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A Single Man

4.12 of 5 stars 4.12 · rating details · 7,043 ratings · 608 reviews

"When A Single Man was originally published, it shocked many by its frank, sympathetic, and moving portrayal of a gay man in midlife. George, the protagonist, is adjusting to life on his own after the sudden death of his partner, determined to persist in the routines of his daily life. An Englishman and a professor living in suburban Southern California, he is an outsider...more

Paperback, 192 pages

Published March 20th 2001 by Univ Of Minnesota Press (first published 1964)

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Dec 30, 2011 K.D. Oliveros rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: gay-lit, day-in-a-life, tragicomic, semi-autobio

Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986) was an English novelist who pioneered the writing of novels with gay themes in English literature. He was openly gay, lived with and befriended fellow gay men some of them were famous also like W. H. Auden and Truman Capote. At some points in his life, he also became friends and was mentored by E. M. Forster. In turn, when he met Ray Bradbury in a chance encounter in a bookstore, he wrote a glowing review for his The Martian Chronicles that helped launch the lat...more

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Mar 01, 2012 Chiara Pagliochini rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: letteratura-americana

“Lo specchio, più che un volto, riflette l’espressione di una difficoltà. […] Lo sguardo provato è quello di un nuotatore o di un podista stremati; eppure, di fermarsi non se ne parla. L’individuo che stiamo osservando lotterà senza tregua fino al crollo. E non per eroismo. Perché non sa immaginarsi un’alternativa.”

Quand’ero verso la metà di questo libro, ho pensato che ad essere onesti lo si poteva riassumere con una frase sola, e non delle più complesse. Una frase minimale, quasi un inciso, to...more

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Dec 09, 2012 Tfitoby rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: lit, favourites

Christopher Isherwood has written a book that makes me hate him. Or maybe I hate myself? The main theme of this book is loss; loss of a lover, loss of youth, loss of identity, loss of direction, it's all there in beautifully phrased observations and it tickled that spot in my mind, the spot where I hide all of my fears, until I could no longer ignore the fact that I am and I continue to lose these things myself until one day the devastating and unthinkable will happen and I will lose that which...more Christopher Isherwood has written a book that makes me hate him. Or maybe I hate myself? The main theme of this book is loss; loss of a lover, loss of youth, loss of identity, loss of direction, it's all there in beautifully phrased observations and it tickled that spot in my mind, the spot where I hide all of my fears, until I could no longer ignore the fact that I am and I continue to lose these things myself until one day the devastating and unthinkable will happen and I will lose that which I hold most important. It's not my hair, for once.

“The prefect evening...lying down on the couch beside the bookcase and reading himself sleepy...Jim lying opposite him at the other end of the couch, also reading; the two of them absorbed in their books yet so completely aware of each other's presence.”

Isherwood's novel demonstrates how repressed my fears are, and so does my natural reaction of making a silly joke about my hair. This book does this to me and whilst I love that I am seen reading such wonderful literature on a train when either side of me are people with the latest mega bestsellers with no words bigger than two syllables and all the feeling of my hand after I've slept on it all night, I'm not sure I am mature enough (or willing) to deal with the consequences.

“Think of two people, living together day after day, year after year, in this small space, standing elbow to elbow cooking at the same small stove, squeezing past each other on the narrow stairs, shaving in front of the same small bathroom mirror, constantly jogging, jostling, bumping against each other’s bodies by mistake or on purpose, sensually, aggressively, awkwardly, impatiently, in rage or in love – think what deep though invisible tracks they must leave, everywhere, behind them!”

I didn't really want to discuss the fact that Christopher Isherwood was a gay man and that his protagonist is a gay man but it seems that a lot of people can't get past that fact. Top shelves = GLBT etc. and perhaps when this was written it really was unique to write about a gay man AS IF HE WAS A NORMAL HUMAN BEING but to me George is not defined by his sexuality, he is defined by his humanity and as such that should really be the end of it. This is not a great piece of gay literature, this is a great piece of literature full stop. If that offends you I shall not apologise.

“No one ever hates without a cause....”

I feel that to discuss this book any further would be to ruin it for you, it is 152 pages of quite large font, all you need to know beyond this is that it's also an incredibly uplifting and life affirming day-in-the-life narrative.(less)

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Apr 24, 2010 Evan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone in the universe

Shelves: gay-interest, yearning, __in-my-collection, 2010-reads, my-faves, favorites

This book is a truly beautiful thing; a completely exquisite experience. Page after page it spoke to me, as eloquently and profoundly as any book I've ever read. It was sad and funny and wise and observant without ever becoming sentimental or maudlin.

In 186 pages of concentrated, yet langorous, stream-of-consciousness prose Isherwood gets to the heart of what means to be a middle-aged man, a loner, a fish out of water, an expatriate on several levels -- as a Britisher in a new land, a gay man in...more This book is a truly beautiful thing; a completely exquisite experience. Page after page it spoke to me, as eloquently and profoundly as any book I've ever read. It was sad and funny and wise and observant without ever becoming sentimental or maudlin.

In 186 pages of concentrated, yet langorous, stream-of-consciousness prose Isherwood gets to the heart of what means to be a middle-aged man, a loner, a fish out of water, an expatriate on several levels -- as a Britisher in a new land, a gay man in mid-century America, a man who thinks of himself as an outsider and a social animal at the same time; as a human, temporarily privileged to be in the land of the living. Death is always on his mind, which makes his yearning to live all the more powerful and poignant.

