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Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties
In 1938 the legendary Hogarth Press published the first of Christopher Isherwood's autobiographical writings, Lions and Shadows. In this book, Isherwood evokes the atmosphere of Cambridge as only he knew it, describing his life as a tutor, medical student, and struggling writer. The result is a captivating account of a young novelist's development in the burgeoning literary culture of the 1920s and of his experiences as he forges lifelong friendships with his peers W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Edward Upward.
312 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1938
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About the author
Christopher Isherwood
189books1,464followersEnglish-born American writer Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood portrayed Berlin in the early 1930s in his best known works, such as
Goodbye to Berlin
(1939), the basis for the musical
Cabaret
(1966). Isherwood was a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist.
With W.H. Auden he wrote three plays� The Dog Beneath the Skin (1932), The Ascent of F6 (1936), and On the Frontier (1938). Isherwood tells the story in his first autobiography, Lions and Shadows .
After Isherwood wrote joke answers on his second-year exams, Cambridge University in 1925 asked him to leave. He briefly attended medical school and progressed with his first two novels, All the Conspirators (1928) and The Memorial (1932). In 1930, he moved to Berlin, where he taught English, dabbled in Communism, and enthusiastically explored his homosexuality. His experiences provided the material for Mister Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1938), still his most famous book.
In Berlin in 1932, he also began an important relationship with Heinz Neddermeyer, a young German with whom he fled the Nazis in 1933. England refused entry to Neddermeyer on his second visit in 1934, and the pair moved restlessly about Europe until the Gestapo arrested Neddermeyer in May 1937 and then finally separated them.
In 1938, Isherwood sailed with Auden to China to write Journey to a War (1939), about the Sino-Japanese conflict. They returned to England and Isherwood went on to Hollywood to look for movie-writing work. He also became a disciple of the Ramakrishna monk, Swami Prabhavananda, head of the Vedanta Society of Southern California. He decided not to take monastic vows, but he remained a Hindu for the rest of his life, serving, praying, and lecturing in the temple every week and writing a biography, Ramakrishna and His Disciples (1965).
In 1945, Isherwood published Prater Violet, fictionalizing his first movie writing job in London in 1933-1934. In Hollywood, he spent the start of the 1950s fighting his way free of a destructive five-year affair with an attractive and undisciplined American photographer, William Caskey. Caskey took the photographs for Isherwood’s travel book about South America, The Condor and The Cows (1947). Isherwood’s sixth novel, The World in the Evening (1954), written mostly during this period, was less successful than earlier ones.
In 1953, he fell in love with Don Bachardy, an eighteen-year-old college student born and raised in Los Angeles. They were to remain together until Isherwood’s death. In 1961, Isherwood and completed the final revisions to his new novel Down There on a Visit (1962). Their relationship nearly ended in 1963, and Isherwood moved out of their Santa Monica house. This dark period underpins Isherwood’s masterpiece A Single Man (1964).
Isherwood wrote another novel, A Meeting by the River (1967), about two brothers, but he gave up writing fiction and turned entirely to autobiography. In Kathleen and Frank (1971), he drew on the letters and diaries of his parents. In Christopher and His Kind (1976), he returned to the 1930s to tell, as a publicly avowed homosexual, the real story of his life in Berlin and his wanderings with Heinz Neddermeyer. The book made him a hero of gay liberation and a national celebrity all over again but now in his true, political and personal identity.
With W.H. Auden he wrote three plays� The Dog Beneath the Skin (1932), The Ascent of F6 (1936), and On the Frontier (1938). Isherwood tells the story in his first autobiography, Lions and Shadows .
After Isherwood wrote joke answers on his second-year exams, Cambridge University in 1925 asked him to leave. He briefly attended medical school and progressed with his first two novels, All the Conspirators (1928) and The Memorial (1932). In 1930, he moved to Berlin, where he taught English, dabbled in Communism, and enthusiastically explored his homosexuality. His experiences provided the material for Mister Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1938), still his most famous book.
In Berlin in 1932, he also began an important relationship with Heinz Neddermeyer, a young German with whom he fled the Nazis in 1933. England refused entry to Neddermeyer on his second visit in 1934, and the pair moved restlessly about Europe until the Gestapo arrested Neddermeyer in May 1937 and then finally separated them.
In 1938, Isherwood sailed with Auden to China to write Journey to a War (1939), about the Sino-Japanese conflict. They returned to England and Isherwood went on to Hollywood to look for movie-writing work. He also became a disciple of the Ramakrishna monk, Swami Prabhavananda, head of the Vedanta Society of Southern California. He decided not to take monastic vows, but he remained a Hindu for the rest of his life, serving, praying, and lecturing in the temple every week and writing a biography, Ramakrishna and His Disciples (1965).
In 1945, Isherwood published Prater Violet, fictionalizing his first movie writing job in London in 1933-1934. In Hollywood, he spent the start of the 1950s fighting his way free of a destructive five-year affair with an attractive and undisciplined American photographer, William Caskey. Caskey took the photographs for Isherwood’s travel book about South America, The Condor and The Cows (1947). Isherwood’s sixth novel, The World in the Evening (1954), written mostly during this period, was less successful than earlier ones.
