today |publisher=Himalayan Academy |access-date=1 June 2017}}</ref> | ||
From 1950 to 1978, Isherwood gave 53 lectures at the Hollywood and Santa Barbara Vedanta Temples. He mentions in his diaries and the book, ''My Guru and His Disciple'', that he feels unqualified to preach, so most of his lectures were readings of papers written by others, primarily Swami ]. There were a few original lectures including, ''Who Is Ramakrishna'', ''The Writer and Vedanta'', and a lecture on ], a householder disciple of Ramakrishna.<ref>As listed in the monthly bulletins of the Vedanta Society of Southern California</ref> | From 1950 to 1978, Isherwood gave 53 lectures at the Hollywood and Santa Barbara Vedanta Temples. He mentions in his diaries and the book, ''My Guru and His Disciple'', that he feels unqualified to preach, so most of his lectures were readings of papers written by others, primarily Swami ]. There were a few original lectures including, ''Who Is Ramakrishna'', ''The Writer and Vedanta'', and a lecture on ], a householder disciple of Ramakrishna.<ref>As listed in the monthly bulletins of the Vedanta Society of Southern California.</ref> | ||
Isherwood was also very involved in the production of the bi-monthly journal of the Vedanta Society of Southern California, ''Vedanta and the West''. From 1943 to 1945 he was Managing Editor, from 1951 to 1962 he was an Editorial Advisor together with ], ], and additionally with ] from 1951 to 1958. From 1949 to 1969 he wrote 40 articles for the journal.<ref>Vedanta and the West publication history</ref> | Isherwood was also very involved in the production of the bi-monthly journal of the Vedanta Society of Southern California, ''Vedanta and the West''. From 1943 to 1945 he was Managing Editor, from 1951 to 1962 he was an Editorial Advisor together with ], ], and additionally with ] from 1951 to 1958. From 1949 to 1969 he wrote 40 articles for the journal.<ref>Vedanta and the West publication history.</ref> | ||
=== Isherwood and war === | === Isherwood and war === | ||
Isherwood's father, Frank Bradshaw-Isherwood, was a colonel in the British Army. He was killed during |
Isherwood's father, Frank Bradshaw-Isherwood, was a colonel in the British Army. He was killed during World War I in the ], France in May 1915, at the age of 46. Isherwood was 10 years old at the time.<ref>{{cite web |title=Christopher Isherwood, Whose Tales Inspired 'Cabaret,' Dies |date=1986-01-06 |website=] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230411164150/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-01-06-me-13515-story.html |archive-date=2023-04-11 |url-status=live |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-01-06-me-13515-story.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Christopher Isherwood is dead at 81 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=6 January 1986 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307195733/https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/06/obituaries/christopher-isherwood-is-dead-at-81.html |archive-date=2023-03-07 |url-status=live |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/06/obituaries/christopher-isherwood-is-dead-at-81.html}}</ref> His father's death "...deeply affected him, not only in his perspective of his father and how he would relate to his mother, but in his attitude towards the military and war itself."<ref>Biographical sketch the Harry Ransom archive at the University of Texas, Austin </ref> Isherwood's second novel, '']'', published in 1932, describes the impact on a family from the death of the father in World War I. ''The Memorial'' was the first of what would become the trademark for Isherwood: reflecting his life experience into the plot of a novel.<ref> by UMN.edu.</ref> | ||
After being asked to leave Cambridge, he lived in Berlin and witnessed the rising power of Fascism, the Nazi Party, and Hitler. Isherwood describes the times in his autobiographical novels '']''. In 1933, Isherwood fled Germany with his friend Heinz Neddermeyer seeking asylum for Heinz — who was refused entry to England. Heinz was finally arrested in |
After being asked to leave Cambridge, he lived in Berlin and witnessed the rising power of Fascism, the Nazi Party, and Hitler. Isherwood describes the times in his autobiographical novels '']''. In 1933, Isherwood fled Germany with his friend Heinz Neddermeyer seeking asylum for Heinz — who was refused entry to England. Heinz was finally arrested in May 1937 by the Gestapo for draft evasion and practicing homosexuality.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/09/17/reviews/000917.17thomsot.html |title=Out of Film {{!}} Christopher Isherwood's memoir of his postwar years|newspaper=The New York Times |first=David|last=Thomson|date=September 17, 2000}}</ref> | ||
Back in London, Isherwood's sympathies were with the left, but although the Anti-war movement flourished after |
Back in London, Isherwood's sympathies were with the left, but although the Anti-war movement flourished after World War I, it was fractured into opposing ideological groups. Some wanted to join the fight in the ],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zvkn8xs/revision/4 |title=British and French appeasement, to 1938 {{!}} Spanish Civil War |publisher=BBC {{!}} Bitesize}}</ref> others wanting to just let the Germans in{{where?|date=January 2024}}, rather than go to war{{fact|date=January 2024}}, still others advocated non-violent resistance, all of which had the effect of weakening their political power. The fighting in Spain was savage, and "...the left tore itself apart with squabbling and paranoia. Veterans came to feel that the idealism of the cause had been exploited, and many resented being policed by shadowy Communist enforcers."<ref>{{cite magazine |title=The American Soldiers of the Spanish Civil War |date=2016-04-11 |magazine=] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230401184311/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/18/the-americans-soldiers-of-the-spanish-civil-war |archive-date=2023-04-01 |url-status=live |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/18/the-americans-soldiers-of-the-spanish-civil-war}}</ref> | ||
In 1937, two of the largest peace groups joined forces; the ] merged into the ].<ref>]</ref> The members attested to the following pledge: "War is a crime against humanity. I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war". Some of the leading authors and intellectuals of the time gave speeches and lent their names to the cause, including ], ], and ].<ref name="About">{{Cite web|title=About Us|url=https://www.ppu.org.uk/about-us|website=www.ppu.org.uk|date=24 July 2018 |publisher=Peace Pledge Union|access-date=3 November 2018|location=]}}</ref> | In 1937, two of the largest peace groups joined forces; the ] merged into the ].<ref>]</ref> The members attested to the following pledge: "War is a crime against humanity. I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war". Some of the leading authors and intellectuals of the time gave speeches and lent their names to the cause, including ], ], and ].<ref name="About">{{Cite web|title=About Us|url=https://www.ppu.org.uk/about-us|website=www.ppu.org.uk|date=24 July 2018 |publisher=Peace Pledge Union|access-date=3 November 2018|location=]}}</ref> | ||
