Christopher Isherwood

From Philosopedia

Isherwood, Christopher (26 August 1904 - 4 January 1986)

Because the novelist and playwright Isherwood, upon deserting his native England in 1939 for the safety of the United States, fell in with Thomas Mann and Bertrand Russell, some may have assumed he was interested in rationalism and a non-theist outlook.

Actually, however, he also fell in with Swami Prabhavananda, with whom he produced a translation of the Bhagavad-Gita; and with Aldous Huxley, sharing his interest in mescaline. Vedanta as well as Hindu philosophy became important, much as for his friend W. H. Auden, with whom he co-authored Journey to a War (1939), Anglo-Catholicism was important.

Isherwood once argued with Russell and Julian Huxley, who were concerned about Aldous Huxley. Isherwood (in Christopher Isherwood: Diaries, Volume One: 1939—1960, published in 1997) wrote: “Did he—I mean—er, that is—do you mean to say he actually, er, really—prays?” “And why,” asked Bertie, “does Aldous talk about Ulltimate Reality? Surely one kind of reality isn’t any more or less real than another.”

Isherwood’s mysticism and Vedantism is featured in many of his writings. The frank description of the early days of his homosexuality is found in Christopher and His Kind (1976). His best-known work was the section “Sally Bowles” which John Van Druten dramatized in I Am A Camera (1951) and which was turned into a stage musical in 1968 as Cabaret.