In 1953, he fell in love with Don Bachardy, an eighteen-year-old college student born and raised in Los Angeles. They were to remain together until Isherwood’s death. In 1961, Isherwood and completed the final revisions to his new novel Down There on a Visit (1962). Their relationship nearly ended in 1963, and Isherwood moved out of their Santa Monica house. This dark period underpins Isherwood’s masterpiece A Single Man (1964).
Isherwood wrote another novel, A Meeting by the River (1967), about two brothers, but he gave up writing fiction and turned entirely to autobiography. In Kathleen and Frank (1971), he drew on the letters and diaries of his parents. In Christopher and His Kind (1976), he returned to the 1930s to tell, as a publicly avowed homosexual, the real story of his life in Berlin and his wanderings with Heinz Neddermeyer. The book made him a hero of gay liberation and a national celebrity all over again but now in his true, political and personal identity.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
April 26, 2023
LE STANZE
Farei meglio a cominciare dicendo che cosa non è questo libro; non è, nel consueto significato giornalistico della parola, un’autobiografia; non contiene “rivelazioni�; non è mai “indiscreto�; non è neppure del tutto “vero�... Leggetelo come un romanzo.
Non un’autobiografia, nessuna rivelazione né indiscrezione. Ma Isherwood è comunque stato sempre, almeno nelle sue opere che ho letto, presente sulla pagina come uomo oltre che scrittore, è sempre abbastanza facile percepire dove sia Christopher sulla pagina.
Il sottotitolo spiega il suo scopo: descrivere i primi stadi di un’educazione che dura tutta la vita � l’educazione di un romanziere.
La storia di una generazione cresciuta a cavallo tra le due guerre mondiali, il ritratto dei suoi coetanei, veri e inventati (tanto più veri quando inventati?), giovani artisti crescono (tra gli amici storici di Isherwood, ci sono Spender e Auden � con quest’ultimo vivrà gli anni di Berlino e il trasferimento in USA, il poeta sulla costa est, lo scrittore su quella ovest, più vicina alla scelta di fede che poi farà).
E quindi, le magioni di famiglia, la scuola, l’università, le aule di Cambridge, i professori, l’eterna madre, mai abbastanza allontanata, mai abbastanza abbracciata�
Giovani irrequieti, anche ribelli che crescono in un periodo storico nevralgico
Tutte le immagini sono tratte dal film del 2011 “Christopher and His Kind� di Geoffrey Sax basato sull’omonimo romanzo di Isherwood.
Farei meglio a cominciare dicendo che cosa non è questo libro; non è, nel consueto significato giornalistico della parola, un’autobiografia; non contiene “rivelazioni�; non è mai “indiscreto�; non è neppure del tutto “vero�... Leggetelo come un romanzo.
Non un’autobiografia, nessuna rivelazione né indiscrezione. Ma Isherwood è comunque stato sempre, almeno nelle sue opere che ho letto, presente sulla pagina come uomo oltre che scrittore, è sempre abbastanza facile percepire dove sia Christopher sulla pagina.
Il sottotitolo spiega il suo scopo: descrivere i primi stadi di un’educazione che dura tutta la vita � l’educazione di un romanziere.
La storia di una generazione cresciuta a cavallo tra le due guerre mondiali, il ritratto dei suoi coetanei, veri e inventati (tanto più veri quando inventati?), giovani artisti crescono (tra gli amici storici di Isherwood, ci sono Spender e Auden � con quest’ultimo vivrà gli anni di Berlino e il trasferimento in USA, il poeta sulla costa est, lo scrittore su quella ovest, più vicina alla scelta di fede che poi farà).
E quindi, le magioni di famiglia, la scuola, l’università, le aule di Cambridge, i professori, l’eterna madre, mai abbastanza allontanata, mai abbastanza abbracciata�
Giovani irrequieti, anche ribelli che crescono in un periodo storico nevralgico
Tutte le immagini sono tratte dal film del 2011 “Christopher and His Kind� di Geoffrey Sax basato sull’omonimo romanzo di Isherwood.
November 10, 2022
I may at some point have compared reading this to eating ice cream--endlessly delightful. Even in this early piece of fictionalized autobiography, Isherwood is his charming self. It reads with great ease despite (or because of) the fact that nothing much happens. The author buys his first motorcycle, his first car, takes his first job, endures a brief stint in medical school, publishes his first novel. Figures such as WH Auden and Stephen Spender are disguised with pseudonyms, but the true names behind these identities are no great mystery, if indeed they ever were. The reader follows Isherwood from public school to Cambridge, from adolescence to playful maturity as he muses on his earliest writing endeavors, including the unpublished Lions and Shadows and the posthumously collected . There are no salacious revelations, and it is perhaps a bit niche, but without it CaHK (in which Isherwood dismisses this one) may never have been written.
January 24, 2023
If there is one thing more boring than a writer writing about writing projects that never came to be, it must be writers writing about a painter who is painting a painting that does not exist.
Perhaps if one is more familiar with the details of Isherwood's early writing career, or particularly obsessed, Lions and Shadows would be more interesting. The writing projects "that never came to be" I found to be particularly tiresome.