Inspired by ]'s reporting from the Spanish Civil War, in January 1938, Isherwood and his friend ] traveled to China to cover the invasion by Japan and wrote '']'' (1939).<ref name="Isherwood, Christopher 2012, pp. 304, 310"/> They returned to England the following summer via the United States and decided to emigrate there in January 1939.<ref name="Isherwood, Christopher 2012, p. 326"/> At this point Isherwood wasn't clear about his own anti-war beliefs. On the way to America, he realized he was a Pacifist, as he would be unwilling to kill his friend Heinz, "Heinz is in the Nazi army. I wouldn't kill Heinz. Therefore I have no right to kill anybody".<ref>{{cite book |last= Isherwood |first= Christopher |date= 1996|title= Diaries: Volume 1, 1939-1960, Edited and Introduced by Katherine Bucknell |publisher= HarperFlamingo|page= Introduction XII|isbn= 978-0061180002}}</ref> He had lost his political faith, "I couldn't repeat the left-wing slogans which I had been repeating throughout the last few years."<ref>{{cite book |last= Isherwood |first= Christopher |date= 1980|title= My Guru and His Disciple |publisher= Farrar Straus Giroux|page= 4|isbn= 978-0-374-21702-0 }}</ref> | Inspired by ]'s reporting from the Spanish Civil War, in January 1938, Isherwood and his friend ] traveled to China to cover the invasion by Japan and wrote '']'' (1939).<ref name="Isherwood, Christopher 2012, pp. 304, 310"/> They returned to England the following summer via the United States and decided to emigrate there in January 1939.<ref name="Isherwood, Christopher 2012, p. 326"/> At this point Isherwood wasn't clear about his own anti-war beliefs. On the way to America, he realized he was a Pacifist, as he would be unwilling to kill his friend Heinz, "Heinz is in the Nazi army. I wouldn't kill Heinz. Therefore I have no right to kill anybody".<ref>{{cite book |last= Isherwood |first= Christopher |date= 1996|title= Diaries: Volume 1, 1939-1960, Edited and Introduced by Katherine Bucknell |publisher= HarperFlamingo|page= Introduction XII|isbn= 978-0061180002}}</ref> He had lost his political faith, "I couldn't repeat the left-wing slogans which I had been repeating throughout the last few years."<ref>{{cite book |last= Isherwood |first= Christopher |date= 1980|title= My Guru and His Disciple |publisher= Farrar Straus Giroux|page= 4|isbn= 978-0-374-21702-0 }}</ref> | ||
After moving to California, Isherwood sought "...advice from ] and ] about becoming a pacifist,<ref>{{cite book |last= Isherwood |first= Christopher |date= 1996|title= Diaries: Volume 1, 1939-1960 |
After moving to California, Isherwood sought "...advice from ] and ] about becoming a pacifist,<ref>{{cite book |last= Isherwood |first= Christopher |date= 1996|title= Diaries: Volume 1, 1939-1960 |publisher= HarperFlamingo|page= Introduction XIII|isbn= 978-0061180002}}</ref> and, like them, he became a disciple of the Ramakrishna monk, ], head of the ]."<ref>{{cite book |last= Isherwood |first= Christopher |date= 1996|title= Diaries: Volume 1, 1939-1960 |publisher= HarperFlamingo|page= Introduction XII|isbn= }}</ref> He applied for citizenship and registered as a ]. In Pennsylvania, he worked in a Quaker Hostel, helping to settle European Jews who were fleeing the Nazis.<ref> at The Christopher Isherwood Foundation.</ref> | ||
In 1944, the translation of the Hindu scripture, ] that the Swami and Isherwood had been working on was published. In the appendix, there is an essay by Isherwood titled, ]. There Isherwood explains the Vedantic view of war and duty. The plot of the poem is that the whole of India is drawn into a great battle, and on the eve of the fight, Arjuna, the hero warrior of the epic poem, ''The Mahabharata'', is taken between the two armies and sees friends, family, and worthy people on both sides, throws down his weapons and says, "I will not fight." The rest of the book has ], Arjuna's friend and advisor, explaining the nature of duty. It may be, for some person, at some time, |
In 1944, the translation of the Hindu scripture, ] that the Swami and Isherwood had been working on was published. In the appendix, there is an essay by Isherwood titled, ]. There Isherwood explains the Vedantic view of war and duty. The plot of the poem is that the whole of India is drawn into a great battle, and on the eve of the fight, Arjuna, the hero warrior of the epic poem, ''The Mahabharata'', is taken between the two armies and sees friends, family, and worthy people on both sides, throws down his weapons and says, "I will not fight." The rest of the book has ], Arjuna's friend and advisor, explaining the nature of duty. It may be, for some person, at some time, proper to refuse to fight, but if the cause is righteous, and it's your duty as a warrior to fight, it would be a moral hazard to refuse.<ref>] Article on the Bhagavad Gita.</ref> | ||
== Legacy and recognition == | == Legacy and recognition == | ||
]}}. |
]}}. Isherwood lived here between March 1929 and January/February 1933. | ||
(The dates on the plaque are not |
(The dates on the plaque are incorrect: Apart from the date of death being the 4th, not the 5th, Isherwood moved to Nollendorfstraße in December 1930 and, according to his memoirs '']'', left three days after witnessing the May 10th 1933 ] at Opernplatz<ref>{{Cite book |last=Isherwood |first=Christopher |title=Christopher and His Kind |publisher=Avon Books |year=1977 |isbn=0380017954 |edition=1st |location=New York |pages=128–133 |language=en}}</ref>)]] | ||
] | ] | ||
* The house in the {{lang|de|]}} district of Berlin where Isherwood lived bears a ] to mark his stay there between 1929 and 1933. | * The house in the {{lang|de|]}} district of Berlin where Isherwood lived bears a ] to mark his stay there between 1929 and 1933. | ||
* Isherwood is mentioned in ]'s '']'' (1964): "Apart from a lazy two-page sketch in Christopher Isherwood's novel '']'' (1954), has hardly broken into print."<ref>Sontag, Susan. ''Notes on "Camp".'' Penguin Random House (2018). {{ISBN|978-0241339701}}</ref> | * Isherwood is mentioned in ]'s '']'' (1964): "Apart from a lazy two-page sketch in Christopher Isherwood's novel '']'' (1954), has hardly broken into print."<ref>Sontag, Susan. ''Notes on "Camp".'' Penguin Random House (2018). {{ISBN|978-0241339701}}.</ref> | ||
* The 2008 film '']: A Love Story'' chronicled Isherwood and Bachardy's lifelong relationship. | * The 2008 film '']: A Love Story'' chronicled Isherwood and Bachardy's lifelong relationship. | ||
* '']'' was adapted into a film, '']'', in 2009. | * '']'' was adapted into a film, '']'', in 2009. | ||
* In 2010 Isherwood's autobiography, '']'', was adapted into ] by the ], starring ] as Isherwood and directed by ].<ref>{{cite press release|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/05_may/19/christopher.shtml |title=New BBC Two drama, Christopher And His Kind |publisher=BBC |date=19 May 2010 |access-date=28 September 2019}}</ref> It was broadcast in France and Germany on the ] channel in February 2011, and in Britain on ] the following month. | * In 2010, Isherwood's autobiography, '']'', was adapted into ] by the ], starring ] as Isherwood and directed by ].<ref>{{cite press release|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/05_may/19/christopher.shtml |title=New BBC Two drama, Christopher And His Kind |publisher=BBC |date=19 May 2010 |access-date=28 September 2019}}</ref> The closing credits list Don Bachardy as Consultant.<ref>Film viewed on DVD, 19 July 2024.</ref> It was broadcast in France and Germany on the ] channel in February 2011, and in Britain on ] the following month. | ||
* The annual ] was established in partnership with the '']'' in 2016.<ref>{{cite web | title=The Christopher Isherwood Prize | website=The Christopher Isherwood Foundation | url=http://www.isherwoodfoundation.org/prizes.html | access-date=27 September 2021 | archive-date=26 September 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210926112745/http://www.isherwoodfoundation.org/prizes.html | url-status=dead }}</ref> | * The annual ] was established in partnership with the '']'' in 2016.<ref>{{cite web | title=The Christopher Isherwood Prize | website=The Christopher Isherwood Foundation | url=http://www.isherwoodfoundation.org/prizes.html | access-date=27 September 2021 | archive-date=26 September 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210926112745/http://www.isherwoodfoundation.org/prizes.html | url-status=dead }}</ref> | ||
== Works == | == Works == | ||
=== Fiction === | |||
* ''All the Conspirators'' (1928; new edition 1957 with new foreword) | * ''All the Conspirators'' (1928; new edition 1957 with new foreword) | ||
* '']'' (1932) | * '']'' (1932) | ||
