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The Animals: Love Letters between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy
Christopher Isherwood was a celebrated English writer when he met the Californian teenager Don Bachardy on a Santa Monica beach in 1952. They spent their first night together on Valentine's Day 1953. Defying the conventions, the two men began living as an openly gay couple in an otherwise closeted Hollywood. The Animals provides a loving testimony of an extraordinary relationship that lasted until Chris's death in 1986 - and survived affairs (on both sides) and a thirty-year-age-gap.
In romantic letters to one another, the couple created the private world of the Animals. Chris was Dobbin, a stubborn old workhorse; Don was the playful young white cat, Kitty. But Don needed to carve out his own identity - some of their longest sequences of letters were exchanged during his trips to London and New York, to pursue his career as an artist and to widen his emotional and sexual horizons.
Amidst the intimate domestic dramas, we learn of Isherwood's continuing literary success -the royalty cheques from Cabaret, the acclaim for his pioneering novel A Single Man - and the bohemian whirl of Californian film suppers and beach life. Don, whose portraits of London theatreland were making his name, attends the world premiere of The Innocents with Truman Capote and afterwards dines with Deborah Kerr and the rest of the cast, spends weekends with Tennessee Williams, Cecil Beton, or the Earl and Countess of Harewood, and tours Egypt and Greece with a new love interest. But whatever happens in the outside world, Dobbin and Kitty always return to their 'Basket' and to each other. Candid, gossipy, exceptionally affectionate, The Animals is a unique interplay between two creative spirits, confident in their mutual devotion.
In romantic letters to one another, the couple created the private world of the Animals. Chris was Dobbin, a stubborn old workhorse; Don was the playful young white cat, Kitty. But Don needed to carve out his own identity - some of their longest sequences of letters were exchanged during his trips to London and New York, to pursue his career as an artist and to widen his emotional and sexual horizons.
Amidst the intimate domestic dramas, we learn of Isherwood's continuing literary success -the royalty cheques from Cabaret, the acclaim for his pioneering novel A Single Man - and the bohemian whirl of Californian film suppers and beach life. Don, whose portraits of London theatreland were making his name, attends the world premiere of The Innocents with Truman Capote and afterwards dines with Deborah Kerr and the rest of the cast, spends weekends with Tennessee Williams, Cecil Beton, or the Earl and Countess of Harewood, and tours Egypt and Greece with a new love interest. But whatever happens in the outside world, Dobbin and Kitty always return to their 'Basket' and to each other. Candid, gossipy, exceptionally affectionate, The Animals is a unique interplay between two creative spirits, confident in their mutual devotion.
432 pages, Paperback
First published September 12, 2013
19 people are currently reading
517 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Isherwood
174 books1,524 followersEnglish-born American writer Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood portrayed Berlin in the early 1930s in his best known works, such as
Goodbye to Berlin
(1939), the basis for the musical
Cabaret
(1966). Isherwood was a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist.
With W.H. Auden he wrote three plays— The Dog Beneath the Skin (1932), The Ascent of F6 (1936), and On the Frontier (1938). Isherwood tells the story in his first autobiography, Lions and Shadows .
After Isherwood wrote joke answers on his second-year exams, Cambridge University in 1925 asked him to leave. He briefly attended medical school and progressed with his first two novels, All the Conspirators (1928) and The Memorial (1932). In 1930, he moved to Berlin, where he taught English, dabbled in Communism, and enthusiastically explored his homosexuality. His experiences provided the material for Mister Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1938), still his most famous book.
In Berlin in 1932, he also began an important relationship with Heinz Neddermeyer, a young German with whom he fled the Nazis in 1933. England refused entry to Neddermeyer on his second visit in 1934, and the pair moved restlessly about Europe until the Gestapo arrested Neddermeyer in May 1937 and then finally separated them.
In 1938, Isherwood sailed with Auden to China to write Journey to a War (1939), about the Sino-Japanese conflict. They returned to England and Isherwood went on to Hollywood to look for movie-writing work. He also became a disciple of the Ramakrishna monk, Swami Prabhavananda, head of the Vedanta Society of Southern California. He decided not to take monastic vows, but he remained a Hindu for the rest of his life, serving, praying, and lecturing in the temple every week and writing a biography, Ramakrishna and His Disciples (1965).
In 1945, Isherwood published Prater Violet, fictionalizing his first movie writing job in London in 1933-1934. In Hollywood, he spent the start of the 1950s fighting his way free of a destructive five-year affair with an attractive and undisciplined American photographer, William Caskey. Caskey took the photographs for Isherwood’s travel book about South America, The Condor and The Cows (1947). Isherwood’s sixth novel, The World in the Evening (1954), written mostly during this period, was less successful than earlier ones.
