Sexuality in Isherwood

Abstract

limits of neat epithets or thematic headings. I suppose if I had to submit Christopher Isherwood to such treatment, the obvious choice would be Sexuality and Spirituality. This seemingly incongruous duo recurs throughout his writing, though rarely so happily united as they have been in the latter half of his own life. He has written himself at some length about his spiritual interests, both with the Quakers and with the Vedanta movement. The interested reader can readily refer to his clear presentation of Vedanta and his relationship with it. Yet how few self-declared Isherwood fans have done so! As far as sexuality is concerned, however, only someone who supplements his fictional diet by following America's liberated Gay press will have much familiarity with Isherwood's strong views. It has been stated often and wrongly that Isherwood is obsessed with sexual perversion, that the majority of his characters are maladjusted people on the fringe of society, tragic freaks of shoddy demi-mondes. Statistically that is nonsense, though it is certainly true that many of Isherwood's most memorable observations (I hesitate to use the word 'creations', as so many of his characters are so clearly based on actual human beings who have strayed across his field of vision) are practitioners of minority sexual tastes. Rapidly one can cite Arthur Norris and his flagellation, Paul the most expensive male prostitute in the world, and Jane Monk getting her thrills in a doll's house ... Isherwood has said in an interview with W. J. Weatherby (The Guardian, 17 Nov. 1960) that he writes 'fundamentally about foreigners, about exiles, about oddballs, the excluded and so forth'. This is partly because his own