The book has no plot, per se. It is one day in the life of George, a British professor of English lit teaching at a small college near LA. It begins with him waking up in bed and his realization of the process of becoming conscious, of being alive, of being here and now. It proceeds through memories of his life, and the recent death of his gay partner, Jim. It takes us through his day, teaching his seemingly oblivious young charges and privileges us with his sly, wry and oddly generous observations on American social mores, customs and materialism of the 1950s-early 1960s. It shows us his distanced relations with his neighbors, his platonic and touching relationship with fellow expat, Charlotte, his journeys to the grocery and to a bar, and his fledgling potential love relationship with a young student.

The book is clearly meant to be read as a first-person POV narrative, yet is told from the omniscient standpoint, referring to George as "he." It's in keeping with George's own tendency to step back and look at himself within the big picture.

Despite the tinge of sadness throughout, the book is often wickedly funny, and always full of magnificent insight.

Finding a Holy Grail book like this is what readers live for. I'm quite floored by it, and very grateful to have found it. A new favorite.(less)

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Apr 01, 2013 Blake Fraina rated it 5 of 5 stars

I’ve had a raggedy copy of this book kicking around my collection for years. A regulation sized paper back from the early seventies with bad cover art, I never bothered to read it because I was certain any book about a gay man written in 1962 would have noting relevant to offer a modern audience.

Boy was I wrong.

Now I understand why this book has never gone out of print and why it is considered a classic. This is by no means merely a dated account of a closeted homosexual man in suburban America....more I’ve had a raggedy copy of this book kicking around my collection for years. A regulation sized paper back from the early seventies with bad cover art, I never bothered to read it because I was certain any book about a gay man written in 1962 would have noting relevant to offer a modern audience.

Boy was I wrong.

Now I understand why this book has never gone out of print and why it is considered a classic. This is by no means merely a dated account of a closeted homosexual man in suburban America. As a matter of fact, I found the protagonist’s gayness, as it were, to be almost entirely beside the point. It’s actually a very universal story of grief and healing. All the action takes place over the course of one day in the life of George, an ex-pat British college professor living alone in Southern California, after the untimely death of his lover, Jim. Because the story is told from George's POV, the book is peppered with his wry observations delivered with typically mordant English wit. While it’s hardly short of humorous moments, the character’s fresh grief is always tangible just beneath the surface. And what a moving and realistic portrayal of bereavement it is. Anyone who’s lost a loved one can relate to the way George clings to even his most negative feelings - old jealousies, for example - as a way to somehow maintain his fading connection to Jim.

The book’s strength is in George’s unique voice and his scrupulously chosen words. I can’t imagine how director Tom Ford has managed to translate this to the screen. No film could be even half as affecting as being privy to George’s thoughts, even with the talented Colin Firth in the role.

While I don’t want to downplay this book as a "gay" classic, the character of George is a misfit for so many reasons, and being gay is only one of them. He’s an Englishman amongst Americans. He’s an older man surrounded by college kids. He lives alone in a neighborhood of couples and families. With George, Isherwood has created a classic fish out of water living in a kind of bitter, self-imposed emotional exile until he re-discovers [almost too late] how to engage with life by, quite literally, diving right in the water.

The reason I finally chose to tackle A Single Man is because I received a promotional copy of the unabridged CD version, apparently issued as a film tie-in. Initially I found it tougher to follow than other recorded books I’ve tried because it’s very wordy and somewhat philosophical in parts, but Simon Prebble did an amazing job of pulling me into the story. His delivery is precise, funny and moving. Plus, this would make a great introduction to CD books because, at under five hours, it’s relatively short. All in all, highly recommended.
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Aug 07, 2009 James rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: gay, fiction, edminster-group

One day in the life of a man is the basis for Christopher Isherwood's penultimate and what many consider his best novel, A Single Man. Written from in the first person the protagonist, George, is reflecting on his life and friends as he lives through an ordinary day in the shadow of the sudden death of his partner, Jim. Using meditative prose Isherwood manages to express both the inner being of George and his memories of the past. But the present, through episodes with his former lover Charley,...more

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Jan 07, 2013 Rebecca rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: glbt, on-love, sad, realism, reviewed, favourites

What an amazing book! It's short but perfectly formed, and despite not having the happiest story line ever it sent me away feeling so positive about life; it may not be wonderful, but from being in George's head you learn to appreciate the little things. I think the final message of this book is "take life as it comes, and enjoy it, because any day could be your last- don't worry about death, it's inevitable, but there is so much to experience and take pleasure in before then".

(view spoiler)...more

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Jul 16, 2011 Lavinia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, fiction, in-en

I'm one of those people that would have never read "A Single Man" if it weren't for Tom Ford and Colin Firth. To be truly honest, I think I'd rather watch the film again than reread the book (despite some changes in the film version), and that's mostly for the incredible cinematography, the stunning interiors and have you noticed how awesome Colin looks in those suits?

However, one year apart, I've totally forgotten one important detail: everything happens in an ordinary, augmented day. To an (ex...more

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Jun 03, 2009 Iris rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: teachers, loners, orators, gym members

Shelves: novels

An intense, subtle page-turner that will so absorb you that you'll wonder if you've briefly become another person. Specifically, the keen main character, George, who we follow through a day in which he thinks about Jim, his recently deceased partner, while he walks through life: driving to Laurel Canyon, teaching an Aldous Huxley novel in a lecture hall, going to the gym, passionately opining, and observing others' awkwardness or obliviousness around his gayness. Isherwood's focus on careful obs...more

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May 20, 2012 Alexander Ellis rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A stream-of-consciousness day-in-the-life of a middle aged English professor living in 20th century Los Angeles.