I was also distracted wondering about , when he is mentioned. What exactly was Auden doing at that moment? What about ? What was he up to? Isherwood either assumes we already know what is going on, or considers it unimportant to fill us in. At other times, though, the writing is so clear that one is pulled along by the force of the current.
Not one of my favourites Isherwood books, but of course one does have to read them all in order to identify the favourites!
Perhaps if one is more familiar with the details of Isherwood's early writing career, or particularly obsessed, Lions and Shadows would be more interesting. The writing projects "that never came to be" I found to be particularly tiresome.
I was also distracted wondering about , when he is mentioned. What exactly was Auden doing at that moment? What about ? What was he up to? Isherwood either assumes we already know what is going on, or considers it unimportant to fill us in. At other times, though, the writing is so clear that one is pulled along by the force of the current.
Not one of my favourites Isherwood books, but of course one does have to read them all in order to identify the favourites!
April 2, 2020
Lions and Shadows feels like Isherwood at his most Isherwood to me. Despite his call for us to read this as fiction in his author's note, it's obviously autobiographical, and he goes to very little effort to disguise his very famous friends within it (I particularly liked 'Stephen Savage' for , though 'Hugh Weston' for also drew a chuckle). And, in addition to containing the strange and conspicuous blending of fiction and autobiography that characterises so many of Isherwood's books, it also utilises some very familiar techniques, including intertextual references to his other books and, surprisingly, the camera-like narration made famous in . Which is an unusual choice for a book even just superficially autobiographical, but that's Isherwood for you: he's always revealing everything and nothing at the same time, and thinking very carefully about how he wants to present himself. All of this stuff is of the upmost interest to me right now and so, as a result, I got an awful lot out of reading Lions and Shadows and thoroughly enjoyed myself whilst doing it. However, it's not a book I'd recommend to readers with less than a passing interest in Isherwood.
As stories go, this one is pretty basic and straightforward. It's about early twentieth century upper-middle-class boys going to public school and progressing onto Cambridge - you know, the kind of stuff that's included in every biography of every member of the British establishment. It wasn't dissimilar to what I read recently in (though I appreciated that Isherwood had a bit more self-awareness about his class than Graves seemed to) and I have no doubt that it would also feel familiar to readers of and his ilk. So, on the face of it, perhaps not the most interesting book of all time. What made it so enjoyable for me was Isherwood's writing style - from the humour and irony he deploys throughout to his detachment to his self-conscious Isherwoodisms. This is a book where the telling feels much more valuable than the tale itself in my opinion, and I think that a lot more can be gleaned from the way that the story is told than what is actually said to. The sense of a youth stolen by war, for example, and the crushing need for escapism felt among many members of Isherwood's generation. Also, the disenchantment with the public school system really comes across in the tone, though the experiences that Isherwood reports are nothing really out of the ordinary. Thanks to the way this is written, it ends up being a much more engaging book than it could have been, though, if you're not as keen on Isherwood's narrative voice and inflated sense of self-importance than I am, you perhaps won't agree with that.
Style aside, the main thing that I'd recommend Lions and Shadows for is its commentary on the war. Isherwood's generation were in the unusual position of being too young to fight in WW1 but old enough to understand exactly what was happening. Moreover, as students in the public school system during wartime, they were effectively trained to idolise and emulate the soldiers giving their lives of the battlefield. I suppose, in a way, they were already being treated as the soldiers of the future, despite merely being children, and this obviously had an impact on the way they saw the world as they grew older. Isherwood spends much of Lions and Shadows meditating on the concept of 'War' and searching for a 'Test' that will prove that he is not a 'Truly Weak Man'. It's almost as though everything he thinks about the world is defined in terms formed out of the war, even though he had no direct involvement in it. It's really fascinating to see the ways in which WW1 affected the generation of men who would go on to fight in WW2 (though Isherwood of course didn't), especially when you consider that Lions and Shadows was published in 1938, when the world was teetering on the brink of the next great conflict. Certainly, there is a sense of inevitability to all the talk of war in Lions and Shadows, and it's hard to tell, due to the temporal gap between events happening and being told, whether this was born out of Isherwood's childhood or has merely been formed out of the context of his time of writing. This is a book that throws up so many questions about war and its long-term impact, and, again, this elevates a story that could have felt unbearably to familiar to something entirely new.
I don't think that I've done the best job of selling Lions and Shadows in this review, and that's because I think it's a thoroughly strange book. For all its interesting insights on war, I think you need to have some previous knowledge of and interest in Isherwood to get much out of it, since so much of this book is just Isherwood's narrative voice basically shouting concepts that he's invented at you. I also don't think that the 'plot' - if you can call it one - is compelling enough to justify reading just for fun. Much as I liked Lions and Shadows, there's a reason why it's one of Isherwood's least-read books, believe me. You can get the war commentary in more accessible format in , all of the Isherwoodian techniques that I've mentioned are at their best in , and, if you've read , you'll know that Isherwood eventually dismisses Lions and Shadows as untruthful anyway. So, overall, a very strange one to know whether to recommend or not. It most definitely provides some fascinating insights into Isherwood and his kind (see what I did there?) and satisfies my own personal tastes perfectly as a result of that, but I'm not convinced that it does much else of great or wide-reaching value.
