Mr Isherwood Changes Trains: Christopher Isherwood and the search for the 'home self'

by Victor Marsh

British expatriate writer Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986) lived more than half his life in California, writing for the Hollywood studios. Famous initially for the stories he wrote about his time in Berlin during the rise of the Nazis, he attracted a second wave of interest in the 1970s with his 'out' biography Christopher and His Kind. But much less is known about Christopher Isherwood's writing during his forty years as a student of guru from the Ramakrishna Order. In Mr Isherwood Changes Trains , Victor Marsh confronts the assumptions and prejudices that have combined to disparge the sincerity of Isherwood's religious life. Marsh elucidates those features of Vedanta philosophy that enabled Isherwood to integrate the various aspects of his his vocation as a writer, and a spirituality not based on the repudiation of his sexuality. Marsh details the life search for a 'home self' that found expression in later works such as My Guru and His Disciple and in what it is seen as Isherwood's finest novel, A Single Man .

310 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

During twenty years in television - in Sydney, Melbourne and Los Angeles - Victor worked on shows in various formats. Previously, as a theatre critic, he agitated for the cause of Australian writing for the stage and was a member of the politically active Australian Performing Group at the Pram Factory Theatre in Carlton, Victoria.

During the 1970s and early 80s he spent more than a decade of rigorous but blissful life as a monk, teaching meditation on behalf of his guru in a dozen countries throughout East Asia, North America, Australia and the South Pacific.

Victor earned his PhD at the University of Queensland with a study of spiritual autobiographies by gay men and a dissertation titled, "The Journey of the Queer 'I'". His 2010 book "Mr Isherwood Changes Trains: Christopher Isherwood and the search for the 'home-self'" focused on Isherwood's often neglected religious writing and his 40 year relationship with his guru, Swami Prabhavananda, the head of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society, in Hollywood California.

In 2011, Victor compiled and edited a collection of essays: "Speak Now: Australian perspectives on same-sex marriage" for the Melbourne publisher, Clouds of Magellan. Retired High Court Justice Michael Kirby contributed a Foreword to the collection.

His most recent book is the autobiographical "The Boy in the Yellow Dress."

In addition to many articles and contributed chapters for academic journals and essay collections, recent short memoir pieces have appeared in "Griffith REVIEW" and "Wilde magazine".

Reviews

[mayhugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Quietism is not the inevitable corollary of mystical experience." I adore this book.