The Isherwood Century: Essays on the Life and Work of Christopher Isherwood - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0299167003 ISBN 13: 9780299167004

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000

Synopsis

Called “the best English prose writer of this century” by Gore Vidal, Christopher Isherwood is best known for Goodbye to Berlin—the inspiration for the musical Cabaret—but is also the author of plays, novels, and diaries. The Isherwood Century gathers twenty-four essays and interviews offering a fresh, in-depth view of Isherwood, his literary legacy, and his continuing influence as both a literary and a gay pioneer.

About this title

About the Author

James J. Berg is dean of social sciences and arts at College of the Desert, Palm Desert, California. Chris Freeman is lecturer of English at the University of Southern California.

Reviews

Filled with passionate tributes, this reader-friendly volume offers a sturdy collection of wonderful writings. In four sections--"Meeting Isherwood," "Artist and Companion," "The Writer in Context" and "Finding a Path"--friends, acquaintances, biographers and critics of the late Isherwood (whom, the editors maintain, stands as "the pivotal figure of his generation") cast keen light on the man and his work. Essayists cover the writer's influence and unstable place in English and American literature, his spiritual beliefs (especially the influence of Vedanta, a branch of Hinduism based on the ancient teachings of the Vedas, on his life and work) and his personal life. Michael S. Harper contributes a memoir in the form of a poem; feminist scholar Carolyn G. Heilbrun weighs in with an unlikely essay; and there are moving and humorous excerpts from the diary of Don Bachardy, Isherwood's longtime lover, an interview with the writer himself and a handful of critical essays informed by gender theory and gay/lesbian scholarship. However, as a whole, the book does not effectively counter the view that Isherwood was "both remote and obscure" (as the editors say he felt himself to be in 1941). There's no question that Isherwood influenced a number of subsequent writers, particularly gay men searching for the means to make their voices heard; but the claim that he was central to the development of literature in the 20th century--this excellent collection of writings on his life notwithstanding--remains unconvincing. B&w illustrations. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Anglo-American novelist Isherwood (1904^-1986) is not simply recalled but also revered in this selection of essays by people who knew him and appreciated him. The essays fall into two basic categories: reminiscence and literary criticism. The former tends to explain in intimate terms Isherwood's personal impact on people, and the latter evaluates the impact of his writing on English and American literature. Isherwood is known primarily as the author of The Berlin Stories, written about his stay in the German capital in the early 1930s and the people he met there, upon which the various theatrical and cinematic incarnations called Cabaret have been based. It is established here that he made "semiautobiographical fiction" his own genre; and it is equally established here that the love and admiration he generated among the people who knew him resonate well beyond the time he actually had to spend among them. A collection such as this should, and will, compel readers to turn to Isherwood's works again. Brad Hooper

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0299167003
• ISBN 13: 9780299167004
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 312
• Editor: Berg James J., Freeman Chris