Christopher Isherwood: British writer

The writer Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was born on 26^th August 1904 at High Lane, a village near Hazel Grove in Cheshire. His father was a professional soldier with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and his mother was the daughter of a wine merchant.

 As an Army family, the Isherwoods were constantly on the move during Christopher’s early years. His sense of not belonging to any one place was increased when his father was killed at the Battle of Ypres in 1915; he was destined to spend most of his life travelling from place to place and not settling anywhere for very long.

 He was educated at Repton School and then Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was supposed to be studying history but spent much of his time writing fantasy stories about an imaginary village. He was joined in this by his friend Edward Upward, whom he had known at Repton and who was to continue to be an important figure in his life long after Cambridge, which he left in 1925 without a degree.

 Christopher Isherwood’s rebellion against life and society as he knew it took the form not only of deliberately failing at Cambridge (by writing absurd answers to all the exam questions) but by cutting himself off from the privileged background of his home and family. The life he wanted to lead had nothing to do with the public-school ethos of Repton and the expectations that went with it, such as regular churchgoing, Conservative politics and making a good marriage.

 In order to make a living he worked as secretary to the International String Quartet, which brought him into contact with the bohemian world of art and music, which he found much more to his liking than the world that his mother inhabited. He had already decided that he wanted to become a full-time writer if at all possible.

 He had known the poet W H Auden when at preparatory school before going to Repton, but he met him again in 1925 and they became firm friends. Auden introduced him to Stephen Spender and the three were to become a powerful force in the British literary scene prior to World War II. Auden greatly respected Isherwood’s judgment and dedicated his first two volumes of poetry to him. They also became on-and-off lovers for a number of years.

 Isherwood’s first novel was “All the Conspirators”, which was published in 1928. The theme of this and other later work was tensions within the family, notably between mother and son, thus reflecting Isherwood’s own experiences.

He briefly thought about gaining a medical qualification, and enrolled on a course in October 1928. However, he gave this up in order to follow Auden to Berlin. For one thing, this would expand his horizons beyond the limited world of literary London and memories of Repton, and for another it would allow him, as a homosexual, to have much more personal freedom in the relaxed social atmosphere of Weimar Germany, given that homosexuality was a criminal offence in Britain.

Isherwood’s time in Germany inspired the work for which he is best known today, namely the novels “Mr Norris Changes Trains” (1935) and “Goodbye to Berlin” (1939). He was a witness to the rise of the Nazis, and these books capture much of the atmosphere of that dangerous time. The second of these novels was in turn the inspiration behind the stage and film musical “Cabaret” (1966 and 1972 respectively). Isherwood created the character of Sally Bowles, memorably played by Liza Minnelli in the 1972 film.

He also collaborated with Auden in the writing of three plays, these being “The Dog Beneath the Skin” (1935), “The Ascent of F6” (1936), and “On the Frontier” (1938). They spent six months travelling to the Far East at the time of the war between China and Japan in 1938, and this resulted in their “Journey to a War”, published in 1939. Somewhat cheekily, being aged only 34 at the time, Isherwood wrote an autobiography entitled “Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties” which was published in 1938.

Auden spent only a few months in Berlin but Isherwood stayed on until 1933, after which he travelled extensively around Europe. While in Berlin he had fallen in love with a young German named Heinz Neddermeyer, and one reason for Isherwood’s restlessness during these years was the couple’s attempt to find somewhere where they would not face harassment. They hoped to be able to get a passport for Neddermeyer so that he could join Isherwood in Britain, but they fell victim to a conman who took their money and did not deliver what had been promised. Eventually Neddermeyer was arrested in Germany and Isherwood returned to Britain on his own. As a homosexual, Neddermeyer was fortunate to survive the war, but he and Isherwood did not subsequently resume their relationship.

In 1939, with Word War II looming, Christopher Isherwood again teamed up with W H Auden, this time to escape to the United States. They seemed to set something of a trend in terms of gay couples fleeing Britain just as war approached, in that the composer Benjamin Britten and the singer Peter Pears did the same thing shortly afterwards. However, Isherwood was unusual in that he had no desire to return once the war was over. Indeed, he became an American citizen in 1946.

Isherwood settled in California, where he found work writing film scripts for MGM. Although this gave him a reasonable income he did not feel artistically fulfilled and he also felt a measure of guilt about running away from the threat of war. This led him to seek help of a more spiritual kind and he became attracted to Vedantic Hinduism as promoted by Swami Prabhavananda, joining him in his temple and monastery at Hollywood. This would prove to be a significant influence on his life, leading him, for example, to work with Prabhavananda on a new translation of the Bhagavad Gita (published in 1944).

Isherwood eventually found that monastic life did not suit him, especially as it demanded that he give up all sexual activity, which was a huge sacrifice for him. He therefore left the monastery in 1945 and began a relationship with an Irish American photographer named Bill Caskey. They toured South America together and produced an illustrated volume entitled “The Condor and the Cows” in 1949.

Isherwood’s final relationship was with the portrait artist Don Jess Bachardy who was a much younger man. They met in 1953 and lived together until Isherwood’s death in 1986. They worked together on a number of TV and film projects. In 1960 Isherwood began taking classes in English Literature at the University of California.

He continued to write for most of his remaining years, although with mixed success. His interest in Vedanta continued, with a biography of Ramakrishna, the founder of the movement, appearing in 1965. “My Guru and his Disciple” (1980) was an account of his time in the Vedanta temple with Swami Prabhavananda. He produced several autobiographical works including “Christopher and his Kind” which was published in 1976. Three volumes of his diaries were published posthumously.

Christopher Isherwood died from prostate cancer, aged 81, on 4^th January 1986 at his home in Santa Monica. He left his body to science and had also expressed a wish that no funeral service be held.

Had Christopher Isherwood written nothing of note before fleeing to the United States in 1939, it is questionable whether his name would be remembered at all today. However, the books that were written as a result of his experiences during the rise of the Nazis in pre-war Berlin cemented his reputation as an observer, raconteur and writer of considerable merit. 

© John Welford