As stories go, this one is pretty basic and straightforward. It's about early twentieth century upper-middle-class boys going to public school and progressing onto Cambridge - you know, the kind of stuff that's included in every biography of every member of the British establishment. It wasn't dissimilar to what I read recently in (though I appreciated that Isherwood had a bit more self-awareness about his class than Graves seemed to) and I have no doubt that it would also feel familiar to readers of and his ilk. So, on the face of it, perhaps not the most interesting book of all time. What made it so enjoyable for me was Isherwood's writing style - from the humour and irony he deploys throughout to his detachment to his self-conscious Isherwoodisms. This is a book where the telling feels much more valuable than the tale itself in my opinion, and I think that a lot more can be gleaned from the way that the story is told than what is actually said to. The sense of a youth stolen by war, for example, and the crushing need for escapism felt among many members of Isherwood's generation. Also, the disenchantment with the public school system really comes across in the tone, though the experiences that Isherwood reports are nothing really out of the ordinary. Thanks to the way this is written, it ends up being a much more engaging book than it could have been, though, if you're not as keen on Isherwood's narrative voice and inflated sense of self-importance than I am, you perhaps won't agree with that.
Style aside, the main thing that I'd recommend Lions and Shadows for is its commentary on the war. Isherwood's generation were in the unusual position of being too young to fight in WW1 but old enough to understand exactly what was happening. Moreover, as students in the public school system during wartime, they were effectively trained to idolise and emulate the soldiers giving their lives of the battlefield. I suppose, in a way, they were already being treated as the soldiers of the future, despite merely being children, and this obviously had an impact on the way they saw the world as they grew older. Isherwood spends much of Lions and Shadows meditating on the concept of 'War' and searching for a 'Test' that will prove that he is not a 'Truly Weak Man'. It's almost as though everything he thinks about the world is defined in terms formed out of the war, even though he had no direct involvement in it. It's really fascinating to see the ways in which WW1 affected the generation of men who would go on to fight in WW2 (though Isherwood of course didn't), especially when you consider that Lions and Shadows was published in 1938, when the world was teetering on the brink of the next great conflict. Certainly, there is a sense of inevitability to all the talk of war in Lions and Shadows, and it's hard to tell, due to the temporal gap between events happening and being told, whether this was born out of Isherwood's childhood or has merely been formed out of the context of his time of writing. This is a book that throws up so many questions about war and its long-term impact, and, again, this elevates a story that could have felt unbearably to familiar to something entirely new.
I don't think that I've done the best job of selling Lions and Shadows in this review, and that's because I think it's a thoroughly strange book. For all its interesting insights on war, I think you need to have some previous knowledge of and interest in Isherwood to get much out of it, since so much of this book is just Isherwood's narrative voice basically shouting concepts that he's invented at you. I also don't think that the 'plot' - if you can call it one - is compelling enough to justify reading just for fun. Much as I liked Lions and Shadows, there's a reason why it's one of Isherwood's least-read books, believe me. You can get the war commentary in more accessible format in , all of the Isherwoodian techniques that I've mentioned are at their best in , and, if you've read , you'll know that Isherwood eventually dismisses Lions and Shadows as untruthful anyway. So, overall, a very strange one to know whether to recommend or not. It most definitely provides some fascinating insights into Isherwood and his kind (see what I did there?) and satisfies my own personal tastes perfectly as a result of that, but I'm not convinced that it does much else of great or wide-reaching value.
October 28, 2020
This was perhaps not the ideal place to begin with Isherwood. A sudden desire to read him overcame me and I rushed to the library without taking the time to check whether they had the better known Berlin Stories available on the shelf. Alas, they did not, but I picked this up from the rather lonely 'I' section and found its description intriguing. An 'autobiographical novel', a Künstlerroman, which insisted on its own fictionality.
Lions and Shadows covers the period of late adolescence through university and into the narrator's mid-20s. There is a focus on various close (and later famous) friends as well as on the narrator's development as a writer. The pall of WWI hangs over the characters and is brought most vividly to life in Lester, a shellshocked veteran who lives in a tent outside of a seaside town. Lester is the character who draws Isherwood farthest from himself and his social milieu and represents (not coincidentally) the most engaging part of the novel.
Checking the narrative of events and dramatis personae against the author's wikipedia page suggests the book belongs properly to the terraqueous zone, where the solid ground of fact is lapped and sometimes overwhelmed by the moon-coaxed tides of fancy. Probably most autobiographies are of this kind, and one must remember Kant's point that we come to know things more fully through aesthetic apprehension than mere intellection alone. The more interesting question is: if the Christopher Isherwood of these pages were no more than a character in a story, should we really find any of the events of his early life and education worth reading about? I have little doubt Christopher Isherwood the author would say yes. One gathers from his later literary output that he found in himself a subject whose interest could never be exhausted.
Lions and Shadows covers the period of late adolescence through university and into the narrator's mid-20s. There is a focus on various close (and later famous) friends as well as on the narrator's development as a writer. The pall of WWI hangs over the characters and is brought most vividly to life in Lester, a shellshocked veteran who lives in a tent outside of a seaside town. Lester is the character who draws Isherwood farthest from himself and his social milieu and represents (not coincidentally) the most engaging part of the novel.