* '']'' (1935; U.S. edition titled ''The Last of Mr Norris'') | * '']'' (1935; U.S. edition titled ''The Last of Mr Norris'') | ||
⚫ | * "]" (1937; novella later included in ''Goodbye to Berlin'') | ||
⚫ | * '']'' (1935, with ]) | ||
⚫ | * '']'' (1937, with W. H. Auden) | ||
⚫ | * |
||
⚫ | * '']'' (1938, with W. H. Auden) | ||
⚫ | * ''Lions and Shadows'' (1938, autobiographical fiction). Reissued: Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000 | ||
* '']'' (1939) | * '']'' (1939) | ||
⚫ | * '']'' (1939, with W. H. Auden) | ||
* ] (1944, with Prabhavananda) | |||
⚫ | * ''Vedanta for the Western World'' (1945, Marcel Rodd Co.; published in England by George Allen & Unwin, 1948; ed. and introduction, plus several contributions) | ||
* '']'' (1945) | * '']'' (1945) | ||
* '']'' (1945; |
* '']'' (1945; collects '']'' and '']'') | ||
⚫ | * ''The Condor and the Cows'' (1949, South-American travel diary) | ||
⚫ | * ''Vedanta for Modern Man'' (1951, Harper & Brothers; published in England by George Allen & Unwin, 1952; ed. and contributor) | ||
⚫ | * ''What Vedanta Means to Me'' (1951, pamphlet) | ||
* '']'' (1954) | * '']'' (1954) | ||
* '']'' (1962) | * '']'' (1962) | ||
⚫ | * ''An Approach to Vedanta'' (1963) | ||
* '']'' (1964) | * '']'' (1964) | ||
⚫ | * ''Ramakrishna and His Disciples'' (1965) | ||
⚫ | * ''Exhumations'' (1966; journalism and stories) | ||
* ''A Meeting by the River'' (1967) | * ''A Meeting by the River'' (1967) | ||
⚫ | * ''Essentials of Vedanta'' (1969) | ||
⚫ | * ''Kathleen and Frank'' (1971, about Isherwood's parents) | ||
* '']'' (1973, with Don Bachardy; based on their 1973 film script) | * '']'' (1973, with Don Bachardy; based on their 1973 film script) | ||
⚫ | * ''The Mortmere Stories'' (with ]) (1994) | ||
⚫ | * "]" (1997), originally co-written with ] | ||
=== Autobiography, diaries and letters === | |||
⚫ | * ''Lions and Shadows'' (1938, autobiographical fiction). Reissued: Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000 | ||
⚫ | * ''Kathleen and Frank'' (1971, about Isherwood's parents) | ||
* '']'' (1976, autobiography), 130-copy edition printed by ], regular publication by ] | * '']'' (1976, autobiography), 130-copy edition printed by ], regular publication by ] | ||
* ''My Guru and His Disciple'' (1980) | * ''My Guru and His Disciple'' (1980) | ||
* ''October'' (1980, with Don Bachardy) | * ''October'' (1980, with Don Bachardy) | ||
⚫ | * ''The Mortmere Stories'' (with ]) (1994) | ||
⚫ | * ''Where Joy Resides: An Isherwood Reader'' (1989; Don Bachardy and James P. White, eds.) | ||
* ''Diaries: 1939–1960'', ], ed. (1996) | * ''Diaries: 1939–1960'', ], ed. (1996) | ||
⚫ | * |
||
* ''Lost Years: A Memoir 1945–1951'', ], ed. (2000) | * ''Lost Years: A Memoir 1945–1951'', ], ed. (2000) | ||
* ''Kathleen and Christopher'', Lisa Colletta, ed. (Letters to his mother, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005) | * ''Kathleen and Christopher'', Lisa Colletta, ed. (Letters to his mother, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005) | ||
* ''Isherwood on Writing'' (University of Minnesota Press, 2007) | * ''Isherwood on Writing'' (University of Minnesota Press, 2007; lectures) | ||
* ''The Sixties: Diaries:1960–1969'' ], ed. 2010 | * ''The Sixties: Diaries:1960–1969'' ], ed. 2010 | ||
* ''Liberation: Diaries:1970–1983'' ], ed. 2012 | * ''Liberation: Diaries:1970–1983'' ], ed. 2012 | ||
* ''The Animals: Love Letters Between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy'', Edited by Katherine Bucknell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014) | * ''The Animals: Love Letters Between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy'', Edited by Katherine Bucknell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014) | ||
=== Biography === | |||
⚫ | * ''Ramakrishna and His Disciples'' (1965) | ||
=== Plays === | |||
⚫ | * '']'' (1935, with ]) | ||
⚫ | * '']'' (1937, with W. H. Auden) | ||
⚫ | * '']'' (1938, with W. H. Auden) | ||
=== Travel === | |||
⚫ | * '']'' (1939, with W. H. Auden) | ||
⚫ | * ''The Condor and the Cows'' (1949, South-American travel diary) | ||
=== Collections === | |||
⚫ | * ''Exhumations'' (1966; journalism and stories) | ||
⚫ | * ''Where Joy Resides: An Isherwood Reader'' (1989; Don Bachardy and James P. White, eds.) | ||
=== Translations === | === Translations === | ||
* {{lang|fr|]}}, ''Intimate Journals'' (1930; revised edition 1947) | * {{lang|fr|]}}, ''Intimate Journals'' (1930; revised edition 1947) | ||
* ] (with Swami Prabhavananda, 1944) | * ] (with Swami Prabhavananda, 1944) | ||
Line 187: | Line 203: | ||
* ''How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali'' (with Swami Prabhavananda, 1953) | * ''How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali'' (with Swami Prabhavananda, 1953) | ||
=== |
=== Writing on Vedanta === | ||
==== Books and pamphlets ==== | |||
⚫ | * ''Vedanta for the Western World'' (1945, Marcel Rodd Co.; published in England by George Allen & Unwin, 1948; ed. and introduction, plus several contributions) | ||
⚫ | * ''Vedanta for Modern Man'' (1951, Harper & Brothers; published in England by George Allen & Unwin, 1952; ed. and contributor) | ||
⚫ | * ''What Vedanta Means to Me'' (1951, pamphlet) | ||
⚫ | * ''An Approach to Vedanta'' (1963) | ||
⚫ | * ''Essentials of Vedanta'' (1969) | ||
==== Articles in ''Vedanta and the West'' ==== | |||
''Vedanta and the West'' (originally titled ''Voice of India'' from 1938 to 1940) was the official publication of the ]. It offered essays by many of the leading intellectuals of the time and had contributions from ], ], ], ], ], and many others. | ''Vedanta and the West'' (originally titled ''Voice of India'' from 1938 to 1940) was the official publication of the ]. It offered essays by many of the leading intellectuals of the time and had contributions from ], ], ], ], ], and many others. | ||
Isherwood wrote the following articles that appeared in ''Vedanta and the West'': | Isherwood wrote the following articles that appeared in ''Vedanta and the West'': | ||
{{col-begin}}{{col-break}} | {{col-begin}}{{col-break}} | ||
* ] and ] – 1943 | * "] and ]" – 1943 | ||
* On Translating the Gita – 1944 | * "On Translating the Gita" – 1944 | ||
* Hypothesis and Belief – 1944 | * "Hypothesis and Belief" – 1944 | ||
* The Gita and War – 1944 | * "The Gita and War" – 1944 | ||
* What is Vedanta? – 1944 | * "What is Vedanta?" – 1944 | ||
* ] and Vivekananda – 1945 | * "] and Vivekananda" – 1945 | ||
* The Problem of the Religious Novel – 1946 | * "The Problem of the Religious Novel" – 1946 | ||
* Religion Without Prayers – 1946 | * "Religion Without Prayers" – 1946 | ||
* Foreword to a Man of Boys – 1950 | * "Foreword to a Man of Boys" – 1950 | ||
* An Introduction – 1951 | * "An Introduction" – 1951 | ||
* What Vedanta Means to Me – 1951 | * "What Vedanta Means to Me" – 1951 | ||
* Who Is Ramakrishna? – 1957 | * "Who Is Ramakrishna?" – 1957 | ||
* Ramakrishna and the Future – 1958 | * "Ramakrishna and the Future" – 1958 | ||
* The Home of Ramakrishna – 1958 | * "The Home of Ramakrishna" – 1958 | ||
* Ramakrishna: A First Chapter – 1959 | * "Ramakrishna: A First Chapter" – 1959 | ||
* The Birth of Ramakrishna – 1959 | * "The Birth of Ramakrishna" – 1959 | ||
* The Boyhood of Ramakrishna – 1959 | * "The Boyhood of Ramakrishna" – 1959 | ||
* How Ramakrishna Came to Dakshineswar – 1959 | * "How Ramakrishna Came to Dakshineswar" – 1959 | ||
* Early Days at Dakshineswar – 1959 | * "Early Days at Dakshineswar" – 1959 | ||
* The Vision of Kali – 1960 | * "The Vision of Kali" – 1960 | ||
{{col-break|gap=4em}} | {{col-break|gap=4em}} | ||
* The Marriage of Ramakrishna – 1960 | * "The Marriage of Ramakrishna" – 1960 | ||
* The Coming of the Bhariravi – 1960 | * "The Coming of the Bhariravi" – 1960 | ||
* Some Visitors to Dakshineswar – 1960 | * "Some Visitors to Dakshineswar" – 1960 | ||
* Tota Puri – 1960 | * "Tota Puri" – 1960 | ||
* The Writer and Vedanta – 1961 | * "The Writer and Vedanta" – 1961 | ||
* Mathur – 1961 | * "Mathur" – 1961 | ||
* Sarada and Chandra – 1962 | * "Sarada and Chandra" – 1962 | ||
