Author | Christopher Isherwood |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | novel |
Publisher | Methuen (UK) Simon & Schuster (US) |
Publication date | 1964 |
Media type | Print (hardcover & paperback) |
Pages | 186 pp |
OCLC | 171466 |
A Single Man is a 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood.
Set in Southern California during 1962, shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis, it depicts one day in the life of George, a middle-aged Englishman who is a professor at a Los Angeles university. The university might reflect CSULA, where Christopher Isherwood taught for some time. The novel is also believed to be informed by a crisis in Isherwood's relationship with Don Bachardy. [1] [2]
In 2009, fashion designer Tom Ford directed a film adaptation of the novel, with additions made to the original plot in the screenplay by David Scearce and Ford. [3] Ford also contributed a foreword to a re-release of the novel. [4]
George is still grieving after the recent death of his long-term partner, Jim. [5] He is unable to cope with the despondent, bereaved nature of his existence. George goes through his day having various encounters with different people that colour his senses and illuminate the possibilities of being alive and human in the world.
At the university where he works as a lecturer, he discusses one of Aldous Huxley's books with the students. One of them, Kenny, strikes up a conversation with him after the lecture. The two walk to a bookshop where Kenny buys George a pencil sharpener as a gift. Later, George goes to a hospital to visit Jim's lover, Doris, who survived the accident in which Jim died. She is frail and not expected to live for much longer. George goes to the gym and then visits his friend, a fellow English expatriate Charlotte. They have dinner and drink a lot.
George goes to The Starboard Side, a local pub. There, he encounters Kenny, who, it turns out, had come here expecting to see George. They drink and talk, flirting between the lines. Kenny suggests that they go for a swim and they both go in the sea naked. George suggests that they go to his place. There, they talk some more, but after a misunderstanding, George falls asleep and Kenny leaves his house. George wakes up, reads a note that Kenny had left behind, falls back asleep, and dies peacefully.
Pride and Prejudice is the second novel by English author Jane Austen, published in 1813. A novel of manners, it follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the protagonist of the book, who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between superficial goodness and actual goodness.
A Room with a View is a 1908 novel by English writer E. M. Forster, about a young woman in the restrained culture of Edwardian-era England. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a humorous critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century. Merchant Ivory produced an award-winning film adaptation in 1985.
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include Goodbye to Berlin (1939), a semi-autobiographical novel which inspired the musical Cabaret (1966); A Single Man (1964), adapted as a film by Tom Ford in 2009; and Christopher and His Kind (1976), a memoir which "carried him into the heart of the Gay Liberation movement".
Sarah and Son is a 1930 pre-Code American drama film directed by Dorothy Arzner. The screenplay by Zoë Akins was adapted from Timothy Shea's novel of the same name. It stars Ruth Chatterton, Fredric March, Gilbert Emery, and Doris Lloyd. It was filmed at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles and released by Paramount Pictures.
Donald Jess Bachardy is an American portrait artist. He resides in Santa Monica, California. Bachardy was the partner of Christopher Isherwood for over 30 years.
Gay literature is a collective term for literature produced by or for the gay community which involves characters, plot lines, and/or themes portraying male homosexual behavior.
Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English since 1939 — A Personal Choice is an essay by British writer Anthony Burgess, published by Allison & Busby in 1984. It covers a 44-year span between 1939 and 1983. Burgess was a prolific reader, in his early career reviewing more than 350 novels in just over two years for The Yorkshire Post. In the course of his career he wrote more than 30 novels. The list represents his choices; in an interview with Don Swaim, Burgess revealed that the book was originally commissioned by a Nigerian publishing company and written in two weeks.
Why Didn't They Ask Evans? is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club in September 1934 and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1935 under the title of The Boomerang Clue. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.
The Europeans: A sketch is a short novel by Henry James, published in 1878. It is essentially a comedy contrasting the behaviour and attitudes of two visitors from Europe with those of their relatives living in the "new" world of New England. The novel first appeared as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly for July–October 1878. James made numerous minor revisions for the first book publication.
The Berlin Stories is a 1945 omnibus by Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood and consisting of the novels Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1939). The two novels are set in Jazz Age Berlin between 1930 and 1933 on the cusp of Adolf Hitler's ascent to power. Berlin is portrayed by Isherwood during this chaotic interwar period as a carnival of debauchery and despair inhabited by desperate people who are unaware of the national catastrophe that awaits them.
Piccadilly Jim is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on 24 February 1917 by Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, and in the United Kingdom in May 1918 by Herbert Jenkins, London. The story had previously appeared in the US in the Saturday Evening Post between 16 September and 11 November 1916.
A Room with a View is a 1985 British romance film directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant. It is written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who adapted E. M. Forster's 1908 novel A Room with a View. Set in England and Italy, it is about a young woman named Lucy Honeychurch in the final throes of the restrictive and repressed culture of Edwardian England and her developing love for a free-spirited young man, George Emerson. Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench and Simon Callow feature in supporting roles. The film closely follows the novel by the use of chapter titles to distinguish thematic segments.
The Brontë Sisters is a 1979 French biographical drama film directed by André Téchiné, who co-wrote the screenplay with Pascal Bonitzer and Jean Gruault. The film stars Isabelle Adjani, Marie-France Pisier and Isabelle Huppert as the Brontë sisters. The cinematography was by Bruno Nuytten. It was a project that Téchiné wanted to make since 1972, but only after the favourable reception of Souvenirs d'en France (1975) and Barocco (1976), he was able to find the necessary financing. Produced by Gaumont, the film's originally running time was cut from three to less than two hours upon its release at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival.
Prater Violet (1945) is Christopher Isherwood's fictional first person account of film-making. The Prater is a large park and amusement park in Vienna, a city important to characters in the novel for several reasons. Though Isherwood broke onto the literary scene as a novelist, he eventually worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter. In this novel, Isherwood comments on life, art, commercialization of art and Nazism.
40 Carats is a 1973 American romantic comedy film directed by Milton Katselas. It is based on the 1968 play of the same name by Jay Presson Allen. The screenplay was written by Leonard Gershe.
Mr Norris Changes Trains is a 1935 novel by the British writer Christopher Isherwood. It is frequently included with Goodbye to Berlin, another Isherwood novel, in a single volume, The Berlin Stories. Inspiration for the novel was drawn from Isherwood's experiences as an expatriate living in Berlin during the early 1930s, and the character of Mr Norris is based on Gerald Hamilton. In 1985 the actor David March won a Radio Academy Award for Best Radio Actor for his performance in a dramatisation of the novel for BBC Radio 4.
Rise of the Footsoldier is a British gangster film franchise written and directed by Julian Gilbey, Will Gilbey, Ricci Harnett, Zackary Adler, Andrew Loveday and Nick Nevern, distributed by Optimum Releasing. The franchise and its first two films are based on true events featured in the autobiography of Inter City Firm hooligan turned gangster Carlton Leach before later films focus on the lives of drug dealers Pat Tate and Tony Tucker who were gunned down in the Rettendon murders in 1995.
A Single Man is a 2009 American period romantic drama film based on the 1964 novel of the same name by Christopher Isherwood. The directorial debut of fashion designer Tom Ford, the film stars Colin Firth, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of George Falconer, a depressed gay British university professor living in Southern California in 1962.
Doris Miles Disney was an American mystery writer. She wrote 47 novels, many of which were best sellers; several were made into feature films or TV movies.