Checking the narrative of events and dramatis personae against the author's wikipedia page suggests the book belongs properly to the terraqueous zone, where the solid ground of fact is lapped and sometimes overwhelmed by the moon-coaxed tides of fancy. Probably most autobiographies are of this kind, and one must remember Kant's point that we come to know things more fully through aesthetic apprehension than mere intellection alone. The more interesting question is: if the Christopher Isherwood of these pages were no more than a character in a story, should we really find any of the events of his early life and education worth reading about? I have little doubt Christopher Isherwood the author would say yes. One gathers from his later literary output that he found in himself a subject whose interest could never be exhausted.
June 7, 2011
Pfie, I've yet again finished my library book in less than 24 hours. Now that I'm back home I depend on my brother and mum for my library books because I don't have library card to the British Council library and it seemed pointless to get a costly 6 months subscription when I'm only home for two months, but having to wait for them to finish their books and only being able to get one at a time is starting to drive me mad. Especially since Isherwood is so, so charming and I can't wait to get my hands on some of his other books. His short autobiography is a joy to read - whether you read it, as the author advises you, like a novel or try to figure out which literary celebrities are hiding behind the false names. Isherwood and his friends seem to be doing so much thinking and day dreaming and plotting and writing I feel ashamed of myself for having a rather dull education. Though I'm friends with some literary and writerly people nobody I know seems like the sort of person who would be willing to make up elaborate - yet, frankly, rather silly and childish fantasies with their mates. Ehh. Perhaps that's what the book's really meant to do to you - entice you with a magical, albeit only half real and half serious Other World. Really nice anyway.
January 16, 2013
Charming, thoroughly engaging and written with a wry sense of self-deprecation, peopled with an array of vividly-drawn, affectionately-portrayed characters, this memoir of Isherwood's early Cambridge years is vivid and entertaining, as well as providing a fascinating glimpse into a writer's developing consciousness and sense of craft. Incredible to think this was written so long ago, in a totally different world. And yet Isherwood's voice is so immediate and compelling. Wonderful.
September 24, 2020
I enjoyed re-reading this novel, though parts of it did drag a bit this on this reading. Not the best novel that wrote.
June 20, 2019
Autobiographical novel about artistic development in connection with the formation of identity and friendship. Covers Isherwood’s last years at school, his time at Cambridge, particularly focusing on Isherwood’s development of a grotesque rural fantasy world with a friend, and a little on his drifting, questing time after Cambridge. I found Isherwood’s performatively unsparing baring of his meek formlessness a little irritating at times but I found this very readable and liked its exploration of the stories we tell ourselves and other people and the way in which these very private, personal narratives can grow into something that can stand alone and go off into the world without you � though this last stage isn’t covered here but looked forward to. It was interesting to see how heavily Isherwood and his friends depend on one another for their interest in their creative endeavours, literally and almost literally to the extent of co-composition.
August 16, 2018
Quite enjoyed a lot of this.
The bit before university? Great.
The bit at university? Really great.
That first bit after university? Oh so very plodding.
That bit where he goes back to be a medical student? Pretty good.
The bit before university? Great.
The bit at university? Really great.
That first bit after university? Oh so very plodding.
That bit where he goes back to be a medical student? Pretty good.
August 6, 2018
Yummy yummy yummy and then MORE yummy .....❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
July 11, 2022
3 1/4 stars
February 1, 2019
Christopher Isherwood manages to make this story about a boy coming to terms with having grown up comfortably well-off and having missed the major defining event of his lifetime to then, World War I both interesting and worthy. It’s basically a story about a writer becoming a writer, which is a tale strewn with pitfalls. Isherwood does not gloss over the silliness of young writers, or how their immaturity convinces them to avoid hard choices in their writing. Looking back, as he does, he highlights many of those mistakes, such as thinking London was the world.
Most of his young writing, and his young discussions about writing with his friends, involved a self-censorship about any sort of test of manhood:
And, of course, the universal problem of the early writer, that
His growth as a writer is a real growth, not marked by literary epiphanies; in many cases he highlights his growth simply by using it. There’s an aside toward the end where he describes how bad he was at addressing the reader in his novels; he did it so naturally that I did not realize, until thinking over the scene later (it is about a mode of writing) that he was, in saying he had no facility addressing the reader, very unobtrusively addressing the reader.
There are also interesting glimpses into the past, also undoubtedly with symbolic intent, such as, in the fog, having to get out of their car and wrap mufflers around the headlight—literally, covering them with scarves to dim them.
The book’s weakness is also its strength, or vice versa, that nothing really happens on screen. All change is at at least one remove, inside the characters, and even further when reading how the elder Isherwood writes about the younger. But it’s all very good.
It was the only big city I really knew, and so it was a synthesis of all big cities; it fed my place-romanticism and my boundless dreams of travel.
Most of his young writing, and his young discussions about writing with his friends, involved a self-censorship about any sort of test of manhood:
…we young writers of the middle ’twenties were all suffering, more or less subconsciously, from a feeling of shame that we hadn’t been old enough to take part in the European war. The shame, I have said, was subconscious: in my case, at any rate, it was suppressed by the strictest possible censorship.
And, of course, the universal problem of the early writer, that
I wanted to achieve my object without unnecessarily hurting anyone’s feelings.