* Keshab Sen – 1962 | * "Keshab Sen" – 1962 | ||
* The Coming of the Disciples – 1962 | * "The Coming of the Disciples" – 1962 | ||
* Introduction to Vivekananda – 1962 | * "Introduction to Vivekananda" – 1962 | ||
* Naren – 1963 | * "Naren" – 1963 | ||
* The Training of Naren – 1963 | * "The Training of Naren" – 1963 | ||
* An Approach to Vedanta – 1963 | * "An Approach to Vedanta" – 1963 | ||
* The Young Monks – 1963 | * The Young Monks – 1963 | ||
* Some Great Devotees – 1963 | * "Some Great Devotees" – 1963 | ||
* The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna – 1963 | * "The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna" – 1963 | ||
* The Last Year – 1964 | * "The Last Year" – 1964 | ||
* The Story Continues – 1964 | * "The Story Continues" – 1964 | ||
* Letters of Swami Vivekananda – 1968 | * "Letters of Swami Vivekananda" – 1968 | ||
* Essentials of Vedanta – 1969 | * "Essentials of Vedanta" – 1969 | ||
{{col-end}} | {{col-end}} | ||
In 1945 sixty-eight articles from ''Vedanta and the West'' were collected in book form as ''Vedanta for the Western World''. Isherwood edited the selection and provided an introduction and three articles ("Hypothesis and Belief", "] and ]", "The Gita and War"). Other contributors included ], ], ], ], and ]. | In 1945, sixty-eight articles from ''Vedanta and the West'' were collected in book form as ''Vedanta for the Western World''. Isherwood edited the selection and provided an introduction and three articles ("Hypothesis and Belief", "] and ]", "The Gita and War"). Other contributors included ], ], ], ], and ]. | ||
== Audio and video recordings == | == Audio and video recordings == | ||
* ''Christopher Isherwood reads selections from the Bhagavad Gita'' – CD<ref name="ReferenceA">CD produced by mondayMEDIA, distributed on the GemsTone label</ref> | * ''Christopher Isherwood reads selections from the Bhagavad Gita'' – CD<ref name="ReferenceA">CD produced by mondayMEDIA, distributed on the GemsTone label.</ref> | ||
* ''Christopher Isherwood reads selections from the Upanishads'' – CD<ref name="ReferenceA"/> | * ''Christopher Isherwood reads selections from the Upanishads'' – CD<ref name="ReferenceA"/> | ||
* Lecture on ''Girish Ghosh'' – CD<ref>Lecture given in the Santa Barbara Vedanta Temple</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/girish-ghosh-r1966511 |title=Review in |website=AllMusic |access-date=4 December 2013 }}</ref> | * Lecture on ''Girish Ghosh'' – CD<ref>Lecture given in the Santa Barbara Vedanta Temple.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/girish-ghosh-r1966511 |title=Review in |website=AllMusic |access-date=4 December 2013 }}</ref> | ||
* ''Christopher Isherwood Reads Two Lectures on the Bhagavad Gita by ]'' – DVD | * ''Christopher Isherwood Reads Two Lectures on the Bhagavad Gita by ]'' – DVD | ||
== See also == | == See also == | ||
* {{Portal-inline| |
* {{Portal-inline|LGBTQ}} | ||
== References == | == References == | ||
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=== Bibliography === | === Bibliography === | ||
* ] (2004) ''Isherwood: A Life,'' Picador. {{ISBN|1509859403|978-1509859405}} | * ] (2004), ''Isherwood: A Life,'' Picador. {{ISBN|1509859403|978-1509859405}} | ||
* Fryer, Jonathan (1977), ''Isherwood: A Biography'', Garden City, NY |
* Fryer, Jonathan (1977), ''Isherwood: A Biography'', Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company. {{ISBN|0-385-12608-5}}. | ||
== Further reading == | == Further reading == | ||
* Berg, James J. and Freeman, Chris eds, ''Isherwood in Transit'' (2020) {{ISBN|978-1-5179-0910-9}} | * Berg, James J. and Freeman, Chris eds, ''Isherwood in Transit'' (2020), {{ISBN|978-1-5179-0910-9}} | ||
* Berg, James J. and Freeman, Chris eds, ''Conversations with Christopher Isherwood'' (2001) | * Berg, James J. and Freeman, Chris eds, ''Conversations with Christopher Isherwood'' (2001) | ||
* Berg, James J. and Freeman, Chris eds. ''The Isherwood Century: Essays on the Life and Work of Christopher Isherwood'' (2000) | * Berg, James J. and Freeman, Chris eds. ''The Isherwood Century: Essays on the Life and Work of Christopher Isherwood'' (2000) | ||
* Finney, Brian. ''Christopher Isherwood: A Critical Biography'' (1979) | * Finney, Brian. ''Christopher Isherwood: A Critical Biography'' (1979) | ||
* Marsh, Victor. ''Mr Isherwood Changes Trains: Christopher Isherwood and the search for the 'home self'' (2010) Clouds of Magellen {{ISBN|9780980712056}} | * Marsh, Victor. ''Mr Isherwood Changes Trains: Christopher Isherwood and the search for the 'home self'' (2010), Clouds of Magellen {{ISBN|9780980712056}} | ||
* Page, Norman. ''Auden and Isherwood: The Berlin Years'' (2000) | * Page, Norman. ''Auden and Isherwood: The Berlin Years'' (2000) | ||
* Prosser, Lee. ''Isherwood, Bowles, Vedanta, Wicca, and Me'' (2001) {{ISBN|0-595-20284-5}} | * Prosser, Lee. ''Isherwood, Bowles, Vedanta, Wicca, and Me'' (2001), {{ISBN|0-595-20284-5}} | ||
* Prosser, Lee. ''Night Tigers'' (2002) {{ISBN|0-595-21739-7}} | * Prosser, Lee. ''Night Tigers'' (2002), {{ISBN|0-595-21739-7}} | ||
* {{cite journal |url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3971/the-art-of-fiction-no-49-christopher-isherwood |journal=] |issue=57 |title=Christopher Isherwood, The Art of Fiction No. 49 |date=Spring 1974 |first=W.I. |last=Scobie |volume=Spring 1974 | ref=none}} | * {{cite journal |url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3971/the-art-of-fiction-no-49-christopher-isherwood |journal=] |issue=57 |title=Christopher Isherwood, The Art of Fiction No. 49 |date=Spring 1974 |first=W.I. |last=Scobie |volume=Spring 1974 | ref=none}} | ||
* {{cite web |url=http://www.glbtq.com/literature/isherwood_c.html |title=Isherwood, Christopher (1904–1986) |first=Claude J. |last=Summers |publisher=] |access-date=6 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150104004742/http://www.glbtq.com/literature/isherwood_c.html |archive-date=4 January 2015 | ref=none}} | * {{cite web |url=http://www.glbtq.com/literature/isherwood_c.html |title=Isherwood, Christopher (1904–1986), |first=Claude J. |last=Summers |publisher=] |access-date=6 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150104004742/http://www.glbtq.com/literature/isherwood_c.html |archive-date=4 January 2015 | ref=none}} | ||
* {{cite web |url=http://www.glbtq.com/sfeatures/asingleman.html |title=''A Single Man'': Ford's Film / Isherwood's Novel |first=Claude J. |last=Summers |publisher=glbtq.com |date=1 February 2010 |access-date=6 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150206190142/http://www.glbtq.com/sfeatures/asingleman.html |archive-date=6 February 2015 | ref=none}} | * {{cite web |url=http://www.glbtq.com/sfeatures/asingleman.html |title=''A Single Man'': Ford's Film / Isherwood's Novel |first=Claude J. |last=Summers |publisher=glbtq.com |date=1 February 2010 |access-date=6 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150206190142/http://www.glbtq.com/sfeatures/asingleman.html |archive-date=6 February 2015 | ref=none}} | ||
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Latest revision as of 11:13, 21 December 2024
English-American novelist (1904–1986)
Christopher Isherwood | |
---|---|
Isherwood in 1938 | |
Born | Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (1904-08-26)26 August 1904 High Lane, Cheshire, England |
Died | 4 January 1986(1986-01-04) (aged 81) Santa Monica, California, U.S. |
Occupation | Novelist |
Citizenship | British (1904–1946) American (1946–1986) |
Alma mater | Corpus Christi College, Cambridge King's College London |
Genre | Modernism, realism |
Notable works | |
Partner | Heinz Neddermeyer (1932–1937) Don Bachardy (1953–1986) |
Signature | |
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include Goodbye to Berlin (1939), a semi-autobiographical novel which inspired the musical Cabaret (1966); A Single Man (1964), adapted into a film directed by Tom Ford in 2009; and Christopher and His Kind (1976), a memoir which "carried him into the heart of the Gay Liberation movement".
