Talk:Christopher Isherwood

Chris Wood

I read: Isherwood joined an extraordinary band of mystic explorers that included Aldous Huxley, Bertrand Russell, Chris Wood, John Yale and J. Krishnamurti. I haven't a clue who Chris Wood is. Chris Wood is a disambig page, but I don't see how any of the people now listed within it could be this particular Chris Wood. Thus the link only served to confuse, and I removed it. -- Hoary 05:29, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

"their relation ... has been described as pederastic"

Everyone knows Isherwood liked boys. He said so himself --and when that book "Where Joy Presides" came out --the big joke was that it should have been called "Where Boys Reside." But that phrase in this page where it ways "their relation ... has been described as pederastic" doesn't belong on the page for lots of reasons. Here goes.

So --look at the two footnotes. One is them is to an article that says that when you look at a PHOTO of Isherwood and Bachardy, the sight of the PHOTO "ought to dispel the notion that ‘pederasty’ is purely an ancient paradigm". Well, maybe it does dispel a notion, but it doesn't "describe" "their relation" --and who thinks that someone's general interpretation of a PHOTO of two people is an interpretation of a relation. Now, someone's going to come along and say --But this was in a peer-reviewed journal, and so it would be a major crime against WP to delete it, and we can never do that. But that's not the point. The sentence in the page says "their relation ... has been described as pederastic" --it doesn't say --"A peer-reviewed scholar has looked at a photo of the two of them and concluded that the notion that pederasty is an ancient paradigm should be dispelled" --that would be completely correct --but who thinks that what someone said about a photo of Isherwood belongs in an ENCYCLOPEDIA entry about Isherwood.

So, you say, what about that other footnote --that confirms the statement, right? --Well, no it doesn't. --Follow the link, and try to find ONE word about pederasty at the linked page. There isn't any --the linked page says NOTHING to support the statement. The footnote is totally FALSE.

I expect someone will come up here and twist the argument around --and say "peer-reviewed! peer-reviewed!" -but that doesn't make this phrase intellectually honest.

The part about "raised eyebrows" in the rest of the sentence --no one doubts that. And don't forget to ask for a copy of "Where Boys Reside" Rubadubdub 17:41, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Norton was not discussing photography or paradigms. It is less than fair to take his turn of phrase and force upon it a verbatim interpretation that then appears to run counter to what the man said. Norton identified Isherwood's affection for DB as pederastic, and extrapolated from that to gay life in the modern world. As you indicate yourself, it is not news, since Isherwood's love of boys goes all the way back to pre-war Berlin. The glbtq quote is there to corroborate the fact that their relationship was remarkable for the difference in age, something that DB himself also mentions in the linked interview. If you would like to suggest a better phrasing for indicating that theirs was - initially at least, an intergenerational relationship, please do so. Haiduc 01:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

OK --the para one up from this one says they were 49 and 18 when they met, so why not this --"The more than thirty years age difference between them raised eyebrows" --and so on and so on as the rest of it goes now? Result --no citing of someone's idea about them in an article about something else --just the undisputed fact. No?? Rubadubdub 02:54, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Sounds absolutely fine. Haiduc 03:28, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Down There on a Visit

is marked as published in 1962 on this page, and 1959 on the DToaV page. Im' not sure which is correct. Jasper33 07:05, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Bertrand Russell

Isherwood joined an extraordinary band of mystic explorers that included Aldous Huxley, Bertrand Russell... Is it fair or correct to describe Bertrand Russell as a mystic explorer? Garyth123 08:24, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:TheMemorial.jpg

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Gay Anglo-American novelist

I read "was a gay Anglo-American novelist.". I disagree with this introduction. I understand the reference to the nationality of people, but not the one to their sexual orientations. I don't think that there should be no reference to it, just that it is not so important to be put there, at the beginning of the page. It may sound like "this writer should interest you if you're interested in gay literature", which is wrong; Isherwood is a great novelist regardless of his (or our) sexual preferences. The only references that I think are important enough to be put at the beginning of anybody's page, except of course for the reason he's listed in Wikipedia, are the nationality and the lifespan, because they give an immediate idea of the time and space in which someone did what he/she did, which is useful. Of course, the more we know about the man, the better, but there's all the space we need in the rest of the page. This is not censorship, of course. It's just that the sexual preferences shouldn't make it to the top of the page, in my opinion, unless we're talking about someone whose introduction should be something like "Anglo-American gay activist and novelist". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Robertotr (talk • contribs) 08:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Need for re-write

I started editing the first few paras for style but gave up - the article doesn't read like an article, more like a potted bio with a heavy agenda. Someone really should give it a complete overhaul. PiCo (talk) 03:34, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Conscription

This note was posted to the article by an IP user. I've removed it from the article but am adding it here:

The statement that Isherwood immediately upon becoming a U.S. citizen became subject to its conscription laws seems specious. He would have been 41 or 42 at that time, and while it has been several decades since I was subject to those same laws, I am inclined to believe he would not have had to resort to a claim that he had performed alternate service to avoid being drafted. Also this was 1946 when the U.S. had, or still was, coming off a massive demobilization following WWII.

