A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood; narrated by Simon Prebble | 2014; originally published 1964 | Recorded Books | Audiobook $ 16
George is adjusting to life on his own after the sudden death of his partner, and determines to persist in the routines of his daily life; the course of A Single Man spans twenty-four hours in an ordinary day. An Englishman and a professor living in suburban Southern California, he is an outsider in every way, and his internal reflections and interactions with others reveal a man who loves being alive despite everyday injustices and loneliness.
I know I’ve mentioned before that one of my goals for this whole classic lit project is to expose myself to perspectives of people who have had very different experiences from my own. This often means reading books by or about people of color or reading classics from other countries, but in this case it also means reading a story from the perspective of a gay man.
As a cis-het woman, I am accustomed to reading stories from the perspective of women like me and from cis-het men (or people whose gender or sexuality don’t have anything to do with the story at all) — aren’t we all? And, to be clear, quite a few of the books on my shelves include queer characters. But getting a story that is explicitly from the perspective of a queer person, in which his queerness plays a major part, has been a relatively rare experience for me thus far.
A Single Man tells the story of a day in the life of George, a professor in California, who has recently experienced the death of his life partner, Jim. The story is set in the early 1960’s; despite being in a comparatively socially liberal location, where they could at least live together without fear of being lynched, they could not really be officially “out” — George cannot publicly mourn or be offered condolences in the way that a widower might expect, and Jim’s body is retrieved by his family for a far-away funeral that he cannot attend.
George must compartmentalize his grief and go on living as best he can for another day. He’s a multi-faceted character. He’s introspective and thoughtful and truly seems to care about the other people he encounters throughout the story. He’s also peevish and snobby and quite judgemental of everyone else. He fantasizes about the men at his gym and casually flirts with his students. He also contemplates the deeper meaning of his life in this new world without Jim. George is gay, yes, and that’s a big part of his life, but this story illustrates him as more than just a one-dimensional campy stereotype. The level of complexity conveyed about this one character’s life in such a slim volume is impressive.
I struggled a little bit with rating this one. I’m not usually a big fan of slice-of-life stories — not that they’re objectively bad, I just tend to prefer stories with a little more action or with the focus on more than one character. My reaction to this book while reading it vacillated wildly between fascination with this glimpse into an interesting individual’s inner life, to thinking the story was in fact just rather dull and not really going anywhere. But after finishing it, I kept thinking about it off and on for a few days. That’s ultimately a sign of a good, or at least thought-provoking, book.
I would recommend this book to other readers who want a story from the perspective of a gay character, in which his sexuality is significant to the story, particularly if you’re interested in this sort of story from a not-too-distant-past historical perspective.
Links:
- The Christopher Isherwood Foundation
- Obituary of Christopher Isherwood from the New York Times
- Biography of Christopher Isherwood from ThoughtCo.
- “Christopher Isherwood in Exile” article from Verso by The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Publication information: Isherwood, Christopher. A single man. Landover, Maryland: Recorded Books, 2009. Audiobook.
Source: Public library, via Overdrive/Libby.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated, monetarily or otherwise, for reviews of books or other products.
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