Isherwood manages to convey with acute hazy detail the thought process of a literature scholar - or possibly the entire human race, I really shouldn't act as if we are a different species - but most importantly the idea of being utterly at odds with oneself. No clear argument is presented, but rather we are allowed access into a fumble-through of a man's daily life: a process which br...more

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Jan 26, 2013 Lucrezia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

<<"Riguarda l'esperienza continuano a ripeterci che quando saremo più grandi avremo esperienze come se fosse chissà quale conquista.Lei cosa ne pensa professore? L' esperienza serve davvero?
"Che tipo di esperienza?"
"Be',posti in cui si è stati, gente che si è incontrata. Situazioni già vissute,così che quando si ripresentano sai come affrontarle. Tutte quelle scemenze che con gli anni dovrebbero farti diventare saggio."
"Lascia che ti dica una cosa,Kenny. Non posso parlare per gli altri, ma...more <<"Riguarda l'esperienza continuano a ripeterci che quando saremo più grandi avremo esperienze come se fosse chissà quale conquista.Lei cosa ne pensa professore? L' esperienza serve davvero?
"Che tipo di esperienza?"
"Be',posti in cui si è stati, gente che si è incontrata. Situazioni già vissute,così che quando si ripresentano sai come affrontarle. Tutte quelle scemenze che con gli anni dovrebbero farti diventare saggio."
"Lascia che ti dica una cosa,Kenny. Non posso parlare per gli altri, ma per quel che mi riguarda nulla mi ha fatto diventare saggio. Certo, siccome alcune cose mi sono già capitate, quando si ripresentano mi dico: ci risiamo. Ma non mi pare di nessun aiuto.Secondo me io semmai sono diventato più stupido , anzi divento sempre più stupido:è un fatto."
"Senza scherzi, professore. Non dice sul serio, vero?Non si sente più stupido di quando era giovane?"
"Molto, ma molto più stupido."
"Che mi pigli un colpo...Allora l' esperienza è inutile? Che uno ce l abbia oppure no non cambia nulla?"
"No, non sto dicendo questo.Dico solo che uno non se ne fa niente.Ma se non ci prova nemmeno... se si limita a sapere che esiste, e che la si possiede,allora può essere meravigliosa...">>

Avete presente quei giorni in cui siete in mezzo ad una folla di persone che ridono, urlano, scherzano insomma sono a loro agio completamente, e avete come la sensazione di essere in una bolla d' aria? La loro allegria la avvertite rompersi contro le pareti della bolla e non toccarvi, le loro spalle vi urtano, vi pestano i piedi, ma è solo la scorza; non vi toccano...
Oppure avete presente quelle feste dove tutti conoscono tutti,e voi fate parte degli imbucati, quelli al cui amico non si può dire di no, quando propone di portarvi, perché sarebbe scortese...E quindi tutti vi parlano tentano di farvi sentire a vostro agio, ma nulla... Continuate a starvene appoggiati alla parete desiderando ardentemente di esserne risucchiati, a sentirvi inadeguati, con il vostro patetico bicchiere mezzo vuoto, un sorriso ebete sulla faccia, e la voglia di scappare, qualsiasi posto ma non lì , non ora?

Ecco è così che si sente George il protagonista di "A single man" solo che la sua festa imbarazzante , e le sue persone chiassose sono la sua stessa vita...

"Il risveglio comincia con due parole, sono ed ora. Poi ciò che si è svegliato resta disteso un momento a fissare il soffitto, e se stesso, fino a riconoscere Io e a dedurne Io sono ora. Qui viene dopo, ed è ,almeno in negativo , rassicurante; poiché stamattina è qui che ci si aspetta di essere; come dire, a casa. Ma ora non è semplicemente ora. Ora è anche un freddo promemoria; un intera giornata più di ieri, un anno in più dell' anno scorso. Ogni ora ha un etichetta con una data , che rende obsoleti tutti gli ora passati, finché prima o poi , forse- no , non forse, di sicuro- succederà.
La paura contorce il nervo vago. Un malsano ritrarsi da ciò che, da qualche parte là fuori, ci sta aspettando.
Ma intanto la corteccia, questo severo controllore, ha preso il suo posto ai comandi e li ha verificati uno per uno; le gambe si stirano, la parte inferiore della schiena si inarca, le dita si tendono e si flettono.E a qual punto l' intero sistema riceve il primo ordine del giorno: IN PIEDI."

Ma nonostante tutto continua a vivere (a camminare, a stare appoggiato alla sua parete) perché deve.Ma il suo mondo non gira più da quando Jim se ne è andato, e non vede che l' apparenza delle cose, non vuole più scendere, in profondità, ecco, perché il mondo non è più speciale, da che è morta la persona che glielo rendeva tale. Il mondo non è degno dell' attenzione di George,è così indecorosamente fastidioso, un ' unica cosa è degna dell' attenzione di George: il ricordo. Continua ad insegnare Letteratura all' università dove conosce Kenny uno studente piuttosto brillante che a differenza degli altri osa porgli delle domande, osa ricordargli gli altri stessi , pur tuttavia non quella giuste:

<<" Vedi Kenny, ci sono cose che non sai di sapere, finché qualcuno non te le chiede."(...) "Qualcuno che ti faccia una domanda ci vuole, " continua George,intenzionalmente " prima che tu possa rispondergli. Ma è raro trovare qualcuno che faccia la domanda giusta. Sono tutti così poco attenti.">>

E qui la vita di George ha una scossa, deve andare avanti malgrado Charlotte (una specie di sua migliore amica), malgrado Jim e malgrado tutto il resto. Ma proprio allora la vita cambia idea, e...
Lascio a voi scoprire il resto ...(less)

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Oct 21, 2012 Angus rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: borrowed, reviewed-and-blogged

Original post at Book Rhapsody.

***

One Day in the Life of a Literature Professor

A bookish friend has been raving about the beautiful film adaptation of this since time immemorial, and I couldn’t bring myself to watch it mainly because I do not respond well to rabid recommendations. I hate the feeling of disappointment when high expectations are not met. How could I not have those when the recommender is lost for words and could only plead to just watch the damn movie. Please.