Biography
Early life and work
Isherwood was born in 1904 on his family's estate in Cheshire near Stockport in the north-west of England. He was the elder son of Francis Edward Bradshaw Isherwood (1869–1915), known as Frank, a professional soldier in the York and Lancaster Regiment, and Kathleen Bradshaw Isherwood, née Machell Smith (1868–1960), the only daughter of a successful wine merchant. He was the grandson of John Henry Isherwood, squire of Marple Hall and Wyberslegh Hall, Cheshire, and he included among his ancestors the Puritan judge John Bradshaw, who signed the death warrant of King Charles I and served for two years as Lord President of the Council, effectively President of the English Republic.
Isherwood's father Frank was educated at the University of Cambridge and Sandhurst Military Academy, fought in the Boer War, and was killed in the First World War. Isherwood's mother, Kathleen, was, through her own mother, a member of the wealthy Greene brewing family of Greene King, and Isherwood was a third cousin of the novelist Graham Greene, who was also related to the brewing family. Frank and Kathleen christened their first son Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood, which Isherwood simplified on becoming a United States citizen in 1946. Christopher was enrolled at St. Edmund's school, Hindhead, Surrey beginning in 1914, where he met W. H. Auden who became a life-long friend and colleague and left for Repton in 1918.
At Repton, his boarding school in Derbyshire, Isherwood met his lifelong friend Edward Upward, with whom he invented an imaginary English village called Mortmere, as related in his fictional autobiography, Lions and Shadows (1938). He went up to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, as a history scholar, wrote jokes and limericks on his second year Tripos and was asked to leave without a degree in 1925.
At Christmas 1925, he was reintroduced to a prep school friend, W. H. Auden. Through Auden, Isherwood met the younger poet Stephen Spender, who printed Auden's first collection, Poems (1928). Upward, Isherwood, Auden, and Spender were identified as the most exciting new literary group in England in the 1930s. Auden dubbed Isherwood the novelist in what came to be known as the Auden Group or Auden Generation. With Cecil Day-Lewis and Louis MacNeice, Auden and Spender later attracted the name the MacSpaunday Poets, with which Isherwood is also associated.
After leaving Cambridge, Isherwood worked as a private tutor and later as secretary to a string quartet led by the violinist André Mangeot while he completed his first novel. This was All the Conspirators, published in 1928, about the struggle for self-determination between children and their parents. In October 1928, Isherwood enrolled as a medical student at King's College London, but he left after six months.
Sojourn in Berlin
In March 1929, Isherwood joined Auden in Berlin, where Auden was spending a post-graduate year. His primary motivation for making the trip was the sexual freedom that Weimar Berlin offered, as he later wrote: "To Christopher, Berlin meant Boys." The ten-day visit changed Isherwood's life. He began an affair with a German boy whom he met at a cellar bar called The Cosy Corner, and he was "brought face to face with his tribe" at Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Science. Isherwood visited Berlin again in July and relocated there in November.
Jean Ross, a British expatriate and cabaret singer upon whom Isherwood based the character of Sally BowlesIn Berlin, Isherwood completed his second novel, The Memorial (1932), about the impact of the First World War on his family and his generation. He also continued his habit of keeping a diary. In his diary, he gathered raw material for Mr. Norris Changes Trains (1935), inspired by his real-life friendship with Gerald Hamilton, and for Goodbye to Berlin (1939), his portrait of the city in which Adolf Hitler was rising to power — enabled by poverty, unemployment, increasing attacks on Jews and Communists, and ignored by the defiant hedonism of night life in the cafés, bars, and brothels. Goodbye to Berlin included stories published in the leftist magazine, New Writing, and it included Isherwood's 1937 novella Sally Bowles, in which he created his most famous character, based on a young Englishwoman, Jean Ross, with whom he briefly shared a flat.
In the United States, the Berlin novels were published together as The Berlin Stories in 1945. In 1951, Goodbye to Berlin was adapted for the New York stage by John van Druten using the title I Am a Camera, taken from Isherwood's opening paragraphs. The play inspired the hit Broadway musical Cabaret (1966), later adapted to film as Cabaret in 1972.
In 1932, a 27-year-old Isherwood started a relationship with a 16-year-old German boy, Heinz Neddermeyer. They fled Nazi Germany together in May 1933, traveling initially to Greece. Neddermeyer was refused entry to England in January 1934, launching an odyssey in search of a country where they could settle together. They lived in the Canary Islands, Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Sintra, Portugal, while trying to obtain a new nationality and passport for Neddermeyer.
In May 1937, while he and Isherwood were living in Luxembourg, Neddermeyer was suddenly expelled to Germany. Neddermeyer was arrested the next day by the Gestapo for draft evasion and reciprocal onanism. Neddermeyer was sentenced to three and a half years of hard labor and military service. He married in 1938 and the couple had one child, a son, born in 1940. Neddermeyer survived the war and in 1956 sent Isherwood a letter asking for money to help escape East Germany, which Isherwood provided. The last known contact between the two men was a note of condolence from Neddermeyer to Isherwood on the death of Isherwood's mother in 1960.
During this period, Isherwood returned often to London where he took his first movie-writing job, working with Viennese director Berthold Viertel on the film Little Friend (1934). He collaborated with Auden on three plays – The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935), The Ascent of F6 (1936), and On the Frontier (1938) – all produced by Robert Medley and Rupert Doone's Group Theatre. He also worked on Lions and Shadows (1938), a fictionalized autobiography of his education — both in and out of school — in the 1920s.
In January 1938, Isherwood and Auden traveled to China to write Journey to a War (1939), about the Sino-Japanese conflict. They returned to England the following summer via the United States and decided to emigrate there in January 1939.
