In following the life of Christopher Isherwood, we do not have to look much further than the page. Known for their semi-autobiographical nature, his works are indeed a “camera,” recording a life that was constantly evolving in reaction to the political spheres he inhabited.
Heir to a deteriorating Cheshire estate, Isherwood was born into extreme privilege– albeit he spent most of his life running from it. Though his mother pushed him ardently in the direction of Oxbridge donhood, he stuck out a history degree at Cambridge for only two years, until 1925, when he was asked to leave for answering an exam with dirty jokes and nonsensical answers. He left University without a degree, but his experience was recorded in The Mortmere Stories, a collection that playfully satirises the snobbism of the 1920s Cambridge scene. What’s more, the creative relationships made during these years would go on to shape the queer and political literary scenes of the 1930s, founding what would later be known as the ‘Auden Group.’
Following Cambridge, Isherwood spent a short time floating between jobs before making the decision that would establish the standing of his literary career—moving to Berlin, which for him, quite simply “meant boys”. Berlin’s atmosphere of hedonism posed an excellent alternative to the restraints of the twee English lifestyle. Here, gay subculture was flourishing, and “Herr Issyvoo” began to lead a very different life to those of his Cambridge peers. He worked as a private tutor, flirted with communism and enjoyed sexual escapades, a lifestyle that inspired both Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye To Berlin (1939), colourful but sorrowful reflections on sexuality and politics in Weimar Germany. It is also in Berlin that Isherwood fell in love with Heinz Neddermeyer, with whom he was forced to flee after the Nazis seized power. The two did not settle, but travelled desperately through Europe in order to find Neddermeyer citizenship until 1937, when Neddermeyer was arrested by the Gestapo and sent home. The year after their separation, he married, while Isherwood followed Auden to China, which inspired their versified travel diary, Journey to a War (1939).
Disillusioned by English life, Isherwood did not return, and instead found himself in Hollywood, where he pursued a short career in screen-writing. Here, Isherwood’s pacifistic convictions grew stronger, and he eventually wound up training as a monk under the spiritual guidance of Swami Prabhavananda—with whom he collaborated on an English translation of the Bhagavad Gita (1944). Isherwood continued to practice Hinduism until his death, though he never committed to taking monastic vows, possibly in accordance with the life he shared with young portraitist Don Bachardy. In one of the last of his works, Christopher and His Kind (1976), Isherwood returns to Berlin. Importantly, within it, he bears no pretences about his identity or his homosexual endeavours, helping to validate queer joy in literature and public consciousness. He died in 1986 in Santa Monica, and in true Isherwoodian fashion, even his last weeks alive were recorded and put to paper through Bachardy’s art—the Last Drawings of Christopher Isherwood.
Photo by Liam McGarry on Unsplash