The article now says: "...in 1946. He immediately became liable for military service"

Lost years: a memoir, 1945-1951, pp. 40, 78. A conscientious objector could not become a citizen. CI learns this when he first considers applying for citizenship on July 26, 1945. He becomes a citizen On Nov 8, 1946. Either regulations had been relaxed or their had been an intervening court case. So there's no issue of becoming subject to conscription in his 40s.

I'll try a re-write. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 01:15, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Vedanta

Is that so important to his life and career that the list of articles should come before his other works ? What is so special about it ? -- Beardo (talk) 05:12, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree, this should probably be a subsection of "List of works". Clearly his novels should be listed first. --Morn (talk) 09:55, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Not questioning where book titles should be listed or in what order, but Vedanta was of huge importance in Isherwood's life. He actually came to feel that spiritual development was the whole point of life. From their first meeting, he had profound respect and appreciation for Swami Prabhavananda, who organised and steered the Vedanta Society in Southern California. Isherwood's (along with Huxley's and Heard's) use of mescaline was linked to the search for a more profound consciousness. And, by the way, where in this bio is there any discussion about Isherwood's interest in mescaline?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.245.240.165 (talk) 22:46, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Mother and brother

The BBC's Christopher and His Kind implies at the end with captions that his younger brother and mother had an incestuous relationship in later years. Presumably there's something in the book that suggests this? I'm surprised to find no mention of it as it may be significant background to his character. -- Ralph Corderoy (talk) 01:00, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I've only seen the German-dubbed version with translated captions, but I don't recall any suggestion of a relationship between his brother and mother. Besides, his brother was gay too, so that alone would make it unlikely for him to be in a sexual relationship with a woman, let alone with his mother. --Morn (talk) 12:13, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

At the end, before the credits, it says that his mother and brother shared a bed in the latter years of the mother's life, until her death. Jim Michael (talk) 22:43, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, "share a bed" might mean exactly that and not a euphemism for sex. E.g., he might have tended to her when she was sick towards the end of her life and it's not unusual to sleep in the same room or same bed in that situation. I've also checked the German/French version and the captions at the end make no mention of his mother or brother, other than Isherwood not attending her funeral. Of course a caption would hardly be a reliable source for Wikipedia anyway. --Morn (talk) 23:52, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Childhood & family

Currently this article starts with a refernce to Isherwood's time at Repton School. I think the article would benefit from some more biographical information about his childhood, mother, father etc.--Design (talk) 00:53, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Unsourced Material

Below information was tagged for needing citations long-term. Feel free to re-insert the below material with appropriate references. Doniago (talk) 16:41, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Life in the United States

Isherwood also met Gerald Heard, the mystic-historian who founded his own monastery at Trabuco Canyon that was eventually donated to the Vedanta Society of Southern California. Through Heard, who was the first to discover Swami Prabhavananda and Vedanta, Isherwood joined an extraordinary band of mystic explorers that included Aldous Huxley, Bertrand Russell, Chris Wood (Heard's lifelong friend), John Yale and J. Krishnamurti. He embraced Vedanta, and, together with Swami Prabhavananda, he produced several Hindu scriptural translations, Vedanta essays, the biography Ramakrishna and His Disciples, novels, all imbued with the themes and character of Vedanta and the Upanishadic quest. Through Huxley, Isherwood befriended the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. A chance encounter in a Los Angeles bookstore with the fantasy writer Ray Bradbury led to a favorable review of The Martian Chronicles, which boosted Bradbury's career and helped to form a friendship between the two men.

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Unreliable sourcing

Several biographical items here cite only Isherwood's Lions and Shadows, but this cannot count as reliable in the light of Isherwood's own introduction to that work: "I had better start by saying what this book is not: it is not, in the ordinary journalistic sense of the word, an autobiography; it contains no 'revelations'; it is never 'indiscreet'; it is not even entirely 'true'." Statements based on the sole authority of this unreliable account have therefore been deleted. Sweetpool50 (talk) 19:08, 25 June 2020 (UTC)