Life in the United States
Isherwood (left) and W. H. Auden (right), photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1939Don Bachardy at age 19 (1954), photographed by Carl Van VechtenWhile living in Hollywood, California, Isherwood befriended Truman Capote, an up-and-coming young writer who would be influenced by Isherwood's Berlin Stories, most specifically in the traces of the story "Sally Bowles" that surface in Capote's famed novella Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Isherwood also befriended Dodie Smith, a British novelist and playwright who had also moved to California, and who became one of the few people to whom Isherwood showed his work in progress.
Isherwood considered becoming an American citizen in 1945 but balked at taking an oath that included the statement that he would defend the country. The next year he applied for citizenship and answered questions honestly, saying he would accept non-combatant duties like loading ships with food. The fact that he had volunteered for service with the Medical Corps also helped. At the naturalisation ceremony, he found he was required to swear to defend the nation and decided to take the oath since he had already stated his objections and reservations. He became an American citizen on 8 November 1946.
He began living with the photographer William "Bill" Caskey. In 1947, the two traveled to South America. Isherwood wrote the prose and Caskey took the photographs for a 1949 book about their journey entitled The Condor and the Cows. In a 1949 letter to Gore Vidal, Isherwood discussed gay relationships like his own:
Homosexual relationships can be and frequently are happy. Many men live together for years and share their lives and their work, just as heterosexuals do. This truth is particularly disturbing and shocking even to “liberal people,” because it cuts across the romantic, tragic notion of homosexual fate.
Meeting Don Bachardy
On Valentine's Day 1953, at the age of 48, he met the teenager Don Bachardy among a group of friends on the beach at Santa Monica. Reports of Bachardy's age at the time vary, but Bachardy later said: "At the time I was probably 16." In fact, he was 18. Despite the age difference, this meeting began a partnership that, though interrupted by affairs and separations, continued until Isherwood's death.
During the early months of their affair, Isherwood finished — and Bachardy typed — the novel on which he had worked for some years, The World in the Evening (1954). Isherwood also taught a course on modern English literature at Los Angeles State College (now California State University, Los Angeles) for several years during the 1950s and early 1960s.
The 30-year age difference between Isherwood and Bachardy raised eyebrows at the time, with Bachardy, in his own words, "regarded as a sort of child prostitute", but the two became a well-known and well-established couple in Southern Californian society with many Hollywood friends.
Down There on a Visit, a novel published in 1962, comprised four related stories that overlap the period covered in his Berlin stories. In the opinion of many reviewers, Isherwood's finest achievement was his 1964 novel A Single Man, that depicted a day in the life of George, a middle-aged, gay Englishman who is a professor at a Los Angeles university. The novel was adapted into a film of the same name in 2009.
During 1964, Isherwood collaborated with American writer Terry Southern on the screenplay for the Tony Richardson film adaptation of The Loved One, Evelyn Waugh's caustic satire on the American funeral industry.
Final years and death
Isherwood and Bachardy lived together in Santa Monica for the rest of Isherwood's life. Isherwood was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1981, and died of the disease on 4 January 1986 at his Santa Monica home, aged 81. His body was donated to medical science at UCLA, and his ashes were later scattered at sea. Bachardy became a successful artist with an independent reputation, and his portraits of the dying Isherwood became well known after Isherwood's death.
Association with Vedanta
Gerald Heard had introduced British writer Aldous Huxley to Vedanta (Hindu-centered philosophy) and meditation. After migrating to America in 1937, Heard and Huxley became Vedantists attending functions at the Vedanta Society of Southern California, under the guidance of founder Swami Prabhavananda, a monk of the Ramakrishna Order of India. Both were initiated by the Swami. Heard and Huxley introduced Isherwood to the Swami's Vedanta Society. Over time, Isherwood developed a close friendship with Huxley, with whom he sometimes collaborated. Isherwood became a dedicated Vedantist himself and was initiated by Prabhavananda, his guru.
The process of conversion to Vedanta was so intense that Isherwood was unable to write another novel between the years 1939–1945, while he immersed himself in study of the Vedanta Scriptures, even becoming a monk for a time at the Society. For the next 35 years Isherwood collaborated with the Swami on translations of various Vedanta scriptures, including the Bhagavad Gita – The Song of God, writing articles for the Society's journal, and occasionally lecturing at the Hollywood and Santa Barbara temples. For many years he would come to the Hollywood temple on Wednesday nights to read the Gospel of Ramakrishna for a half an hour, then the Swami would take questions from the devotees.
From 1950 to 1978, Isherwood gave 53 lectures at the Hollywood and Santa Barbara Vedanta Temples. He mentions in his diaries and the book, My Guru and His Disciple, that he feels unqualified to preach, so most of his lectures were readings of papers written by others, primarily Swami Vivekananda. There were a few original lectures including, Who Is Ramakrishna, The Writer and Vedanta, and a lecture on Girish Chandra Ghosh, a householder disciple of Ramakrishna.
Isherwood was also very involved in the production of the bi-monthly journal of the Vedanta Society of Southern California, Vedanta and the West. From 1943 to 1945 he was Managing Editor, from 1951 to 1962 he was an Editorial Advisor together with Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard, and additionally with John van Druten from 1951 to 1958. From 1949 to 1969 he wrote 40 articles for the journal.
Isherwood and war
Isherwood's father, Frank Bradshaw-Isherwood, was a colonel in the British Army. He was killed during World War I in the Battle of Ypres, France in May 1915, at the age of 46. Isherwood was 10 years old at the time. His father's death "...deeply affected him, not only in his perspective of his father and how he would relate to his mother, but in his attitude towards the military and war itself." Isherwood's second novel, The Memorial, published in 1932, describes the impact on a family from the death of the father in World War I. The Memorial was the first of what would become the trademark for Isherwood: reflecting his life experience into the plot of a novel.
After being asked to leave Cambridge, he lived in Berlin and witnessed the rising power of Fascism, the Nazi Party, and Hitler. Isherwood describes the times in his autobiographical novels The Berlin Stories. In 1933, Isherwood fled Germany with his friend Heinz Neddermeyer seeking asylum for Heinz — who was refused entry to England. Heinz was finally arrested in May 1937 by the Gestapo for draft evasion and practicing homosexuality.
Back in London, Isherwood's sympathies were with the left, but although the Anti-war movement flourished after World War I, it was fractured into opposing ideological groups. Some wanted to join the fight in the Spanish Civil War, others wanting to just let the Germans in, rather than go to war, still others advocated non-violent resistance, all of which had the effect of weakening their political power. The fighting in Spain was savage, and "...the left tore itself apart with squabbling and paranoia. Veterans came to feel that the idealism of the cause had been exploited, and many resented being policed by shadowy Communist enforcers."
In 1937, two of the largest peace groups joined forces; the No More War Movement merged into the Peace Pledge Union. The members attested to the following pledge: "War is a crime against humanity. I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war". Some of the leading authors and intellectuals of the time gave speeches and lent their names to the cause, including Gerald Heard, Aldous Huxley, and Bertrand Russell.
Inspired by Ernest Hemingway's reporting from the Spanish Civil War, in January 1938, Isherwood and his friend W. H. Auden traveled to China to cover the invasion by Japan and wrote Journey to a War (1939). They returned to England the following summer via the United States and decided to emigrate there in January 1939. At this point Isherwood wasn't clear about his own anti-war beliefs. On the way to America, he realized he was a Pacifist, as he would be unwilling to kill his friend Heinz, "Heinz is in the Nazi army. I wouldn't kill Heinz. Therefore I have no right to kill anybody". He had lost his political faith, "I couldn't repeat the left-wing slogans which I had been repeating throughout the last few years."
After moving to California, Isherwood sought "...advice from Gerald Heard and Aldous Huxley about becoming a pacifist, and, like them, he became a disciple of the Ramakrishna monk, Swami Prabhavananda, head of the Vedanta Society of Southern California." He applied for citizenship and registered as a Conscientious Objector. In Pennsylvania, he worked in a Quaker Hostel, helping to settle European Jews who were fleeing the Nazis.
