Book Review: "Kathleen and Frank" by Christopher Isherwood

In my time, I have read many books by Christopher Isherwood. Among my favourites are: Mr Norris Changes Trains, The Memorial, The World in the Evening, Goodbye to Berlin, Lions and Shadows and of course, Down There on a Visit. The reason I like reading Christopher Isherwood is because of his writing style. Deeply introspective, filled with lavish dark and glamorous description, Christopher Isherwood seems to seek to create a world that challenges our own view of the good life. He seeks to get deep into the heart of the rotting insides of the world of fame, fortune and high society and ultimately shows us how everyone is trying desperately to keep up appearances.

Kathleen and Frank is another one of Christopher Isherwood's nonfiction novels and it is all about the meeting, love and tragedy of his own parents. Famous for writing nonfiction novels, Christopher Isherwood popularised the idea that a first person narrator could be so influenced by one's own self. But this is slightly different. A lot of this book happens before Christopher Isherwood himself even exists. Including things like diary entries and letters, never has Christopher Isherwood tried to solidify truth so much in one book.

Beginning in the late 1800s, this novel first explores the way in which Kathleen and Frank met and fell in love. The one thing I have to say about Christopher Isherwood's writing style in this respect is that it doesn't hold back when talking about his parents' lives at the time. Again, we get this dark and almost tragic glamour to reality, a shimmer in the darkness that will ultimately - by foreshadowing - be put out. If you know anything about Christopher Isherwood's upbringing then you already know what this foreshadowing is referring to.

As wars rage on throughout the world, Kathleen and Frank marry and start a family. It isn't before long that the reader finds out what the 'tragedy' of this dark and glamorous lifestyle of love and excess really is: Frank is killed in action. The silence around Frank's death is deafening, it is like a light in the novel gets put out or a gas lamp bursts on a dark alleyway where nobody walks anymore. There is so much love and loss contained within that moment that the reader is no longer sure how Kathleen, who was deeply in love with her husband, is going to cope.

Kathleen remains a widow and I think that Christopher Isherwood is actually himself deeply surprised by this. All of a sudden, his mother has lost the will to fall in love again. The character shifts from being a care-free young soul in love with a soldier, to a woman who has aged and now must accept the harsh reality that her husband will never return. It is a very sad realisation and I think that more than anything else, it impacts the reader since they are on the receiving end of all of this emotion. It is deeply upsetting, but as Christopher's own life is intertwined with this, it doesn't stick around too long that it becomes tedious.

I think that this novel is a brilliant read and really clears up a lot of Christopher Isherwood's own mysteries. I was recently reading Isherwood's The Condor and the Cows and it was nowhere near as strong as Kathleen and Frank. And so, I am perfectly aware that Christopher Isherwood has his strengths and weaknesses. But when it comes to this novel I think we all need to agree that Christopher Isherwood turns his parents into fictional characters and then, right back into real people. It is quite an amazing skill.