232 lines
7.3 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
232 lines
7.3 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
culture
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tvandradio
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8388504
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-----
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# Christopher Isherwood: The peculiar odyssey of a great literary outsider
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## Ahead of a BBC Two biopic, Peter Parker explains the lasting appeal of
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novelist Christopher Isherwood.
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![Doctor Who actor Matt Smith portrays Christopher Isherwood in Christopher
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and His Kind, a BBC Two biopic of the novelist.][1]
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Doctor Who actor Matt Smith portrays Christopher Isherwood in Christopher and
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His Kind, a BBC Two biopic of the novelist. Photo: BBC
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By Peter Parker 6:07PM GMT 17 Mar 2011
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[Comments][2]
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On November 29, 1929 Christopher Isherwood packed two suitcases and a rucksack
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and set off for Berlin on a one-way ticket. "To Christopher, Berlin meant
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Boys", he later wrote, and by going to live there he was rejecting both his
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upper-middle-class background and the social values to which his mother,
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widowed in the First World War, was still clinging. This ferocious family
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quarrel had been dramatised in his highly accomplished but heavily remaindered
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first novel, All the Conspirators, published in 1928.
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In Berlin he would work on a second novel, The Memorial, which further
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explored the gulf between the generations caused by the war and was admired by
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EM Forster among others. It was, however, the novels he wrote about Berlin, Mr
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Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1939), that made his
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reputation as one of the leading writers of his generation, providing an
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indelible tragic-comic portrait of a city teetering on the brink of
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catastrophe as Hitler gained in popular support.
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While Isherwood was attracted to Berlin by the ready availability of
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homosexual partners there, he always had a keen journalist's instinct for
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being in the right place at the right time. "Here was the seething brew of
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history in the making," he wrote, "a brew which would test the truth of all
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the political theories, just as actual cooking tests the cookery books. The
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Berlin brew seethed with unemployment, malnutrition, stock market panic,
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hatred of the Versailles Treaty and other potent ingredients."
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Isherwood's Berlin novels portray this history-in-the-making at street level,
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showing how ordinary people were affected. Isherwood's sharp eye for physical
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detail and human oddity means that his characters are never merely
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representative of their class or condition, but leap off the page and live on
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in the memory. And in the feckless cabaret singer Sally Bowles (on whose story
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the stage musical Cabaret was later based) he created one of literature's
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immortals.
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## Related Articles
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* [Doctor Who's Matt Smith: I'm not handsome enough to play Bond][3]
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17 Mar 2011
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* [Christopher and his Kind: in pictures][4]
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18 Mar 2011
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* [Christopher and His Kind, BBC One, preview][5]
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17 Mar 2011
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Isherwood's lasting attraction as a writer, apart from the unfading crispness
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and sheer readability of his prose, is that he encompassed a century. Although
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born into the Edwardian age in 1904, he still seems strikingly modern. He may
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have effectively left England in 1929, but he took his Englishness with him,
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becoming, as he put it, "a permanent foreigner". He recognised that being an
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outsider wherever he went, both nationally and sexually, gave him an
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invaluable perspective as a writer.
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Having fled Berlin in May 1933, he spent the next few years trailing around
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Europe with his young German lover Heinz Neddermeyer in search of a country in
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which they could settle without being harried by immigration officials and the
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Nazi authorities. Heinz was eventually imprisoned for draft evasion and sexual
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offences, after which Isherwood travelled to China as a somewhat improbable
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war reporter with his friend WH Auden. The two emigrated to America in 1939
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and Isherwood settled in California. He worked with leading directors in
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Hollywood, became the disciple of a Hindu guru long before hippies followed in
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The Beatles' footsteps to India, and ended up a figurehead of the Gay
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Liberation movement. He died in 1986.
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Every step along the way is recorded in the books he wrote, so that reading
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Isherwood gives one a real sense of what it was like to live through the 20th
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century, a century characterised by wars, the clash of ideologies, widespread
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deracination and massive social change.
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A new perspective is promised by Kevin Elyot's adaptation for BBC Two of
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Christopher and His Kind, Isherwood's memoir of his life in the 1930s,
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published in 1977. Taking advantage of the new freedoms resulting from gay
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liberation, Isherwood not only placed his homosexual experiences back at the
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centre of his Berlin life in this book, but went on to describe his further
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travels throughout what Auden described as "a low dishonest decade". As in
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Goodbye to Berlin, this is a personal story played out against and driven by
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history. The familiar refugee experience is given a novel twist, however, for
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it is sexuality rather than race that forces Isherwood to seek another
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homeland. The book ends hopefully with him setting sail for America, like many
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European emigres; and it is here that a whole new chapter of his life and work
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will open.
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_**'Christopher and His Kind' is on BBC Two on Saturday 19 March at 9.30pm.
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Peter Parker is the author of 'Isherwood: a Life Revealed'**_
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[What are these?][7]
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* Share: [Share][6] [ ][8] [ ][9]
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[Tweet][10]
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8388504/Christopher-Isherwood-
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The-peculiar-odyssey-of-a-great-literary-outsider.html
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Telegraph
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## [TV and Radio][11]
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* ### [Culture »][12]
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* ### [BBC »][13]
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[![TV Guide][14]][15]
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### [TV Guide UK: searchable TV listings][15]
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[![Paul Merton presents the Birth of Hollywood][16] ][17]
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### [Today's TV highlights][17]
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[![][18] ][19]
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### [Britain's Got Talent: where are they now?][19]
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[![][20] ][21]
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### [Doctor Who - the top ten best Doctors][21]
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[X][6] Share & bookmark
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Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter
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Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz
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[What are these?][7]
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Share:
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* [ ][6]
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* [ ][8]
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* [ ][9]
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* [Tweet][10]
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* Advertisement
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![][22]
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telegraphuk
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Please enable JavaScript to view the [comments powered by Disqus.][23] [blog
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comments powered by Disqus][24]
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