And then out of nowhe...more

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Feb 27, 2012 Linda Lipko rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a hauntingly beautiful book portraying one day in the life of 58 year old George. Written in stream-of-consciousness, the reader is privy to George's unrelenting struggle to cope after losing his lover of 16 years.

Though it has been a year since Jim died, George finds each day difficult, and the simple act of dressing, driving, functioning as a college professor and relating to students, co-workers and friends requires much more energy and emotion than he is capable of exhibiting.

There i...more

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Jan 06, 2010 Eric rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ficciones

A Single Man is a day in the life (quaint naturalist device, that) of a middle-aged Englishman and English professor grieving in a numbed, autopilot kinda way after the recent death of his partner. I remember Don Bachardy saying in the film Chris and Don: A Love Story that Isherwood wrote this novel during one of their trial separations; the intensity of George’s sense of loss was therefore underwritten by Isherwood’s own dreadful imagination of life without Don.

I loved George’s morning, and hi...more A Single Man is a day in the life (quaint naturalist device, that) of a middle-aged Englishman and English professor grieving in a numbed, autopilot kinda way after the recent death of his partner. I remember Don Bachardy saying in the film Chris and Don: A Love Story that Isherwood wrote this novel during one of their trial separations; the intensity of George’s sense of loss was therefore underwritten by Isherwood’s own dreadful imagination of life without Don.

I loved George’s morning, and his Huxley class (doesn’t that date the novel!), but I’ll admit Isherwood lost me for awhile after that, maybe as far as the dinner with Charley; George's small-hours drunken cruise through old beachfront haunts, however, put me back on board. George was drawn and held to Southern California by the shabby 1930s beach bohemianism and the wartime and immediately postwar “Hey Sailor!” fuckfest. He’s a respectable but somewhat incongruous remnant, now that “the cottages that used to reek of bathtub gin and reverberate with the poetry of Hart Crane had fallen to the occupying army of Coke-drinking television watchers”; now that the sexually opportunistic hitchhiking serviceman (his partner Jim was one) has given way to the button-pushing technocrat who freeway commutes between rocket base and Rancho Suburbia. How fitting, really, that A Single Man is dedicated to Gore Vidal, for in addition to the slightly creepy, pre-war America First isolationism, the milieu whose passing Vidal most often mourns is the wartime and immediately postwar “Hey Sailor” fuckfest. Sorry, I needed to type that just one more time.

The ending really moved me. I love how the mystical New Age-y Isherwood creeps up on you under a covering fire of knowing, sardonic humor. Whenever I don’t feel like reading what I’m reading, I stop by for extended visits at one of four books: Nabokov’s The Gift and Speak, Memory, Merrill's A Different Person, or Isherwood’s Diaries: 1939-1960, in which I’m still in the early 1940s, when Isherwood was trying to holistically reconcile swami-directed meditation with what he deplored as his incorrigibly perverse and bitchy personality. Judging by ending of A Single Man, he seems to have worked it out just fine by the early 1960s.

------------------------

Colin Firth looks sexy--Don Draper is a country boy--but WOW the movie sucked! But not any more than most adaptations: overblown, exaggerated, glammed-up, marred by inexplicable additions, distortions and omissions; oh, and there’s weeping violins, because without them how would we know that George is sad? To mangle a novel as clean and tidy as this one really takes imagination. Tom Ford should be congratulated, though, for his instinctive sureness when it came to vulgarizing Isherwood’s story to the needs of this particular entertainment moment: you see, A Single Man was written in the early 1960s, is set in the early 1960s, so basically it’s a gay Mad Men (Jon Hamm even has a cameo!) with zany Almodovarisms and the unironic deployment of perfume commercial slo-mo; and weeping violins. I feel sorry for people who don’t read.

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Dec 12, 2010 Shelley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2010

Very rarely does a film entice me to read the novel afterwards, but this one did. It is a short day-in-the-life story about an English professor, George and how he was coping with the loss of his partner. I was amazed with what few details were shared about Jim, I was feeling the loss profoundly right along with him. It was wonderful - the prose was spare and the feelings of sadness and loneliness were powerfully captured. I loved it.

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Jun 18, 2012 London rated it 4 of 5 stars

I actually saw the movie first and loved it. Then I saw an old copy of the book at a garage sale and knew I had to have it. It was a short and quick read and well worth it. The main character has such an interesting perspective on life and I found myself underlining every other line and writing little comments to myself. I would recommend this to those who have dedication to books and love looking for deeper meanings than what the other writes in plain black and white. And I highly recommend the...more

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Dec 29, 2009 Gail Cooke rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you have not read Christopher Isherwood you have missed the work of a brilliant author. This particular book was praised by the NY Times as "...a sad, sly report on the predicament of the human animal." Isherwood's prose is spare, mesmerizing; his words well chosen, succinct, meaningful. Most importantly, his writings are true.

When first published about a half century ago A SINGLE MAN was considered shocking as it portrayed for the first time the life of a gay man, George, who was recently b...more

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Apr 20, 2013 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned, favorites

“‘But, before we can go any further, you’ve got to make up your minds what this novel actually is about.’

“They spend the rest of the hour making up their minds.

“At first, as always, there is a blank silence. The class sits staring, as it were, at the semantically prodigious word. About. What is it about? Well, what does George want them to say it’s about? They’ll say it’s about anything he likes, anything at all. For nearly all of them, despite their academic training, deep, deep down still rega...more

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Mar 21, 2013 Mersini rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: lgbt, literature, kindle

This novel is a fantastic exploration of sexuality and living outside the norm whilst keeping up the appearance of being part of the norm. It also explores loss, and pushes the boundaries of teacher-student relationships (in a way almost akin to Harbach's The Art of Fielding) while maintaining little to none of the perversion that might be expected to come of that.