In 1953, he fell in love with Don Bachardy, an eighteen-year-old college student born and raised in Los Angeles. They were to remain together until Isherwood’s death. In 1961, Isherwood and completed the final revisions to his new novel Down There on a Visit (1962). Their relationship nearly ended in 1963, and Isherwood moved out of their Santa Monica house. This dark period underpins Isherwood’s masterpiece A Single Man (1964).
Isherwood wrote another novel, A Meeting by the River (1967), about two brothers, but he gave up writing fiction and turned entirely to autobiography. In Kathleen and Frank (1971), he drew on the letters and diaries of his parents. In Christopher and His Kind (1976), he returned to the 1930s to tell, as a publicly avowed homosexual, the real story of his life in Berlin and his wanderings with Heinz Neddermeyer. The book made him a hero of gay liberation and a national celebrity all over again but now in his true, political and personal identity.
With W.H. Auden he wrote three plays— The Dog Beneath the Skin (1932), The Ascent of F6 (1936), and On the Frontier (1938). Isherwood tells the story in his first autobiography, Lions and Shadows .
After Isherwood wrote joke answers on his second-year exams, Cambridge University in 1925 asked him to leave. He briefly attended medical school and progressed with his first two novels, All the Conspirators (1928) and The Memorial (1932). In 1930, he moved to Berlin, where he taught English, dabbled in Communism, and enthusiastically explored his homosexuality. His experiences provided the material for Mister Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1938), still his most famous book.
In Berlin in 1932, he also began an important relationship with Heinz Neddermeyer, a young German with whom he fled the Nazis in 1933. England refused entry to Neddermeyer on his second visit in 1934, and the pair moved restlessly about Europe until the Gestapo arrested Neddermeyer in May 1937 and then finally separated them.
In 1938, Isherwood sailed with Auden to China to write Journey to a War (1939), about the Sino-Japanese conflict. They returned to England and Isherwood went on to Hollywood to look for movie-writing work. He also became a disciple of the Ramakrishna monk, Swami Prabhavananda, head of the Vedanta Society of Southern California. He decided not to take monastic vows, but he remained a Hindu for the rest of his life, serving, praying, and lecturing in the temple every week and writing a biography, Ramakrishna and His Disciples (1965).
In 1945, Isherwood published Prater Violet, fictionalizing his first movie writing job in London in 1933-1934. In Hollywood, he spent the start of the 1950s fighting his way free of a destructive five-year affair with an attractive and undisciplined American photographer, William Caskey. Caskey took the photographs for Isherwood’s travel book about South America, The Condor and The Cows (1947). Isherwood’s sixth novel, The World in the Evening (1954), written mostly during this period, was less successful than earlier ones.
In 1953, he fell in love with Don Bachardy, an eighteen-year-old college student born and raised in Los Angeles. They were to remain together until Isherwood’s death. In 1961, Isherwood and completed the final revisions to his new novel Down There on a Visit (1962). Their relationship nearly ended in 1963, and Isherwood moved out of their Santa Monica house. This dark period underpins Isherwood’s masterpiece A Single Man (1964).
Isherwood wrote another novel, A Meeting by the River (1967), about two brothers, but he gave up writing fiction and turned entirely to autobiography. In Kathleen and Frank (1971), he drew on the letters and diaries of his parents. In Christopher and His Kind (1976), he returned to the 1930s to tell, as a publicly avowed homosexual, the real story of his life in Berlin and his wanderings with Heinz Neddermeyer. The book made him a hero of gay liberation and a national celebrity all over again but now in his true, political and personal identity.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 10, 2015
Very long but very intriguing!
Through this series of letters between Don Bachardy and Christopher Isherwood we get to witness the true love and devotion between the two men.
Their's is an improbable relationship but one that showed the depth and resilience of their love for each other. And it is a love that survived ups and downs over thirty long years until Christopher Isherwood's death.
Christopher met Don when he was 48 and Don was 18. They began a relationship despite the disapproval of friends and the disapproval of Don's parents but their love survived and thrived over thirty long years.
I found this fascinating and very very long. They started their relationship in the 1950s at a time when most gay people remained in the closet fearing for their livelihoods and reputations, but not so this couple. They totally defied convention.
I wanted to learn more about this couple because in the light of the reality of the age gap and the attitude towards homosexuality at the time I wouldn't have thought the relationship would survive but the two men survived against the odds and their relationship was one of compromise and great devotion. They had times when their relationship was open to others and there were times of difficulty between the two of them, but thirty years is a life time commitment.
It was a real life and enduring love.
The book reveals the relationship through a series of letters the two men wrote to each other. They had pet names for each other and referred to themselves as Dobbin, a work horse (Christopher) and Kitty, a young white cat (Don). And their world together was that of 'The Animals'.
The book reveals their love for each other, their careers and how they supported each other, and it shows how they interacted with their friends and other well known actors and actresses from the States and from Europe.