In 1944, the translation of the Hindu scripture, Bhagavad Gita – The Song of God that the Swami and Isherwood had been working on was published. In the appendix, there is an essay by Isherwood titled, The Gita and War. There Isherwood explains the Vedantic view of war and duty. The plot of the poem is that the whole of India is drawn into a great battle, and on the eve of the fight, Arjuna, the hero warrior of the epic poem, The Mahabharata, is taken between the two armies and sees friends, family, and worthy people on both sides, throws down his weapons and says, "I will not fight." The rest of the book has Lord Krishna, Arjuna's friend and advisor, explaining the nature of duty. It may be, for some person, at some time, proper to refuse to fight, but if the cause is righteous, and it's your duty as a warrior to fight, it would be a moral hazard to refuse.
Legacy and recognition
- The house in the Schöneberg district of Berlin where Isherwood lived bears a memorial plaque to mark his stay there between 1929 and 1933.
- Isherwood is mentioned in Susan Sontag's Notes on "Camp" (1964): "Apart from a lazy two-page sketch in Christopher Isherwood's novel The World in the Evening (1954), has hardly broken into print."
- The 2008 film Chris & Don: A Love Story chronicled Isherwood and Bachardy's lifelong relationship.
- A Single Man was adapted into a film, A Single Man, in 2009.
- In 2010, Isherwood's autobiography, Christopher and His Kind, was adapted into a television film by the BBC, starring Matt Smith as Isherwood and directed by Geoffrey Sax. The closing credits list Don Bachardy as Consultant. It was broadcast in France and Germany on the Arte channel in February 2011, and in Britain on BBC 2 the following month.
- The annual Los Angeles Times – Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose was established in partnership with the Los Angeles Times in 2016.
Works
Fiction
- All the Conspirators (1928; new edition 1957 with new foreword)
- The Memorial (1932)
- Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935; U.S. edition titled The Last of Mr Norris)
- "Sally Bowles" (1937; novella later included in Goodbye to Berlin)
- Goodbye to Berlin (1939)
- Prater Violet (1945)
- The Berlin Stories (1945; collects Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin)
- The World in the Evening (1954)
- Down There on a Visit (1962)
- A Single Man (1964)
- A Meeting by the River (1967)
- Frankenstein: The True Story (1973, with Don Bachardy; based on their 1973 film script)
- The Mortmere Stories (with Edward Upward) (1994)
- "Jacob's Hands: A Fable" (1997), originally co-written with Aldous Huxley
Autobiography, diaries and letters
- Lions and Shadows (1938, autobiographical fiction). Reissued: Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000
- Kathleen and Frank (1971, about Isherwood's parents)
- Christopher and His Kind (1976, autobiography), 130-copy edition printed by Sylvester & Orphanos, regular publication by Farrar, Straus, & Giroux
- My Guru and His Disciple (1980)
- October (1980, with Don Bachardy)
- Diaries: 1939–1960, Katherine Bucknell, ed. (1996)
- Lost Years: A Memoir 1945–1951, Katherine Bucknell, ed. (2000)
- Kathleen and Christopher, Lisa Colletta, ed. (Letters to his mother, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005)
- Isherwood on Writing (University of Minnesota Press, 2007; lectures)
- The Sixties: Diaries:1960–1969 Katherine Bucknell, ed. 2010
- Liberation: Diaries:1970–1983 Katherine Bucknell, ed. 2012
- The Animals: Love Letters Between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, Edited by Katherine Bucknell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014)
Biography
- Ramakrishna and His Disciples (1965)
Plays
- The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935, with W. H. Auden)
- The Ascent of F6 (1937, with W. H. Auden)
- On the Frontier (1938, with W. H. Auden)
Travel
- Journey to a War (1939, with W. H. Auden)
- The Condor and the Cows (1949, South-American travel diary)
Collections
- Exhumations (1966; journalism and stories)
- Where Joy Resides: An Isherwood Reader (1989; Don Bachardy and James P. White, eds.)
Translations
- Charles Baudelaire, Intimate Journals (1930; revised edition 1947)
- Bhagavad Gita – The Song of God (with Swami Prabhavananda, 1944)
- Shankara's Crest-Jewel of Discrimination (with Swami Prabhavananda, 1947)
- How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali (with Swami Prabhavananda, 1953)
Writing on Vedanta
Books and pamphlets
- Vedanta for the Western World (1945, Marcel Rodd Co.; published in England by George Allen & Unwin, 1948; ed. and introduction, plus several contributions)
- Vedanta for Modern Man (1951, Harper & Brothers; published in England by George Allen & Unwin, 1952; ed. and contributor)
- What Vedanta Means to Me (1951, pamphlet)
- An Approach to Vedanta (1963)
- Essentials of Vedanta (1969)
Articles in Vedanta and the West
Vedanta and the West (originally titled Voice of India from 1938 to 1940) was the official publication of the Vedanta Society of Southern California. It offered essays by many of the leading intellectuals of the time and had contributions from Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard, Alan Watts, J. Krishnamurti, W. Somerset Maugham, and many others.
Isherwood wrote the following articles that appeared in Vedanta and the West:
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In 1945, sixty-eight articles from Vedanta and the West were collected in book form as Vedanta for the Western World. Isherwood edited the selection and provided an introduction and three articles ("Hypothesis and Belief", "Vivekananda and Sarah Bernhardt", "The Gita and War"). Other contributors included Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard, Swami Prabhavananda, Swami Vivekananda, and John Van Druten.
Audio and video recordings
- Christopher Isherwood reads selections from the Bhagavad Gita – CD
- Christopher Isherwood reads selections from the Upanishads – CD
- Lecture on Girish Ghosh – CD
- Christopher Isherwood Reads Two Lectures on the Bhagavad Gita by Swami Vivekananda – DVD
See also
References
Notes
- "Biography". Isherwoodfoundation.org. Archived from the original on 27 June 2017. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
- Berg, James J., ed. (2007). Isherwood on Writing. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. p. 19. ISBN 9781452912936.
- Bartelt, Chuck; Bergeron, Barbara (15 January 1986). "Variety Obituaries: 1905-1928". Variety. Obituary. ISBN 9780824008444.
- Katherine Bucknell and Kevin Clarke, exhibition text, "My Dearest Sweet Love: Christopher Isherwood & Don Bachardy", Schwules Museum, Berlin, 15 June – 26 August 2019
- Parker, Peter. Isherwood, 2004, Picador, p. 6.
- Isherwood, Christopher, Kathleen and Frank, 2013, Vintage, p. 3.
- Isherwood, Kathleen and Frank, 2013, Vintage, pp. 306, 309.
- Isherwood, Christopher, Kathleen and Frank, 2013, Vintage, p. 471.
- Parker, Isherwood, 2004, Picador, p. 54.
- Isherwood, Christopher, Lost Years, 2001, Vintage, p. 78.
- Isherwood, Christopher, Lions and Shadows, 2013, Vintage, p. 71-82.
- Sutherland, John, Stephen Spender: A Literary Life, 2004, Oxford University Press, p. 84.
- Spender, Stephen, World Within World, 1966, University of California Press, p. 101
- Isherwood, Christopher, Lions and Shadows, 2013, Vintage, p. 235.
- Isherwood, Christopher, Christopher And His Kind, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976, p. 2.
- Isherwood, Christopher, Christopher and His Kind, 2012, Vintage, pp. 3–4.
- Isherwood, Christopher, Christopher and His Kind, 2012, Vintage, p. 16. See also Auden's 1929 Berlin Journal which makes clear that he and Isherwood visited Hirschfeld together and went around the museum in March / April.
- Isherwood,Christopher and His Kind, 2012, Vintage, p. 12.
- Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind, 2012, Vintage, p. 76.
- Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind, 2012, Vintage, p. 61.