And it's beautifully written, from the moment where George wakes up not quite being the George that the world knows, to the very end,...more

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Feb 13, 2013 J. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

George a British English lit professor is adjusting to life after the loss of his partner Jim. We follow him throughout one day as he gets up for work (the opening paragraph is genial) and goes about his day attending the college where he works, meeting friends and acquaintances around L.A. You ache for George and his loss but the book isn't overly sentimental, memories of Jim pop up throughout the day but these memories are underlying and not all encompassing. Sometimes the character addresses...more

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Dec 10, 2012 Literary Relish rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

George is a middle-aged literature professor at a California University. Having lost his partner Jim in a terrible car accident, the aftermath of which, due to stigma against gay men in the 1960s, he could play no part, he is stumbling through daily life trying desperately to cope with his grief. Although I’m a staunch book before film girl, the resurgence that Isherwood’s beautiful novella has experienced since Tom Ford’s 2009 creation means I am absolutely busting to run and shake the man’s ha...more

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Sep 01, 2012 Camilla rated it 3 of 5 stars

I finished this, literally, 20 minutes ago. In all, the book took maybe 3 hours to plough through. It should perhaps have taken longer - it's not a light read. It's a Mrs Dalloway-esque journey through one day in one man's life. But where Ms Woolf is (always) poignant and subtle, Mr Isherwood is about as subtle as a KFC ad.

Which is not to say that he doesn't attempt to be subtle. Perhaps, on a close reading, he appears to be that way. On a superficial reading, there is this dichotomy between the...more

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Jun 04, 2012 Russell George rated it 4 of 5 stars

Isherwood does a very clever thing with perspective in this book. For the most part, it’s a stream of consciousness of its protagonist, George, an Englishman in his 50’s living in Los Angeles in the early 1960s. George, an English professor at a local university, is trying to come to terms with the death of his long-term partner, Jim. But there are varying layers to the consciousness that Isherwood provides; different levels of awareness are brought in with skill and subtlety, so that you both u...more

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Apr 07, 2012 Marvin rated it 4 of 5 stars

A Single Man is an unusual book – first because it makes a day in the quotidian existence of a man engrossing, secondly because unlike many gay themed books, it’s not the least bit gaudy or salacious. The fact that George is gay isn’t the overpowering theme in the novel. We see him as a miserable, broken-down man still mourning the loss of someone he loved very dearly while trying to survive day-by-day. Also, the book is written in the third-person which, although being rather impersonal until s...more

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Jan 04, 2012 Andreea rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: lgbt

Oh, Mr Isherwood my heart breaks for you. How could it not with lines like these:

Because the persecuting majority is vile, says th liberal, therefore the persecuted minority must be stainlessly pure. Can't you see what nonsense that is? What's to prevent the bad from being persecuted by the worse? Did all the Christian victims in the arena have to be saints?

I think, to a large extent, Isherwood's purpose in this extraordinary book was to show that a mature attempt at ensuring equal rights for ev...more Oh, Mr Isherwood my heart breaks for you. How could it not with lines like these:

Because the persecuting majority is vile, says th liberal, therefore the persecuted minority must be stainlessly pure. Can't you see what nonsense that is? What's to prevent the bad from being persecuted by the worse? Did all the Christian victims in the arena have to be saints?

I think, to a large extent, Isherwood's purpose in this extraordinary book was to show that a mature attempt at ensuring equal rights for everyone must be based on reality, not on idealization. And the reality is that gay men are not all saints and their not being saints (because, for example, they seduce their young attractive students) does not mean they don't deserve rights. I think too that that's why we get so many grotty details (e.g. the long-ish section in the bathroom at the beginning) next to passages of unbelievable beauty. This is really where the film fails for me, everything is just too pretty. It would be very hard for Colin Firth not to be pretty, of course, but it's not just him, everybody in this film is stunning - Nicholas Hoult, Jon Kortajarena (whose character does not appear in Isherwood's text at all), Matthew Goode and, of course, Julianne Moore (whose character is decidedly ugly and pathetic in the book but turns out to be not only gorgeous, but somehow a major love interest for George in the film for absolutely no reason) - they're all perfectly tanned, muscly and gorgeous. As others have pointed out, the film itself is very Mad Men-like, very glamours and colourful and there's all this talk about bombs and consumerism (which is pretty marginal in the novel, but got more focus in the film because you can't really make a film about an old gay man in love, you have to take the old gay man in love, make him straight and then add all kinds of ~universal~ themes to which everyone can ~relate~, otherwise nobody's going to watch your film) which I feel goes both ways. I do enjoy Mad Men, but mostly because it's pretty and it's hilarious how seriously it takes itself, Isherwood's book I enjoyed in a completely different, heart-tightening way, I feel like the two don't quite work together.(less)

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Jun 27, 2011 Dolly Delightly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Walking in the rain cowering under a decrepit umbrella I inadvertently caught glimpse of A Single Man in the bookshop window. Having read the book and recently seen the film I started thinking about the latter’s unfulfilled promise and that perhaps it is impossible to credibly enact the abreaction of heartbreak. Irrespective of this notion I must concede that Colin Firth did a stellar job playing George Falconer, an impeccably well-groomed and dapper 58 year old English professor, domiciled in L...more Walking in the rain cowering under a decrepit umbrella I inadvertently caught glimpse of A Single Man in the bookshop window. Having read the book and recently seen the film I started thinking about the latter’s unfulfilled promise and that perhaps it is impossible to credibly enact the abreaction of heartbreak. Irrespective of this notion I must concede that Colin Firth did a stellar job playing George Falconer, an impeccably well-groomed and dapper 58 year old English professor, domiciled in Los Angeles, anthropocentric by circumstance and consumed by quotidian ritual mourning of his recently deceased lover, Jim.

