Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986)

In which a European in exile in 1964 manages to accurately convey the inner workings of those of us Antipodeans in 2012.

I've not yet seen the (apparently wonderful) film based on this book, which was probably a blessing, as I was able to approach it uninitiated. In a scant 150 pages, Isherwood details one mundane-yet-important day in the life of an English professor in the U.S. Digging deftly to the root of George's mind, Isherwood captures his moments of intelligence and pain, of arrogance, lust, self-loathing, confusion, alienation, connection, nostalgia, heartbreak, discovery. It's a taut little character study, which approaches a variety of '60s counter-culture/neo-romantic issues (social alienation, the rise of that loathsome word 'tolerance', man-made boundaries preventing connection), yet - because his focus is so clearly on George's character - Isherwood avoids that painfully on-the-nose attitude that so dates other writers of the era (if I cough Kerouac's name out of the corner of my mouth, will a thousand hipsters descend upon my house with torches and pitchforks?).

A beautiful little work. It worries me somewhat that I feel Isherwood has here predicted my future. And if not, all the better: he has allowed me an insight into a genuine mind. A complete human being laid bare in 150 pages. Perhaps the moral is to invite your neighbours over to dinner more often. Perhaps it's simply to say "yes" when asked. Or perhaps it is that we cannot expect any more. It's not the dinner, or the asking, or what we say when we're there, or even what we mean. It's about washing ourselves free of the rituals in which we drape our lives, or at least of questioning the rituals before we abandon ourselves to them. It's how we remove the past from its pedestal without removing its meaning. It's going forward knowing that, in some ways, everything we have learned is important to us, yet in other ways, we have learned nothing at all.… (more)

This was an odd one for me. Ive been working on it for 2 months (my fault, not the book), but having finished it 20 minutes ago, the following things jump to my mind. I did not like Mr. Norris at all. Thus i had to rely on our first person storyteller, William. I tried to like William.....but my dislike for Mr. Norris prevented me from taking William seriously, since the character he was portrayed to be, would never in a million years put up with his quirky weirdness for as long as he did. Having been written in 1935...pre WWII....this was also a political tome dancing through the mire of Communists, Nazis and the others through campaigns and elections during that turbulent period leading up to Hitler's rage against humanity. Set in Berlin mostly, I felt that through all of those parts, I was sitting in preparation class for a college final, and i realized i must have missed a whole bunch of classes! I tried to figure it out....but i also did not care enough about these characters to pause long enough to look it up. so, i struggled. Interesting, then quirky....then disturbing on a few levels. Cannot go above a 3.… (more)