His growth as a writer is a real growth, not marked by literary epiphanies; in many cases he highlights his growth simply by using it. There’s an aside toward the end where he describes how bad he was at addressing the reader in his novels; he did it so naturally that I did not realize, until thinking over the scene later (it is about a mode of writing) that he was, in saying he had no facility addressing the reader, very unobtrusively addressing the reader.
There are also interesting glimpses into the past, also undoubtedly with symbolic intent, such as, in the fog, having to get out of their car and wrap mufflers around the headlight—literally, covering them with scarves to dim them.
The book’s weakness is also its strength, or vice versa, that nothing really happens on screen. All change is at at least one remove, inside the characters, and even further when reading how the elder Isherwood writes about the younger. But it’s all very good.
He held the ’cello as though a very beautiful young girl had fainted in his arms.
September 19, 2021
This is a semi-fictionalized retrospective on Isherwood's youth. He is just barely post world war 1, so it is not an account of the war, although he has a somewhat neurotic shame at not have fought and "proved" himself. His boarding school also seems much more civilized than those described a generation previously, although he does cane his "fag" once for losing his boots, and thus destroys their amicable relationship. Isherwood is amazingly young for his age when he "comes up" to Cambridge, and spends all his time in fantasy games rather like Dungeons and Dragons with his best friend. Just before he is about take an important exam he decides he simply can't stand Cambridge any more and chooses the only option he sees open to him, of making a buffoon of himself on the exam, and distressing all his professors. The only subsequent professions open to him are those of tutor or writer, and it takes him a while to become a good writer. His family is exceedingly supportive, and continues to give him an allowance and permit him to move out of the family home.
Well, the book kept me reading, but then too we are only just now getting access to the public libraries because of the Covid, and I am physically handicapped.
Well, the book kept me reading, but then too we are only just now getting access to the public libraries because of the Covid, and I am physically handicapped.
June 9, 2017
On a bit of an Isherwood trail at the moment, this is my second read by him while I'm already immersed in a third ('Goodbye to Berlin'), there is just something immediately likeable about his voice. He doesn't take himself too seriously although you can't deny his commitment to his writing. This is his autobiographical account of his journey to writer-hood which involved writing a few bad novels, accepting blunt and honest criticism from the family writer-friend, acting the artist, getting himself expelled from Cambridge and quickly deciding he wanted to be a doctor and then, in his first year of medicine, deciding just as fast that he was quite, quite mistaken. In the background, his family, who I would have loved to have read more about, were unfailingly supportive of him, no matter what. I think, for anyone interesting in writing, it's compelling stuff.
February 5, 2016
As I examine this copy borrowed from the Texas Tech University main library, I see that it is accessioned in 1964. By examining the date due slip, I can see I’m the third person to check out this book since 1972—making me a rare cat indeed. In remarks at the beginning, Isherwood says that his book “is not, in the ordinary journalistic sense of the word, an autobiography; it contains no ‘revelations�; it is never ‘indiscreet�; it is not even entirely ‘true’� (7). He goes on to state that the book is a record of a man, him, in his twenties, as he forges ahead in his life as a young novelist.
This young artist makes a short trip to France. He attends university in England. “I had not been in Cambridge a fortnight before I began to feel with alarm that I was badly out of my depth. The truth, as I now discovered for the first time, was that I was a hopelessly inefficient lecturee. I couldn’t attend, couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t take proper notes� (62).
He records the meaning that relationships there give him, including Mr. Holmes, a benefactor of sorts. “Isherwood the artist was an austere ascetic, cut off from the outside world, in voluntary exile, a recluse� (97).
He co-writes narratives with a close friend. One book in particular, a “Hynd and Starn� story, would be accompanied with fireworks, gramophone, and dialogue would be spoken. Copies would be free. “Our friends would find, attached to the last page, a pocket containing banknotes and jewels; our enemies, on reaching the end of the book, would be shot dead by a revolver concealed in the binding� (114). Isherwood simply doesn’t live long enough; today’s technology might have afforded him at least a few of these book innovations!
At the end of his second year Isherwood deliberately fails his exams by giving nonsensical answers. At the time, because the professors and administration act as if he has simply chosen to leave Cambridge, no one knows what he has done. Failure is painful, but he believes he is right to strike out on his own. “Suppose I stayed on and did, somehow, get a degree: what would become of me? I should have to be a schoolmaster. But I didn’t want to be a schoolmaster—I wanted, at last, to escape from that world. I want to learn to direct films . . . [h]ow I longed to be independent, to earn money of m own! And I had got to wait another whole year!� (125).
After leaving Cambridge, Isherwood takes a series of positions, one as a personal secretary, another as an English tutor for young pupils. During this time he also teaches himself how to write. A dear friend, also a writer, “Chalmers,� asserts his theories, and Isherwood concurs: “‘I saw it all suddenly while I was reading Howards End . . . Forster’s the only one who understands what the modern novel ought to be . . . Our frightful mistake was that we believed in tragedy: the point is, tragedy’s quite impossible nowadays . . . We ought to aim at being essentially comic writers . . . The whole of Forster’s technique is based on the tea-table: instead of trying to screw all his scenes up to the highest possible pitch, he tones them down until they sound like mothers�-meeting gossip . . . In fact, there’s actually less emphasis laid on the big scenes than on the unimportant ones: that’s what’s so utterly terrific. It’s the completely new kind of accentuation—like a person talking a different language . . . .’� (173-4).