Christopher Isherwood opens the book with a somewhat unconventional gambit, an evocation of an ethereal atmosphere relayed by some omniscient narrator who says: “Waking up begins with saying am and now. That which has awoken then lies for a while staring up at the ceiling and down into itself until it has recognized I, and there from deduced I am, I am now. Here comes next, and is at least negatively reassuring; because here, this morning, is where it has expected to find itself: what’s called at home.” The voice is resigned and detached, much like the protagonist is from his immediate environment made unfamiliar by the absence of a loved one. Staring at himself in the mirror George is a “live dying creature… a prisoner for life” with a face frozen in an “expression of a predicament” and yet despite his palpable grief and inward inertia he does not violate his infrangible routine or neglect the crispness of his white shirts, the spotless shine of his bespoke shoes or the immaculately calculated creases in his trousers – for these are all the inane appurtenances that keep him going.

That and the memories of everyday life which he shared with Jim, including breakfast which “used to be one of the best times of their day. It was then, while they were drinking their second and third cups of coffee, that they had their best talks. They talked about everything that came into their heads—including death, of course, and is there survival, and, if so, what exactly is it that survives.” George is overwhelmed by such recollections throughout the book until they prompt him to exclaim dejectedly: “Damn all life.” Yet he, like most bereaved, goes along with the inevitable daily grind, trapped in a place where conformity and eccentricity coexist in beautifully counterfeit harmony – a pristine Californian suburb, with lovat-green lawns and aureate cardboard housewives, observing the world through horn-rimmed spectacles in a seemingly detached, sardonic and curious manner. George appears remote and quintessentially aloof and as sophisticated as his modish tie and perfectly cut suit. Yet, under the perfectly-turned out exterior George is making arrangements to sever his life. Not only because of the loss of his lover but also his frustration with the political rights of “persecuted minorities”, because as he himself sees it he too belongs to one, and like “everyone with an acute criminal complex” he is “hyperconscious” and fed up with all the unjust “bylaws, city ordinances, rules and petty regulations.”

A Single Man is semi-autobiographical, as was most of Isherwood’s work, and charts a very specific period in America: that of the Cuban missile crisis and the sexual revolution of the 60s galvanizing the nation’s youth into disrepute. The revolutionary social ambience is often relayed in a negative light through George’s cynical internal monologues, and a feeling of “a sort of vertigo” he experiences whenever he is caught up in the whirl of it all. As a University Professor he feels obligated to support the social and political changes, and the climate of progress, yet inwardly while surveying the students on campus, he says: “Oh God, what will become of them all? What chance have they? Ought I to yell out to them, right now, here, that it’s hopeless?” But, as the narrator observes: “George knows he can’t do that. Because, absurdly, inadequately, in spite of himself almost, he is a representative of the hope. And the hope is not false. No. It’s just that George is like a man trying to sell a real diamond for a nickel, on the street. The diamond is protected from all but the tiniest few, because the great hurrying majority can never stop to dare to believe that it could conceivably be real.” Still, the pessimistic Professor makes his feelings clear during a lecture to a plenum of gormless, docile and culturally homogenised drones. A single one of whom, Kenny, enthralled by George’s spiel, latches on to the wizened bard and pursues him in hope of enlightenment and an altruistic want to help. In truth, there is no point to Kenny and his attempts to rescue George are as authentic as his phoney Californian tan.

George is resolute in his decision – the bell does toll and it tolls for him. He carefully sets out his funerary attire and places a note by the tie instructing it should be fastened in a Windsor knot, forgetting that the remnants of his face will be impossible to piece together after he fires that bullet into his mouth. What follows is a rather exasperating episode of a man attempting to end his life in several nuances of procrastination, repositioning of pillows, placement discomfiture, a sleeping bag and quite ironically a saving by the bell. Throughout the book George has a few and mostly meaningless encounters – one with the aforementioned student Kenny, another with a nameless young stud straight out of a 1960s Levis ad who murmurs some idiotic bromide tale about the dreamland that’s America, and lastly and most profoundly with a fellow Brit and former lover Charley. She is the only one who penetrates his iron carapace to bring out the weakness and vulnerability he by nature conceals. A fellow expatriate, a former paramour, and a divorcee with kohl-black eyes, a marzipan complexion, moiré-like flaxen hair spiralling like a pineal nimbus skyward, Charley flitters in her Mary Quant dress like a sad aging beauty queen. After an extended boozy dinner and an impromptu jig in the backdrop of period-perfect Italian furniture the two lay on the floor reminiscing. While George grieves his recently deceased lover Charley reflects on a love lost long ago, a love she’d harboured for George since their early days back in London. Her plangent disposition and a dram too much gin results in a temerarious attempt to evoke the past as George is leaving she “kisses him full on the mouth…It’s one of those drunken long-shots.” George rebuffs her, wondering “Do women ever stop trying? No, but because they never stop, they learn to be good losers”, before kissing her on the forehead as if she is a “child who has at last submitted to being tucked into her cot.” All throughout A Single Man I wondered whether it is harder to mourn a dead love or a love that is hypothetically dead. And, frankly I think am none the wiser.

