Christopher and His Kind

I redesigned Christopher Isherwood's Christopher and His Kind book cover. I took the art deco book cover and the 2011 movie poster and mashed them up into an art deco style version of the movie poster.

Book Review:

Christopher Isherwood is known as a pioneer of gay literature. He wrote many fictional books based oh his life in Berlin’s gay community in the early to mid 1900s. Christopher and His Kind, is one of Isherwood’s few non-fictional books and is very much an autobiography. The book was written as a reflection on ten years of his life from 1929-1939. The book was published in early 1976 and gathers Isherwood’s, diary entries, letters between Isherwood and his close friends, excerpts from his books and personal memory into one intellectually gripping book.

Christopher and His Kind was in many ways Isherwood’s tell all book. He writes of his outlandish friends and what characters they inspired in his previous novels, We meet Gerald Hamilton, the main character from Mr. Norris Changes Trains. Gerald is an older gay man who is known throughout Europe as a slimy conman who Christopher (like many others) is drawn to. Isherwood also writes about the Dramatic Jean Ross, the Lead character in Sally Bowls, she is a loud and theatrical British woman to which Christopher has a sisterly connection to. 

We also get to meet Christopher’s Personal friends and Colleagues like Wystan Auden, a satyrical poet who invites Christopher to Berlin in the first place; E.M. Forester, Author of the widely successful A passage to India and Isherwood’s mentor; Stephen Spender known for his many books of poetry. Then there is of course, Heinz Neddermeyer, Christopher’s love interest for the majority of the book, who he explored Europe with in the mid 1930s.

The story begins as Christopher takes a short vacation to visit Wystan Auden in Berlin. Auden takes Christopher around berlin, showing him the underground bars where Berlin’s gay culture thrived. After this trip, Christopher falls in love with Berlin and shortly after, moves there permanently. Christopher Lived in Berlin, moving to new parts of the city and meeting new people and writing new books, until the Nazi takeover in 1933. Christopher spent much of his time after leaving Germany in England, writing screenplays and trying desperately to get Heinz out of Germany. Christopher begins to develop a hatred for the U.K. and struggles to get both he and Heinz to the United States.

Christopher and His Kind as a book in entirety, is incredibly interesting because of the way that it is narrated, Isherwood talks in both the first and third person at any said time, attempting to distinguish between his past self and his present self. This leads to a multi-layered story, with the almost novelesque writings of his experiences in the 20s and 30s, but with an overlying narration from Isherwood, where he looks back and explains why he did something or how he feels about a certain topic now that he is older. In this  overlying narration, he adds in interesting things for the reader like diary entries, letters and poems. This makes Christopher and His Kind a fascinating theory book to boot, Isherwood deals with homosexuality and human behavior and contemplates them in a way that one can only do many years after the fact.

BBC released a movie based on Christopher and His Kind in 2011. Needless to say, it is very different than the book, having Christopher and all of his friends live in the same apartment building together when in reality, they may never have met each other at all. BBC did a fantastic job casting the rolls for the movie and the actors look exactly how Isherwood describes them in the book. The visual of the characters from the the movie crossed with the depth of the characters from the book created a very 3D and real aspect to story.

The movie has a phenomenal cast, starring Matt Smith who gives a remarkable performance as Christopher. Smith captured many of Isherwood’s mannerisms and plays a remarkably believable gay man. Watching the movie, then reading the book can be very interesting in terms of contrast, Smith gives such a wonderful performance as Christopher that one can’t help but prefer to imagine him rather than Isherwood in the role. Although That’s not to discount Isherwood’s writing style. Isherwood is known as one of the most influential Gay writers of his time. If you’re a fan of gay and lesbian literature, read any of Isherwood’s books, and know that they are the first of their kind. 

Christopher and His Kind

Christopher Isherwood

Publisher: Mc-Graw Hill

Year Published: 1976

Pages: 339 

Gay, Drama, Romance, Autobiography