George is a middle-aged professor in California during the early 1960s. He has just lost his long-time partner, Jim, and the book follows a day in the grief-stricken man's life. The book begins with George's body waking up, going through all the mechanical and chemical motions before George's consciousness reconnects with his body. Throughout the book there is the motif of disconnect; between George and George's body, George and his students, George and the people around him, George and emotions. It seems like he struggles to care about his surroundings until talking about literature with his students - and even after that he once again quickly turns inward. The book's climax is George's rant and subsequent hook-up with one of his students.
To be honest, this book didn't do anything for me. It's supposed to be "devastating, unnerving" (Stephen Spender), a "sad, sly report on the predicament of the human animal" (David Daiches, New York Times), with "a biological melancholy running through it, a sense of relentless reduction, daily diminishment" (Elizabeth Hardwick, The New York Review of Books) and yet I just didn't feel any of that. And I know before I've knocked books that promise an emotional roller-coaster and don't deliver, but in this case I actually think it was me. I got the feeling that this book will have the most impact if you've suffered loss like George has, and I just haven't. I liked the writing and I felt that the characters were interesting and complex and real, but I wasn't affected by the devastation or the biological melancholy like so many others were. I do respect the book, and I think it was a very interesting concept, but for me it didn't do anything.
The one issue I had was the misogyny. George put down women, women put down women, and I couldn't tell if this was Isherwood's views or the characters' in the book but it made me uncomfortable. I found it harder to sympathize with George the more he dismissed women's emotions. But again, maybe this was just a facet of his character or a result of his grief. It was something I didn't like, but I won't knock the book for it just yet.
Some other reviews you might like:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/20/100-best-novels-a-single-man-christopher-isherwood
https://angelmatos.net/2014/01/22/connection-failed-an-analysis-of-christopher-isherwoods-a-single-man/
https://theasylum.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/christopher-isherwood-a-single-man/
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