I remember watching the film and thinking it was mostly style with only a smidgeon of substance and would have had even less of the latter had it not been for the performance of Firth. I’m not a fan of the man (who could take him seriously after the Bridget Jones franchise?) but he does do that very English air of resignation incredibly well. While he hardly traverses the emotional spectrum the film is probably the best he’s ever done. And yet I doubt there has ever been an English teacher quite as dashing either on celluloid in literature or indeed in life. I remember my own: he sported purple socks, had hirsute ears, halitosis, imbibed great quantities of Irish coffee and was intolerably verbose. Not quite the matinee idol. But life is no matinee, with its waters “swarming with hunted anxieties, grimjawed greeds, dartingly vivid intuitions, old crusty-shelled rock-gripping obstinacies, deep-down sparkling undiscovered secrets, ominous protean organisms motioning mysteriously, perhaps warningly, toward the surface light.” I have both read, understood and misunderstood a lot of books, have done things on my own, have loved, failed, been afraid and felt lost.But above all, I have hoped, perhaps sometimes subconsciously, that my existence has some intrinsic value. Yet, despite wanting to disagree with Isherwood I can’t when he says one’s life, as one’s body, is like “garbage in the container on the back porch” because before too long “both will have to be carted away and disposed of.” That’s the truth of it – the real truth, somewhat different from a matinee but life is never really one of those.(less)

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May 18, 2011 Savanna rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult, classics, modern-literature

A Single Man is yet another of the books I am currently reading for my Modern Novel class, and I also have the fabulous opportunity of reading it under the guidance of one of the most dedicated Isherwood scholars around. From the very first passage, you know you are reading something fantastic. Isherwood doesn't have the impressionistic style of Woolf, and he doesn't feel the need to write EXACTLY how people think, like Joyce. He simply lets a few thoughts run, and sees where they go for however...more A Single Man is yet another of the books I am currently reading for my Modern Novel class, and I also have the fabulous opportunity of reading it under the guidance of one of the most dedicated Isherwood scholars around. From the very first passage, you know you are reading something fantastic. Isherwood doesn't have the impressionistic style of Woolf, and he doesn't feel the need to write EXACTLY how people think, like Joyce. He simply lets a few thoughts run, and sees where they go for however long they stay.

I love the candid nature of George's mind... like when he fantasizes about tormenting all the jerks in the world who piss him off (you know, the jerk who cuts you off on the highway, that smug bastard down the street). These are all urges that people feel, but we push them down because, as George thinks, there's a certain expectation that people and the universe have of you. You will get up. You will put on real pants. You will go to work. At the start of the day, George is aware that the day is going to suck, and by the end of the day both he and the reader realize that it was probably a pretty good day, actually. This is kind of reassuring. And I'm just saying kind of because the ending is very, VERY vague as to whether or not George will be capable of having a decent day tomorrow, too.

One of the most interesting aspects of this book is the intentions of the author, the fact that it's not too far off from Isherwood's own life, and how George's/Isherwood's sexuality comes into play. Isherwood is gay. George is gay and mourning his dead lover, Jim. But Isherwood repeatedly held that A Single Man is not a "Gay" book; it is a book about the downtrodden minorities of every type (race, age, and sexuality primarily, though I'm sure you could argue it represents minorities of any other kind you could think of) represented through the metaphor of George's homosexuality. But then again, that was just how Isherwood said he meant the book, and many authors (including the amazing John Green) have argued that the author's intention is irrelevant, and that the reader's interpretation is king, though there are both good and bad readings.

Ok, Ok, I'll pull back the English Major stuff now. But Isherwood's prose is amazing, his insight into the human psyche is inspired, and the book is a light and fairly easy read on top of that. And it also functions as a more or less working map of L.A. in the 60's, so if you want a bit of a time-warp vacation, this book is for you!

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May 02, 2011 Chelsea rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: gay-lesbian-fiction, heartbreakingly-beautiful

A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood’s novella, focuses on a day in the life of George, a slightly-more-than-middle-aged English professor at a California University who, from the first page, is mourning the recent and sudden death of his lover, Jim. George gets ready for work, goes about his day, and can’t keep himself from alternately enjoying so much of the beauty he sees around him (there is quite a beautiful description of two men playing tennis who George turns into Demigods) and being dist...more A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood’s novella, focuses on a day in the life of George, a slightly-more-than-middle-aged English professor at a California University who, from the first page, is mourning the recent and sudden death of his lover, Jim. George gets ready for work, goes about his day, and can’t keep himself from alternately enjoying so much of the beauty he sees around him (there is quite a beautiful description of two men playing tennis who George turns into Demigods) and being distraught over the loss of Jim. One of the few things that brings him out of his constant mental monologue is the interactions with his students – especially a young man named Kenny, who George runs into at a seaside bar later that night. After having increasingly-drunken conversations with Kenny, and recklessly taking a naked swim in the ocean with the young student, George and Kenny return to George’s house, where George promptly passes out without committing any heinously inappropriate actions. In the morning, Kenny is gone. The novel’s end is surprisingly sweet concerning the content, and it makes the last ten-ish pages some of the most beautiful in the novel.

I think one of the things I liked most about the book was that, despite the fact that it’s entire book about a single day, nothing felt tedious or drawn out. Isherwood was able to explore the deeper levels of George’s internal character by contrasting glimpses of his life with Jim (having animals, enjoying the cosy house) with the life he is currently living (no more animals, depressed in a cramped house) and by allowing him to briefly – and, of course, in code – discuss his more sexual side with Kenny. The two never engage in any direct sexual action, but George is able to work out some of his more conflicted internal feelings by discussing them in metaphor with Kenny. I also loved the relationship between George and his neighbor Charley, a fellow Englishwoman who, at some point in time earlier in the future, also had a relationship with Jim.

These three character form a kind of make-shift family that I can sympathize with enormously, seeing as how my best friend and his boyfriend are two of the most important people in my life. But the thing about George and Charly is that both of them seem to want something different than what they have, but neither can identify it or take steps to achieve it. For Charley, this means wanting desperately to return to England but knowing that this will never happen. For George, it simply means a longing that can’t be satisfied now that Jim is gone. But there is something achingly poetic about the two of them together, because as much as they love each other, they’re not necessarily good for each other.

