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Greetings from the world of "Christopher Isherwood is really addictive. What, there are things other than reading his books that you can do with your free time?"
In the last few days, I've finished both Berlin Stories and Lions and Shadows, and I'm now well into Christopher and His Kind. I'm utterly captivated by the distinction between Isherwood-the-character, Isherwood-the-narrator, and Isherwood-the-author, and the way the balance between the three changes across the books.
I was really frustrated with Isherwood in Berlin Stories, before I started distinguishing between Isherwoods, and even now looking back with the distinction I'm still frustrated, and it's his remoteness, combined with the fact that he's closeted, that really bothers me. He's watching the rise of Hitler, and a huge percentage of the people around him are ::going to die:: because they are gay, or Jewish, or criminals, and he, the (seemingly straight) white male upper-class English observer gets to waltz in, pretend he's part of their world, and waltz out when it's convenient for him. Historical Isherwood was legitimately threatened by the Nazis, and had really valid concerns about his lovers' ability to get out of the country, and when he edits all of that out he just becomes a smug observer. It particularly got under my skin when he was observing the other characters' homosexuality. For instance, all of the scenes with Baron Pregnitz left a bad taste in my mouth. Norris is clearly attempting to pimp the narrator to Pregnitz, and the narrator keeps pretending to be totally innocent and just reports all of his conversations with Pregnitz about boy's adventure novels. There's a clearly sexual nature to their relationship which comes out in every scene with Pregnitz, and Isherwood-the-author worms out and makes it look like it's entirely on the Baron's side and not his. The most famous line from The Berlin Stories is “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.” But I spent the whole book paying attention to the camera and trying to figure out what was going on inside it.
That being said, one of the things I liked the most about Lions and Shadows is how incredibly callow young Isherwood-the-character is. "Oh, THAT GUY wrote Berlin Stories. It all makes sense now!" Isherwood-the-narrator clearly has more distance from Isherwood-the-character, with the net result that wee Isherwood actually gets to be a character in his own book, and he is an awesome character. He gets a giant car because it's the least responsible thing to do with his money! He writes hilarious horror stories with Chalmers! (I found out last night that he has a published collection of Montmere stories, which makes me a little sad because I thought they were a metaphor.) He gets huffy about Weston writing poetry when he is supposed to be a Man of Science and not an Artist! He has secretary-offs with other secretaries! Bottom line, I want to draw lots of sparkly hearts around Silly Young Isherwood. He's still not out here, but it's not nearly as much of an issue because he isn't wandering around being a voyeur in any lives other than his.
Which brings us to Christopher and His Kind, where the distance between the "I" of the narrator and the "Christopher" of the book is so great that the narrator refers to his younger self in the third person. (My favorite example of this is when the narrator comments that the Spender poems that Christopher liked aren't the Spender poems he likes now--"I disagree with many of Christopher's choices.") Somehow this feels like the most voyeuristic of the three. Reading it is like peering behind the scenes of the other two, being let in on the secrets of the narrators of the other books by some guy who thinks he has the right just because he wrote them and they are about him. And given the context of the other two novels, it makes me want to know what the narrator isn't telling us about himself.
In the last few days, I've finished both Berlin Stories and Lions and Shadows, and I'm now well into Christopher and His Kind. I'm utterly captivated by the distinction between Isherwood-the-character, Isherwood-the-narrator, and Isherwood-the-author, and the way the balance between the three changes across the books.
I was really frustrated with Isherwood in Berlin Stories, before I started distinguishing between Isherwoods, and even now looking back with the distinction I'm still frustrated, and it's his remoteness, combined with the fact that he's closeted, that really bothers me. He's watching the rise of Hitler, and a huge percentage of the people around him are ::going to die:: because they are gay, or Jewish, or criminals, and he, the (seemingly straight) white male upper-class English observer gets to waltz in, pretend he's part of their world, and waltz out when it's convenient for him. Historical Isherwood was legitimately threatened by the Nazis, and had really valid concerns about his lovers' ability to get out of the country, and when he edits all of that out he just becomes a smug observer. It particularly got under my skin when he was observing the other characters' homosexuality. For instance, all of the scenes with Baron Pregnitz left a bad taste in my mouth. Norris is clearly attempting to pimp the narrator to Pregnitz, and the narrator keeps pretending to be totally innocent and just reports all of his conversations with Pregnitz about boy's adventure novels. There's a clearly sexual nature to their relationship which comes out in every scene with Pregnitz, and Isherwood-the-author worms out and makes it look like it's entirely on the Baron's side and not his. The most famous line from The Berlin Stories is “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.” But I spent the whole book paying attention to the camera and trying to figure out what was going on inside it.
That being said, one of the things I liked the most about Lions and Shadows is how incredibly callow young Isherwood-the-character is. "Oh, THAT GUY wrote Berlin Stories. It all makes sense now!" Isherwood-the-narrator clearly has more distance from Isherwood-the-character, with the net result that wee Isherwood actually gets to be a character in his own book, and he is an awesome character. He gets a giant car because it's the least responsible thing to do with his money! He writes hilarious horror stories with Chalmers! (I found out last night that he has a published collection of Montmere stories, which makes me a little sad because I thought they were a metaphor.) He gets huffy about Weston writing poetry when he is supposed to be a Man of Science and not an Artist! He has secretary-offs with other secretaries! Bottom line, I want to draw lots of sparkly hearts around Silly Young Isherwood. He's still not out here, but it's not nearly as much of an issue because he isn't wandering around being a voyeur in any lives other than his.
Which brings us to Christopher and His Kind, where the distance between the "I" of the narrator and the "Christopher" of the book is so great that the narrator refers to his younger self in the third person. (My favorite example of this is when the narrator comments that the Spender poems that Christopher liked aren't the Spender poems he likes now--"I disagree with many of Christopher's choices.") Somehow this feels like the most voyeuristic of the three. Reading it is like peering behind the scenes of the other two, being let in on the secrets of the narrators of the other books by some guy who thinks he has the right just because he wrote them and they are about him. And given the context of the other two novels, it makes me want to know what the narrator isn't telling us about himself.