Isherwood chronicles his early experiences as a novelist: �. . . I had sent the manuscript, already, to two well-known publishers. They had refused it, of course. One of them wrote saying that my work had ‘a certain literary delicacy, but lacked sufficient punch’—a pretty damning verdict, when your story ends with a murder� (205).
He indirectly addresses the idea of being gay, as well as the issue of being an artist, critical of society: “Does anybody ever feel sincerely pleased at the prospect of remaining in permanent opposition, a social misfit, for the rest of his life? I knew, at any rate, that I myself didn’t. I wanted—however much I might try to persuade myself, in moments of arrogance, to the contrary—to find some place, no matter how humble, in the scheme of society. Until I do that, I told myself, my writing will never be any good; no amount of talent or technique will redeem it: it will remain a greenhouse product; something, at best, for the connoisseur and the clique� (247-8).
He writes of the Great War: “I came to regard Lester as a ghost—the ghost of the War. Walking beside him, at midnight, on the downs, I asked him the question which ghosts are always asked by the living: ‘What shall I do with my life?� ‘I think,� said Lester, ‘that you’d make a very good doctor.�" Isherwood had already tried that at Cambridge and failed!
Most of all Isherwood continues to modify his craft: “Therefore epics, I reasoned, should start in the middle and go backwards, then forwards again—so that the reader comes upon the dullness half-way through, when he is more interested in the characters; the fish holds its tail in its mouth, and time is circular, which sounds Einstein-ish and brilliantly modern� (297).
Early on, “a lady novelist who was an old friend of our family,� reads his manuscript and in part tells him: “‘If you really have talent, you know, you’ll go on writing—whatever people say to you’� (119).
Isherwood takes her advice and—twenty books later—never looks back, except, of course, to write about it!
This young artist makes a short trip to France. He attends university in England. “I had not been in Cambridge a fortnight before I began to feel with alarm that I was badly out of my depth. The truth, as I now discovered for the first time, was that I was a hopelessly inefficient lecturee. I couldn’t attend, couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t take proper notes� (62).
He records the meaning that relationships there give him, including Mr. Holmes, a benefactor of sorts. “Isherwood the artist was an austere ascetic, cut off from the outside world, in voluntary exile, a recluse� (97).
He co-writes narratives with a close friend. One book in particular, a “Hynd and Starn� story, would be accompanied with fireworks, gramophone, and dialogue would be spoken. Copies would be free. “Our friends would find, attached to the last page, a pocket containing banknotes and jewels; our enemies, on reaching the end of the book, would be shot dead by a revolver concealed in the binding� (114). Isherwood simply doesn’t live long enough; today’s technology might have afforded him at least a few of these book innovations!
At the end of his second year Isherwood deliberately fails his exams by giving nonsensical answers. At the time, because the professors and administration act as if he has simply chosen to leave Cambridge, no one knows what he has done. Failure is painful, but he believes he is right to strike out on his own. “Suppose I stayed on and did, somehow, get a degree: what would become of me? I should have to be a schoolmaster. But I didn’t want to be a schoolmaster—I wanted, at last, to escape from that world. I want to learn to direct films . . . [h]ow I longed to be independent, to earn money of m own! And I had got to wait another whole year!� (125).
After leaving Cambridge, Isherwood takes a series of positions, one as a personal secretary, another as an English tutor for young pupils. During this time he also teaches himself how to write. A dear friend, also a writer, “Chalmers,� asserts his theories, and Isherwood concurs: “‘I saw it all suddenly while I was reading Howards End . . . Forster’s the only one who understands what the modern novel ought to be . . . Our frightful mistake was that we believed in tragedy: the point is, tragedy’s quite impossible nowadays . . . We ought to aim at being essentially comic writers . . . The whole of Forster’s technique is based on the tea-table: instead of trying to screw all his scenes up to the highest possible pitch, he tones them down until they sound like mothers�-meeting gossip . . . In fact, there’s actually less emphasis laid on the big scenes than on the unimportant ones: that’s what’s so utterly terrific. It’s the completely new kind of accentuation—like a person talking a different language . . . .’� (173-4).
Isherwood chronicles his early experiences as a novelist: �. . . I had sent the manuscript, already, to two well-known publishers. They had refused it, of course. One of them wrote saying that my work had ‘a certain literary delicacy, but lacked sufficient punch’—a pretty damning verdict, when your story ends with a murder� (205).
He indirectly addresses the idea of being gay, as well as the issue of being an artist, critical of society: “Does anybody ever feel sincerely pleased at the prospect of remaining in permanent opposition, a social misfit, for the rest of his life? I knew, at any rate, that I myself didn’t. I wanted—however much I might try to persuade myself, in moments of arrogance, to the contrary—to find some place, no matter how humble, in the scheme of society. Until I do that, I told myself, my writing will never be any good; no amount of talent or technique will redeem it: it will remain a greenhouse product; something, at best, for the connoisseur and the clique� (247-8).