The end of the book is, perhaps, my favorite part – although that always sounds like such an awful thing to say! Without giving spoilers, it’s a little difficult to talk about and, thus, SPOILER ALERTS! STOP READING RIGHT NOW IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW! YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!!! George’s death at the end of the novel seems to be the most fitting ending possible, especially because throughout the book you get the sense that George isn’t really even living his life anymore. He’s just…going through the motions, without aim and without much drive. That isn’t to say that he’s not happy in his life. More just that he’s not actively involved. The last dozen pages outline a hypothetical reality – “suppose if, after Jim died, a slow and subtle blockage began to form…” (that’s not a direct quote, but you get the idea!) and, essentially, it outlines the physical occurrences of having a heart attack. George’s ending is poetic and final, but it’s fitting. END SPOILER ALERT!! YOU MAY NOW COMMENCE READING!

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Nov 27, 2010 Gerry Burnie rated it 5 of 5 stars

How do you go about reviewing Christopher Isherwood [“A Single Man,” Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1964, Vintage Classics, 2010] without the urge to genuflect at the beginning of each chapter? Answer: You don’t! It is somewhat similar to reviewing E.M. Forster, or perhaps Charles Dickens. To comment on Isherwood’s strengths as a writer would be presumptuous to say the least. His strengths lie in each word, times the number of words in a phrase, multiplied by the number of phrases in a paragraph, etc.,...more

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Nov 21, 2010 Rachel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010

After getting a new job this fall 1.4 miles away from my home, I decided it'd be fun to walk to/from work and listen to an audiobook. Through searching the local library's selections, I decided to pick this as my first audiobook. I knew it had been recently made into a movie (with one of my favorite actors, Colin Firth), and the story intrigued me.

Admittedly, I'm not sure I got as much out of the book as I would have had I read it. I find myself daydreaming while listening to an audiobook, espec...more

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About Christopher Isherwood

Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed. After his father was killed in the First World War, he settled with his mother in London and at Wyberslegh.

Isherwood attended preparatory school St. Edmund's, Surrey, where he first met W. H. Auden. At Repton School he met his lifelong friend Edward Upward, with whom he wrote t...more Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed. After his father was killed in the First World War, he settled with his mother in London and at Wyberslegh.

Isherwood attended preparatory school St. Edmund's, Surrey, where he first met W. H. Auden. At Repton School he met his lifelong friend Edward Upward, with whom he wrote the extravagant "Mortmere" stories, only one of which was published during his lifetime (a few others appeared after his death, and others were summarised in his Lions and Shadows). He deliberately failed his tripos and left Corpus Christi College, Cambridge without a degree in 1925.

In 1925 he was reintroduced to W. H. Auden, and became Auden's literary mentor and partner in an intermittent, casual liaison, as Auden sent his poems to Isherwood for comment and approval. Through Auden, Isherwood met Stephen Spender, with whom he later spent much time in Germany. His first novel, All the Conspirators, appeared in 1928; it is an anti-heroic story, written in a pastiche of many modernist novelists, about a young man who is defeated by his mother. In 1928-29 Isherwood studied medicine at King's College London, but gave it up after six months to join Auden for a few weeks in Berlin.
Rejecting his upper-class background and attracted to males, he remained in Berlin, the capital of the young Weimar Republic, drawn by its reputation for sexual freedom. There, he "fully indulged his taste for pretty youths. He went to Berlin in search of boys and found one called Heinz, who became his first great love."

In 1931 he met Jean Ross, the inspiration of his fictional character Sally Bowles; he also met Gerald Hamilton, the inspiration for the fictional Mr. Norris. In September 1931 the poet William Plomer introduced him to E. M. Forster; they became close and Forster served as a mentor to the young writer. Isherwood's second novel, The Memorial (1932), was another of his stories of conflict between mother and son, based closely on his own family history. During one of his returns to London he worked with the director Berthold Viertel on the film Little Friend, an experience that became the basis of his novel Prater Violet (1945). He worked as a private tutor in Berlin and elsewhere while writing the novel Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935) and a series of short stories collected under the title Goodbye to Berlin (1939). A memorial plaque to Isherwood has been erected on the house in Schöneberg, Berlin, where he lived.

During these years he moved around Europe, living in Copenhagen, Sintra and elsewhere, and collaborated on three plays with Auden, The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935), The Ascent of F6 (1936), and On the Frontier (1939). Isherwood wrote a lightly fictionalized autobiographical account of his childhood and youth, Lions and Shadows (1938), using the title of an abandoned novel. Auden and Isherwood travelled to China in 1938 to gather material for their book on the Sino-Japanese War called Journey to a War (1939).

Having visited New York on their way back to the UK, Auden and Isherwood decided to emigrate to the United States. He met Gerald Heard, the mystic-historian who founded his own monastery at Trabuco Canyon that was eventually gifted 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, 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, plays and screenplays, all imbued with the themes and character of Vedanta and the Upanishadic quest.

At the age of 81, Isherwood died in 1986 at Santa Monica, California from prostate cancer.

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The Berlin Stories: The Last of Mr. Norris & Goodbye to Berlin

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Quotes from A Single Man

“A few times in my life I’ve had moments of absolute clarity. When for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp and the world seems so fresh. It’s as though it had all just come into existence.
I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be.” — 141 people liked it

“Think of two people, living together day after day, year after year, in this small space, standing elbow to elbow cooking at the same small stove, squeezing past each other on the narrow stairs, shaving in front of the same small bathroom mirror, constantly jogging, jostling, bumping against each other’s bodies by mistake or on purpose, sensually, aggressively, awkwardly, impatiently, in rage or in love – think what deep though invisible tracks they must leave, everywhere, behind them!” — 102 people liked it

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