- Isherwood, Christopher, Diaries: Volume One: 1939–1960, 2011, Vintage, p. 910.
- Isherwood, Diaries: Volume One: 1939–1960, 2011, p. 912.
- Parker, Peter (2005) . Isherwood: A Life Revealed. London: Picador. pp. 205–206. ISBN 978-0-330-32826-5 – via Google Books.
- Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind, 2012, Vintage, pp. 92–94.
- Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind, 2012, Vintage, pp. 164–166.
- "Heinz Neddermeyer - Gay History Wiki".
- Parker, Isherwood, 2004, Picador, p. 271.
- ^ Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind, 2012, Vintage, pp. 304, 310.
- ^ Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind, 2012, Vintage, p. 326.
- Norton, Ingrid (1 July 2010). "Year with Short Novels: Breakfast at Sally Bowles'". Open Letters Monthly. Archived from the original on 19 August 2011. Retrieved 12 November 2012.
- "Smith [married name Beesley], Dorothy Gladys [Dodie] (1896–1990)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 3 March 2014.
- Bucknell (ed.), pp. 40, 77–8.
- Ibson, John (22 October 2019). Men without Maps: Some Gay Males of the Generation before Stonewall. University of Chicago Press. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-226-65611-3.
- The biographical film Chris & Don: A Love Story.
- Bachardy was born in May 1934, meaning that in February 1953 he was 18 years old.
- Parker, Isherwood, 2004.
- "The First Couple: Don Bachardy and Christopher Isherwood", by Armistead Maupin, The Village Voice, Volume 30, Number 16, 2 July 1985.
- "The Britons who made their mark on LA". The Telegraph. 11 September 2011. ISSN 0307-1235. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
- Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 23105). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.
- Bachardy, Don, Christopher Isherwood: Last Drawings, Faber and Faber: 1990, ISBN 978-0571140756
- Sawyer, Dana, Aldous Huxley: A Biography, 2002, p. 101.
- Sawyer, Aldous Huxley: A Biography, 2002, p. 111.
- Braubach, Mary Ann (2010). "Huxley on Huxley". Cinedigm. Archived from the original on 8 November 2014. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
- ^ Isherwood, My Guru and His Disciple.
- Izzo, David Garrett (2001). Christopher Isherwood: His Era, His Gang, and the Legacy of the Truly Strong Man. Univ of South Carolina Press. pp. 163–64. ISBN 978-1570034039. Retrieved 1 June 2017.
- "Christopher Isherwood 1904–1986; Vedantist Writer/Seeker, An Inner Man of Wit, Warmth and Depth". Hinduism Today. Himalayan Academy. Retrieved 1 June 2017.
- As listed in the monthly bulletins of the Vedanta Society of Southern California.
- Vedanta and the West publication history.
- "Christopher Isherwood, Whose Tales Inspired 'Cabaret,' Dies". Los Angeles Times. 6 January 1986. Archived from the original on 11 April 2023.
- "Christopher Isherwood is dead at 81". The New York Times. 6 January 1986. Archived from the original on 7 March 2023.
- Biographical sketch the Harry Ransom archive at the University of Texas, Austin
- Review of ‘’The Memorial’’ by UMN.edu.
- Thomson, David (17 September 2000). "Out of Film | Christopher Isherwood's memoir of his postwar years". The New York Times.
- "British and French appeasement, to 1938 | Spanish Civil War". BBC | Bitesize.
- "The American Soldiers of the Spanish Civil War". The New Yorker. 11 April 2016. Archived from the original on 1 April 2023.
- Peace Pledge Union - Attitudes towards Nazi Germany
- "About Us". www.ppu.org.uk. Camden: Peace Pledge Union. 24 July 2018. Retrieved 3 November 2018.
- Isherwood, Christopher (1996). Diaries: Volume 1, 1939-1960, Edited and Introduced by Katherine Bucknell. HarperFlamingo. p. Introduction XII. ISBN 978-0061180002.
- Isherwood, Christopher (1980). My Guru and His Disciple. Farrar Straus Giroux. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-374-21702-0.
- Isherwood, Christopher (1996). Diaries: Volume 1, 1939-1960. HarperFlamingo. p. Introduction XIII. ISBN 978-0061180002.
- Isherwood, Christopher (1996). Diaries: Volume 1, 1939-1960. HarperFlamingo. p. Introduction XII.
- Biography at The Christopher Isherwood Foundation.
- Bhagavad Gita – The Song of God Article on the Bhagavad Gita.
- Isherwood, Christopher (1977). Christopher and His Kind (1st ed.). New York: Avon Books. pp. 128–133. ISBN 0380017954.
- Sontag, Susan. Notes on "Camp". Penguin Random House (2018). ISBN 978-0241339701.
- "New BBC Two drama, Christopher And His Kind" (Press release). BBC. 19 May 2010. Retrieved 28 September 2019.
- Film viewed on DVD, 19 July 2024.
- "The Christopher Isherwood Prize". The Christopher Isherwood Foundation. Archived from the original on 26 September 2021. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
- ^ CD produced by mondayMEDIA, distributed on the GemsTone label.
- Lecture given in the Santa Barbara Vedanta Temple.
- "Review in". AllMusic. Retrieved 4 December 2013.
Bibliography
- Parker, Peter (2004), Isherwood: A Life, Picador. ISBN 1509859403, 978-1509859405
- Fryer, Jonathan (1977), Isherwood: A Biography, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company. ISBN 0-385-12608-5.
Further reading
- Berg, James J. and Freeman, Chris eds, Isherwood in Transit (2020), ISBN 978-1-5179-0910-9
- Berg, James J. and Freeman, Chris eds, Conversations with Christopher Isherwood (2001)
- Berg, James J. and Freeman, Chris eds. The Isherwood Century: Essays on the Life and Work of Christopher Isherwood (2000)
- Finney, Brian. Christopher Isherwood: A Critical Biography (1979)
- Marsh, Victor. Mr Isherwood Changes Trains: Christopher Isherwood and the search for the 'home self (2010), Clouds of Magellen ISBN 9780980712056
- Page, Norman. Auden and Isherwood: The Berlin Years (2000)
- Prosser, Lee. Isherwood, Bowles, Vedanta, Wicca, and Me (2001), ISBN 0-595-20284-5
- Prosser, Lee. Night Tigers (2002), ISBN 0-595-21739-7
- Scobie, W.I. (Spring 1974). "Christopher Isherwood, The Art of Fiction No. 49". The Paris Review. Spring 1974 (57).
- Summers, Claude J. "Isherwood, Christopher (1904–1986),". glbtq.com. Archived from the original on 4 January 2015. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
- Summers, Claude J. (1 February 2010). "A Single Man: Ford's Film / Isherwood's Novel". glbtq.com. Archived from the original on 6 February 2015. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
External links
- Christopher Isherwood at IMDb
- Christopher Isherwood at the Internet Broadway Database
- Christopher Isherwood at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
- Christopher Isherwood Foundation Archived 17 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine
- Christopher Isherwood Collection at the Harry Ransom Center
- Materials related to Christopher Isherwood in the Robert A. Wilson collection held by Special Collections, University of Delaware
- Braubach, Mary Ann (2010). "Huxley on Huxley". Archived from the original on 8 November 2014. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
- Isherwood Exhibit at the Huntington Archived 25 January 2007 at the Wayback Machine
- Where Joy Resides An Isherwood Reader
- "Cabaret Berlin" Information on Christopher Isherwood and the entertainment of the Weimar era
- LitWeb.net: Christopher Isherwood Biography
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Other |
- 1904 births
- 1986 deaths
- 20th-century American LGBTQ people
- 20th-century American male writers
- 20th-century American novelists
- 20th-century American short story writers
- 20th-century English novelists
- Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
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- American conscientious objectors
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- California State University, Los Angeles faculty
- Converts to Hinduism
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- English emigrants to the United States
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