He writes of the Great War: “I came to regard Lester as a ghost—the ghost of the War. Walking beside him, at midnight, on the downs, I asked him the question which ghosts are always asked by the living: ‘What shall I do with my life?� ‘I think,� said Lester, ‘that you’d make a very good doctor.�" Isherwood had already tried that at Cambridge and failed!
Most of all Isherwood continues to modify his craft: “Therefore epics, I reasoned, should start in the middle and go backwards, then forwards again—so that the reader comes upon the dullness half-way through, when he is more interested in the characters; the fish holds its tail in its mouth, and time is circular, which sounds Einstein-ish and brilliantly modern� (297).
Early on, “a lady novelist who was an old friend of our family,� reads his manuscript and in part tells him: “‘If you really have talent, you know, you’ll go on writing—whatever people say to you’� (119).
Isherwood takes her advice and—twenty books later—never looks back, except, of course, to write about it!
November 27, 2019
This is a pretty light and easy to read account of his life up to his more well known time in Berlin, which seemed to be mostly fairly uneventful. It's mostly worth reading for the descriptions of the people he met, especially W.H. Auden, who is pretty easily recognisable even though he's been renamed Hugh Weston in this book. It could easily be skipped if you're looking for more salacious details of his life which you can find in his other books but I found it pretty charming and enjoyable to read anyway.
August 26, 2020
A lightly fictionalised autobiographical account of Christopher Isherwood's late teens and early twenties. Delightful, painfully relatable and endlessly self-deprecating in that British way. But at the same time a decidedly critical look at the class that Isherwood himself was a part of.
Caitlin - The Book Grocer
February 5, 2024
I love Christopher Isherwood but unfortunately there are times when I find him to be a bit of a struggle. The first two thirds of this book were certainly that. It was usually tedious at best and I wondered if I could carry on with it.
I’m glad I did though as I loved the final third of the book. It felt more like Isherwood (perhaps because I knew we were approaching Berlin?) and gave me more of an insight into what shaped his writing.
I also now realise, that for the sake of completeness, I should read the Mortmere stories.
I’m glad I did though as I loved the final third of the book. It felt more like Isherwood (perhaps because I knew we were approaching Berlin?) and gave me more of an insight into what shaped his writing.
I also now realise, that for the sake of completeness, I should read the Mortmere stories.
February 16, 2025
Isherwood's flair for vivid descriptive prose and charmingly confessional candor fill this autobiographical novel with delightful passages. Alas, there are also long sections where nothing happens and one desperately wishes that pages and pages of scene could be reduced to a few sentences of summary. Also, because of the need to hide his then-shocking homosexuality, Isherwood gives a rather incomplete analysis of his motivations and day-to-day psychic reality–the very things which make his writing of interest.
March 4, 2018
A charming, fascinating semi-autobiography of Christopher Isherwood's late teens and early twenties. It's fascinating in part for its partially fictionalised portraits of people like W H Auden and Stephen Spender, and of course for Isherwood's carefully constructed self-portrait. It's also interesting in what is conspicuously absent - any direct exploration either of his relationship with his family, and his sexuality.
June 20, 2024
After having LOVED the last Isherwood I found this one was super disappointing. I did not care for the posh boys in school. Or uni. There was one interesting bit where he mentioned how he liked going to the cinema cause he could look at people and not seem rude. And it really made me think about how new that was, and how now that's 90 percent of what people do for entertainment now. But it still wasn't enough to convince me to finish it now. Maybe another time.
June 29, 2023
Highly Recommended
If you have any interest in Christopher Isherwood then you will certainly want to read this book. It gives a great overview of his years from Cambridge until he went to Berlin. It moves quickly and with a few exceptions doesn’t lose your interest. I have read quite a few of his works and I am glad for the opportunity to have read this.
If you have any interest in Christopher Isherwood then you will certainly want to read this book. It gives a great overview of his years from Cambridge until he went to Berlin. It moves quickly and with a few exceptions doesn’t lose your interest. I have read quite a few of his works and I am glad for the opportunity to have read this.
February 28, 2018
Though slow to start, Isherwood's memoir of his college mistakes and early-mid 20s adventures is as relevant a guide as ever for the aspiring writer looking to break free from the expectations of a "normal life"... whatever that means.
December 15, 2018
A painfully relatable read. As an aimless twentysomething graduate/dropout myself, I felt personally called out on several occasions by Isherwood's self-deprecating humor about his own twenties. Bro!!! I feel you.
November 26, 2019
A rambling insight into one novelist journey from schoolboy to published author in 1920s England. Contains many interesting portraits of the his friends, Auden and Upward. All thinly disguised in the form of a novel.
March 16, 2024
Read this over the course of a week, pretty much one chapter a day and mostly on the subway. Sometimes interesting look at Christopher Isherwood’s life prior moving to Berlin. Not my favorite Isherwood I’ve read but worth a read if you enjoy his writing.
August 23, 2018
Delightful. It's a decidedly critical look at the class that Isherwood himself was a part of, a fictionalized autobiography of his younger years taking us by the hand into his Berlin era.
February 4, 2022
I picked this up after reading Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis enthusing about it in their letters. I was not disappointed and it was fun to see the influence it had on Larkin's "Jill."
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