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

by BERG JAMES J. (ED)

• ISBN13: 9780299167004
• ISBN10: 0299167003
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-07-01
• Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Pr

Summary

Best known for Goodbye to Berlin -- the inspiration for the Tony and Oscar award-winning musical Cabaret -- Christopher Isherwood has always been considered both a literary and a gay pioneer. That is truer now than ever. Readers of his plays, novels, and diaries continue to discover Isherwood's lasting contribution to twentieth-century culture, literature, autobiographical fiction, and memoir, to gay rights, and to twentieth-century culture.

In The Isherwood Century, editors James J. Berg and Chris Freeman have gathered twenty-four essays and interviews on Christopher Isherwood's life and work. The volume, the first of its kind on Isherwood, offers a fresh, in-depth view of the author, his literary legacy, and his continuing influence. Mixing critiques with personal reminiscences, The Isherwood Century includes an essay and drawings by artist Don Bachardy, Isherwood's longtime partner; recollections from celebrated authors Armistead Maupin and Edmund White; and moving memoirs by preeminent scholar Carolyn Heilbrun and noted poet Michael S. Harper. Two intervi

Table of Contents

Illustrations	ix
Foreword	xi
Armistead Maupin
Acknowledgments	xvii
Introduction: The Isherwood Century	3	(6)
James J. Berg
Chris Freeman
Part I. Meeting Isherwood	9	(78)
Who Is Christopher Isherwood?	13	(18)
Katherine Bucknell
Isherwood in Los Angeles	31	(12)
Dan Luckenbill
In the Blink of an Eye: Evolving with Christopher Isherwood	43	(11)
Stathis Orphanos
Ish circa 1959--1963	54	(7)
Michael S. Harper
Reading from Isherwood's Letter circa 1959--1963	61	(4)
Michael S. Harper
Gay Isherwood Visits Straight Riverside	65	(6)
Robert Peters
My Isherwood, My Bachardy	71	(6)
Carolyn G. Heilbrun
``Write It Down or It's Lost'': Isherwood as Mentor	77	(10)
James P. White
Part II. Artist and Companion	87	(50)
A Life Open to Art	91	(6)
Don Bachardy
Portrait of the Artist as Companion: Interviews with Don Bachardy	97	(11)
Niladri R. Chatterjee
Frankenstein: The True Story: The Artist as ``Monster''	108	(13)
Katharine M. Morsberger
Robert E. Morsberger
Pool in Rocks by the Sea: Isherwood and Bachardy	121	(7)
Edmund White
Deathwatch	128	(9)
Donald N. Mager
Part III. The Writer in Context	137	(80)
Aunt Mary, Uncle Henry, and Anti-Ancestral Impulses in The Memorial	141	(9)
James Kelley
In a Populous City: Isherwood in the Thirties	150	(12)
Antony Shuttleworth
The Dog beneath the Schoolboy's skin: Isherwood, Auden, and Fascism	162	(10)
William Ostrem
Documentary Dilemmas: Shifting Fronts in Journey to a war	172	(15)
Marsha Bryant
Strategically Minor: Isherwood's Revision of Forster's Mythology	187	(9)
Stephen da Silva
A Single Man, Then and Now	196	(7)
David Garnes
Isherwood and the Violet Quill	203	(14)
David Bergman
Part IV. Finding a Path	217	(66)
Christopher under the Wishing Tree	221	(7)
P. Shneidre
Christopher Isherwood in Jail	228	(8)
David Garrett Izzo
``Always Dance'': Sex and Salvation in Isherwood's Vedantism	236	(11)
John McFarland
The Path That Leads to Safety: Spiritual Renewal and Autobiographical Narrative	247	(12)
Mario Faraone
``The Wandering Stopped'': An Interview with Christopher Isherwood	259	(24)
Carola M. Kaplan
Bibliography	283	(3)
Contributors	286	(5)
Index	291