Rating: 
Summary: Life (Gay or Otherwise) as Spirited, Reflective Theater
Review: On the surface it might not seem material for the "classic" book it becomes. It's one day in the life of George, a state-college professor in California, a gay transplanted Britisher and a gay widower in his fifties. But the novel glows with staginess, with theatrical perspective--how we act toward others, notice how others perceive us. (Shakespeare said all life is a stage, we players play our parts, etc....The modern sociologist Erwin Goffman more craftily saw human interaction dramatically, how we do "impression management," how we slyly "observe the unobserved observer" and the like....And semiotics studies signs, whether conventional--red light means danger--or deviant--subtle dress-cues). A SINGLE MAN exemplifies this life-as-theater; George notices, wonders, etc. This is good for its specific gay material (double life; stereotypes; coming out halfway or not; "do they know about me?" and the like. It's also good general human material. Now, this praise of the novel as theatrical revelations, is my own personal response, my insight? bias? both? ever since I read A SINGLE MAN 20 years ago. But beyond this, the novel is a ripping good tale. The breeders next door....love and loss....ageing plus gym-resilience and energy....our plastic education systems....Charlotte the female confidante.... bewitching young students, including Kenny.... and more. Surely one of the best dozen gay novels--as a novel.
Rating:
Summary: A "Single" Masterpiece
Review: This is the first Isherwood novel I have read and now I wonder why I waited so long. This is remarkably still fresh novel (despite some 60's historical references) about a gay man who has trajically lost his partner and is trying to move on with his life. A man who through it all loves life and see the humor and irony in daily living. As saying goes, "everything changes but still remains the same." Some readers see this book as "depressing" and a "downer" I see it as a all-too-ultra-real tale of a modern day gay male. While gay literature readers can sometimes get lost in the "fluff and buff gym boys at the beach reads", it is wonderful to see a novel that is a renewal of how gay literature can move and inspire generations of readers.
Rating:
Summary: A "Single" Masterpiece
Review: This is the first Isherwood novel I have read and now I wonder why I waited so long. This is remarkably still fresh novel (despite some 60's historical references) about a gay man who has trajically lost his partner and is trying to move on with his life. A man who through it all loves life and see the humor and irony in daily living. As saying goes, "everything changes but still remains the same." Some readers see this book as "depressing" and a "downer" I see it as a all-too-ultra-real tale of a modern day gay male. While gay literature readers can sometimes get lost in the "fluff and buff gym boys at the beach reads", it is wonderful to see a novel that is a renewal of how gay literature can move and inspire generations of readers.
Rating:
Summary: Read this book!
Review: This short novel follows one day in the life of George, a 58-year-old English professor at San Tomas State College in Los Angeles, CA. From the moment he wakes up and shuffles to the bathroom, we are immediately thrust into his perception of life both as a gay man in the 1960s, and without his partner Jim who died in a car accident. His views are based upon both of these events, sometimes viewing the world as a big, happy joke, and other times as a very hostile place.It's a great character study into something I think we don't read about too often: the life of a gay man in his fifties. Too often, gay books deal with men in their twenties and thirties, and if someone older than that appears, he's a caricature or stereotype of the dirty old man. George is very human and is presented in a very realistic manner. Beautifully written. Definitely worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Read this book!
Review: This short novel follows one day in the life of George, a 58-year-old English professor at San Tomas State College in Los Angeles, CA. From the moment he wakes up and shuffles to the bathroom, we are immediately thrust into his perception of life both as a gay man in the 1960s, and without his partner Jim who died in a car accident. His views are based upon both of these events, sometimes viewing the world as a big, happy joke, and other times as a very hostile place. It's a great character study into something I think we don't read about too often: the life of a gay man in his fifties. Too often, gay books deal with men in their twenties and thirties, and if someone older than that appears, he's a caricature or stereotype of the dirty old man. George is very human and is presented in a very realistic manner. Beautifully written. Definitely worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: A Pefect Novel
Review: This was my fourth reading of this brilliantly perfect novel. I am deeply moved each time I reach this book; I cannot imagine how it would have affected me had I read it in 1964 when it was first published. This novel covers one day in the life of George, an English professor at a nondiscript college in California. The time is just before the Christmas season, that time in America dreaded by many of us who live alone. His lover Jim has recently died in a traffic accident. George is an outsider on many levels. He is British living in America, he is gay living in a heterosexual world, he is brillliant among mostly dull, uninteresting and uninterested college students, he is a man of good taste surrounded by tasteless neighbors. Isherwood makes brillilant observations about people: that straight women friends often refuse to give up on making their gay male friends. "Do women ever stop trying? No. But, because they never stop, they learn to be good losers." And George says what I have been saying for years, that all too often minorities hate all other minorites. Another observation is that middle-aged gay men look better than their straight counterparts: "What's wrong with them [straight men] is their fatalistic acceptance of middle age, their ignoble resignation to grandfatherhood, impending retirement and golf. George is different from them because. . . he hasn't given up." Finally, Isherwood describes poignantly the unawareness of friends: "How many times, when Jim and I had been quarreling and came to visit you--sullking, avoiding each other's eyes, talking to each other only through you [haven't we all been in that awkward position]-- did you somehow bring us together again by the sheer power of your unawareness that anything was wrong?" There are countless gems like these through out this wonderful book. A perfect novel about loss and loneliness, A SINGLE MAN constantly gets named near the top of "best gay" lists of books as well as one of the great novels of the 20th Century, both distinctions it richly deserves.
Rating:
Summary: Once again, lovingly
Review: Time is a good judge of quality writing. Returning to Isherwood's little masterpiece "A Single Man" is like revisiting those events of our lives that we recall as special, memorable, unique, irreplaceable. One day in the life of a middle aged man is the sole reason for writing this story, but in that one day we are given insights into Isherwood's thoughts on education, social order, morality, bigotry, and relationships - casual and bonding. With razor sharp clarity Isherwood deliniates characters, simple situations, places, moods, conversations so that at the final pages we comfortably join his autobigraphical George as he slips into sleep, having walked through "a day in the life" experience. Christopher Isherwood continues to surprise us even now some fifteen years after his death. Perhaps the publication of is diaries, and the added luxury of his life partner Don Bachardy's drawings and reveries.....perhaps these are reminding us what an important literary figure and thinker he was. Time is not only kind to Isherwood...it is lauding!
Rating:
Summary: Once again, lovingly
Review: Time is a good judge of quality writing. Returning to Isherwood's little masterpiece "A Single Man" is like revisiting those events of our lives that we recall as special, memorable, unique, irreplaceable. One day in the life of a middle aged man is the sole reason for writing this story, but in that one day we are given insights into Isherwood's thoughts on education, social order, morality, bigotry, and relationships - casual and bonding. With razor sharp clarity Isherwood deliniates characters, simple situations, places, moods, conversations so that at the final pages we comfortably join his autobigraphical George as he slips into sleep, having walked through "a day in the life" experience. Christopher Isherwood continues to surprise us even now some fifteen years after his death. Perhaps the publication of is diaries, and the added luxury of his life partner Don Bachardy's drawings and reveries.....perhaps these are reminding us what an important literary figure and thinker he was. Time is not only kind to Isherwood...it is lauding!
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