What is amazing is that the two men were obviously openly together at a time when gay men in Hollywood were closeted and hidden, many of them marrying women and having affairs with men. Don and Chris don't seem to have had any doubts about being together openly and being a couple. Perhaps Christopher Isherwood just didn't care and Don Bachardy was too young to care. Obviously being so young he must have been influenced by Isherwood and so didn't care either.
The two men wrote many letters to each other over the course of their years together especially when they travelled separately for work, or for Don's studying at art school. At those times the little world they had created imbibed them with strength and the commitment to keep going.
My favourite parts are where they present 'us against the world'. And they reveal to each other who has annoyed them or who they are not too happy with. Thankfully many of those people have passed on because I am not sure they would be so happy to see these revelations in print. I of course found it fascinating and a real fly on the wall experience. Despite the fact that these letters are about everyday bills, chores, friends, love and life they are fascinating because they show the inner life of the relationship. Also there is just such good gossip here!!
They did complain about things a lot to each other. Don visits Cairo and Europe on his own. He describe the Egyptians as Arabs and untrustworthy. Travelling through Greece he writes to Isherwood and complains that the Greeks cannot be trusted either. Ok it was 1964 and not a time known for political correctness, but still in some places they are down right rude labelling one man's wife fat and stupid, and sly!! The man passed away in 2011 so hopefully he never knew - this book was published in 2014.
When travelling to Egypt and Greece, Bachardy makes scathing comments about his travelling companions and then eventually the group go their separate ways. I was hardly suprised.
Isherwood and Bachardy created a world which only had space for the two of them despite the fact that both of them had affairs. Just like the foreign travel the affairs seemed to be a way of Don testing his relationship with Isherwood. Given the fact that both men could be quite scathing of others and adoring towards each other I am not surprised none of the affairs lasted. I don't think any of the other men would have measured up to Isherwood or Bachardy, and I am not sure Bachardy would have found it easy to kindle with someone else, the kind of singleminded, intense, focused devotion he had from Isherwood. Some of these affairs could have threatened the relationship but Don always found his way back to Christopher. In the documentary Don speaks about these times, recognising the affairs that both of them had placed strain on the relationship but he acknowledges that it was something they went through only to realise that they loved each other. Perhaps some of this was a way for Don to grow into his own person.
In any case it couldn't have been easy and it is fascinating that their relationship survived this and went from strength to strength.
I think the documentary is a very good introduction to the book. I particularly enjoyed the part in the documentary when Bachardy complains about the attitude of his father who didn't approve of his homosexuality or his relationship with Isherwood. I wanted to remind him that he was only 18 and Isherwood was 48 when their relationship started, and homosexuality was illegal at the time. Hello?? Which parent wouldn't be worried?? If my son introduced me to a partner who was 30 years his senior I would be rather alarmed. It was funny how the two of them together knew their relationship was disapproved of but they just didn't give a damn!!
At all!!
There is very little about the politics or social changes of the time in the memoirs, but there are comments about Isherwood having a different opinion on Vietnam to WH Auden who felt the US whould remain in Vietnam until the North was taken. Comments are made about associates who join the civil rights movement so there is some acknowledgement of societal events. Bachardy also defends his black housekeeper to his parents who as he desrcibes 'have deep prejudice against negroes'.
But these letters are not supposed to be political commentaries. They are love letters to fill in the gap between two lovers missing one another and to let each man know about the day to day activities of the other.
This book is very long but I didn't find it boring, just intriguing and encouraging. It is good to know that such deep love exists and that it can bridge the age gap. There are no barriers to love, only the ones which we place ourselves.
Subject: The Animals: Love Letters between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy - Reading 1
http://youtu.be/JpgoZf-rpP0
Depicts the remarkable life of artist Don Bachardy and his relationship with the distinguished Christopher Isherwood
www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6q-YnuBo00
Through this series of letters between Don Bachardy and Christopher Isherwood we get to witness the true love and devotion between the two men.
Their's is an improbable relationship but one that showed the depth and resilience of their love for each other. And it is a love that survived ups and downs over thirty long years until Christopher Isherwood's death.
Christopher met Don when he was 48 and Don was 18. They began a relationship despite the disapproval of friends and the disapproval of Don's parents but their love survived and thrived over thirty long years.
I found this fascinating and very very long. They started their relationship in the 1950s at a time when most gay people remained in the closet fearing for their livelihoods and reputations, but not so this couple. They totally defied convention.
I wanted to learn more about this couple because in the light of the reality of the age gap and the attitude towards homosexuality at the time I wouldn't have thought the relationship would survive but the two men survived against the odds and their relationship was one of compromise and great devotion. They had times when their relationship was open to others and there were times of difficulty between the two of them, but thirty years is a life time commitment.
It was a real life and enduring love.
The book reveals the relationship through a series of letters the two men wrote to each other. They had pet names for each other and referred to themselves as Dobbin, a work horse (Christopher) and Kitty, a young white cat (Don). And their world together was that of 'The Animals'.
The book reveals their love for each other, their careers and how they supported each other, and it shows how they interacted with their friends and other well known actors and actresses from the States and from Europe.
What is amazing is that the two men were obviously openly together at a time when gay men in Hollywood were closeted and hidden, many of them marrying women and having affairs with men. Don and Chris don't seem to have had any doubts about being together openly and being a couple. Perhaps Christopher Isherwood just didn't care and Don Bachardy was too young to care. Obviously being so young he must have been influenced by Isherwood and so didn't care either.
The two men wrote many letters to each other over the course of their years together especially when they travelled separately for work, or for Don's studying at art school. At those times the little world they had created imbibed them with strength and the commitment to keep going.
My favourite parts are where they present 'us against the world'. And they reveal to each other who has annoyed them or who they are not too happy with. Thankfully many of those people have passed on because I am not sure they would be so happy to see these revelations in print. I of course found it fascinating and a real fly on the wall experience. Despite the fact that these letters are about everyday bills, chores, friends, love and life they are fascinating because they show the inner life of the relationship. Also there is just such good gossip here!!
They did complain about things a lot to each other. Don visits Cairo and Europe on his own. He describe the Egyptians as Arabs and untrustworthy. Travelling through Greece he writes to Isherwood and complains that the Greeks cannot be trusted either. Ok it was 1964 and not a time known for political correctness, but still in some places they are down right rude labelling one man's wife fat and stupid, and sly!! The man passed away in 2011 so hopefully he never knew - this book was published in 2014.
When travelling to Egypt and Greece, Bachardy makes scathing comments about his travelling companions and then eventually the group go their separate ways. I was hardly suprised.
Isherwood and Bachardy created a world which only had space for the two of them despite the fact that both of them had affairs. Just like the foreign travel the affairs seemed to be a way of Don testing his relationship with Isherwood. Given the fact that both men could be quite scathing of others and adoring towards each other I am not surprised none of the affairs lasted. I don't think any of the other men would have measured up to Isherwood or Bachardy, and I am not sure Bachardy would have found it easy to kindle with someone else, the kind of singleminded, intense, focused devotion he had from Isherwood. Some of these affairs could have threatened the relationship but Don always found his way back to Christopher. In the documentary Don speaks about these times, recognising the affairs that both of them had placed strain on the relationship but he acknowledges that it was something they went through only to realise that they loved each other. Perhaps some of this was a way for Don to grow into his own person.
In any case it couldn't have been easy and it is fascinating that their relationship survived this and went from strength to strength.
I think the documentary is a very good introduction to the book. I particularly enjoyed the part in the documentary when Bachardy complains about the attitude of his father who didn't approve of his homosexuality or his relationship with Isherwood. I wanted to remind him that he was only 18 and Isherwood was 48 when their relationship started, and homosexuality was illegal at the time. Hello?? Which parent wouldn't be worried?? If my son introduced me to a partner who was 30 years his senior I would be rather alarmed. It was funny how the two of them together knew their relationship was disapproved of but they just didn't give a damn!!
At all!!
There is very little about the politics or social changes of the time in the memoirs, but there are comments about Isherwood having a different opinion on Vietnam to WH Auden who felt the US whould remain in Vietnam until the North was taken. Comments are made about associates who join the civil rights movement so there is some acknowledgement of societal events. Bachardy also defends his black housekeeper to his parents who as he desrcibes 'have deep prejudice against negroes'.
But these letters are not supposed to be political commentaries. They are love letters to fill in the gap between two lovers missing one another and to let each man know about the day to day activities of the other.
This book is very long but I didn't find it boring, just intriguing and encouraging. It is good to know that such deep love exists and that it can bridge the age gap. There are no barriers to love, only the ones which we place ourselves.
Subject: The Animals: Love Letters between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy - Reading 1
http://youtu.be/JpgoZf-rpP0
Depicts the remarkable life of artist Don Bachardy and his relationship with the distinguished Christopher Isherwood
www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6q-YnuBo00
July 4, 2014
A great read for fans of Isherwood, and Bachardy is no slouch either. I wrote a full review of the book for the LARB, which can be found here:
https://lareviewofbooks.org/review/an...
https://lareviewofbooks.org/review/an...
April 15, 2016
I am not a person who can read books of letters. I am sure Isherwood was an amazing person with amazing stories (as evidenced in his other books) however letters with personal shorthand and a million footnotes and to who is whom and what events were going on is not my cup of tea.
May 5, 2024
An interesting look into the romance of Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, but man is it ever a slow read to get through personal letters. There are only so many letters, filled with gossip, that you can read at a time.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews