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All the Conspirators
A timeless story of decaying middle-class English life after wwI and the generation that tried to escape its values Christopher Isherwood was only twenty-one when he began his first novel, All the Conspirators . in his introduction to the American edition, Isherwood “ All the Conspirators records a minor engagement in what Shelley calls ‘the great war between the old and young.’ And what a war it was!” in many ways this novel (like the classic Berlin Stories ) is a period piece growing out of a particular historical situation―clashes between parents and children with all their passionate moral struggles. Isherwood’s vivid portrayal of an older generation trying to hold on while a younger generation tries to wrench free still resonates and disarms.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1928
24 people are currently reading
624 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Isherwood
175 books1,525 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 - 30 of 36 reviews
September 5, 2019
"I saw quite enough of Cambridge, last time. It's the most vilely overrated place in the Kingdom. Never shall I forget my disappointment when Victor took us to the Backs."
There is a strange naivety to this, Isherwood's first novel. He skips backwards and forwards in a rambling stream of consciousness, much like Virginia Woolf chose to do. I personally really dislike this way of writing. I find it difficult to keep up and understand one page from the next and I find if anything, that writing "straight from your head" instead of taking time to form normal sentences makes everything more complicated.
The lead characters are all pretty unlikeable too.
We have Phil, who comes back home to Kensington from his travels with the bombshell that he has quit his job to become a full time painter and writer. All he needs is 6 months of his mother's money and he will be on his way to better things. His mother is an embarassing creature, utterly fixated on her children and the wrong that they have done her, and Phil's sister Joan is an unpleasant person who treats her love interest Victor with distain and bosses him around repeatedly.
From the blurb on the back, I picked out "Kensington" and "1920s" and that was enough to suck me in, but there wasn't a lot to like here. It was clear Isherwood was trying to find his feet, and his style, and I know that he goes on to write a lot more coherently in his later works, but I just can't bring myself to rate this highly, because I didn't enjoy it in the slightest. And the way Phil talks so negatively about Cambridge and its May Balls had me almost in tears!!
There is a strange naivety to this, Isherwood's first novel. He skips backwards and forwards in a rambling stream of consciousness, much like Virginia Woolf chose to do. I personally really dislike this way of writing. I find it difficult to keep up and understand one page from the next and I find if anything, that writing "straight from your head" instead of taking time to form normal sentences makes everything more complicated.
The lead characters are all pretty unlikeable too.
We have Phil, who comes back home to Kensington from his travels with the bombshell that he has quit his job to become a full time painter and writer. All he needs is 6 months of his mother's money and he will be on his way to better things. His mother is an embarassing creature, utterly fixated on her children and the wrong that they have done her, and Phil's sister Joan is an unpleasant person who treats her love interest Victor with distain and bosses him around repeatedly.
From the blurb on the back, I picked out "Kensington" and "1920s" and that was enough to suck me in, but there wasn't a lot to like here. It was clear Isherwood was trying to find his feet, and his style, and I know that he goes on to write a lot more coherently in his later works, but I just can't bring myself to rate this highly, because I didn't enjoy it in the slightest. And the way Phil talks so negatively about Cambridge and its May Balls had me almost in tears!!
November 25, 2015
On the one hand, I get what my painting teacher was getting at that one time spring term my junior year when he told me whatever I was making was kind of contrived, to which I responded I liked contrived. He proceeded to offer some things I could try; I made a face internally and tried none of them. I thought myself already very daring but also knew I was kind of afraid of what I might discover should I start to loose my grip on what I thought my 'style.' It's apparent here too, but lucky Chris and I get to go to Berlin to begin that process.
On the other hand, when it has its moments, it really has its moments, and there are some bits dead clever and proper indicative of later delights.
And, as an aside, this was one of the ones I could never ever ever find when I was seriously bingeing in Isherwood and scouring shelves at the Strand for his stuff, so I was pretty excited to run across it at the library in Liverpool. I'm sure there's something to be said about where I've found it, both geographically and tempo-personally, but I'm not sure myself.
On the other hand, when it has its moments, it really has its moments, and there are some bits dead clever and proper indicative of later delights.
And, as an aside, this was one of the ones I could never ever ever find when I was seriously bingeing in Isherwood and scouring shelves at the Strand for his stuff, so I was pretty excited to run across it at the library in Liverpool. I'm sure there's something to be said about where I've found it, both geographically and tempo-personally, but I'm not sure myself.
December 1, 2024
Isherwood's first novel, and in parts a poor imitation of too much else—a fact Isherwood recognizes in his 1958 foreword. Isherwood has not yet developed the fictional Christopher Isherwood and aspiring artist/writer Philip Lindsay serves as the book's protagonist.
The story centers on the severing of apron strings—only kidding, don't hold your breath. Philip is weak and spoiled, and there is something unhealthy about the way his family coddles him. All I need to do is to look at the headlines to see the monsters such coddling produces.
The book is dedicated to Isherwood's friend Edward Upward, and the character of Allen Chalmers, a pseudonym for Upward, would later feature in the memoir/novel Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties. Is Allen what Philip aspires to be? God, I hope so. Philip is intolerable.
The experimental stylistic choices (Chapter VI is one of several examples) are inconsistent and bewildering and stand in sharp contrast to the silky smooth prose of Isherwood's later works. It is as if he set out not wanting to be an EM Forster in the era of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. Turns out the story is very EM Forster, complete with fainting fit, and the style amounts to no more than a failed experiment. Harsh? Yes, but only because I adore much of his later work.
The story centers on the severing of apron strings—only kidding, don't hold your breath. Philip is weak and spoiled, and there is something unhealthy about the way his family coddles him. All I need to do is to look at the headlines to see the monsters such coddling produces.
The book is dedicated to Isherwood's friend Edward Upward, and the character of Allen Chalmers, a pseudonym for Upward, would later feature in the memoir/novel Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties. Is Allen what Philip aspires to be? God, I hope so. Philip is intolerable.
The experimental stylistic choices (Chapter VI is one of several examples) are inconsistent and bewildering and stand in sharp contrast to the silky smooth prose of Isherwood's later works. It is as if he set out not wanting to be an EM Forster in the era of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. Turns out the story is very EM Forster, complete with fainting fit, and the style amounts to no more than a failed experiment. Harsh? Yes, but only because I adore much of his later work.
August 6, 2014
I need to caveat this review by saying that I like Christopher Isherwood; I would recommend The Berlin Stories, Christopher and his Kind, and A Single Man to anyone but the dreariest dolt. However, this book is not in the same league. To be fair to Mr Ish, it was his first publication, written when he was 21, and trying, like Philip in this novel, to escape his overbearing, bourgeois upbringing and family.
The problem is that Philip is a dick. Philip wants to live at home, sponge off his mother, have pocket money to go to the cinema/theatre, and enjoys complaining: “It doesn't mean I could be at a job. One must move about and see things. One's mind's got to be free. Oh, it's so obvious. But of course, nobody understands.” He’s not presented as an over-privileged, entitled snob with #firstworldproblems, but as a noble striver for freedom. If only everyone could be boho like Philip's chum Allen who resides in horrid ‘digs’ and live off bread and dripping (and a small private income).
In his foreword, written 30 years on, Isherwood doesn’t critique his main character, but instead his style, which he thinks he plagiarised from EM Forster and Virginia Woolf. It’s true that the opening chapter, set at the seaside, is reminiscent of To The Lighthouse, and the streams of consciousness are very Woolfian, albeit with more ellipses and dashes, particularly when it comes to matters of sexuality, whether hetero- or homo-. As for Morgan Forster, Joan, Philip's sister, is, like Lucy Honeychurch, torn between marrying the poor, possibly bi-sexual Allen, and the upright, conservative, rich Victor. But Joan, unlike Lucy Honeychurch, does not go against her mother's wishes. However, she does almost throw Victor over in order to nurse her sick brother, whilst never admitting that Philip is an excuse. Isherwood seems keen on Freudian motivation: Philip goes for a long, wet walk in the rain and brings on his recurring rheumatic fever, finally getting his way to write and paint. Orphaned Victor loves Joan, but spends all his time with her mother. At least the book proves that the generation gap didn't start in the '60s, as Philip and Joan complain about the awfulness of old people.
Isherwood does use some lovely language: “The thick drawn curtains dulled the noise of the rain”. “The smoke rolled up sullenly from the Surrey shore and hung in lowering wisps over the iron-dark water”, as well as horribly over-written descriptions: “Rainy daylight advanced in stage more exquisitely prolonged than the moments of an operation without anaesthetics.”
That said, I would recommend moving straight onto Isherwood's time as a “camera” in Germany, or reading Lions and Shadows, his behind-the-scenes of this novel.
The problem is that Philip is a dick. Philip wants to live at home, sponge off his mother, have pocket money to go to the cinema/theatre, and enjoys complaining: “It doesn't mean I could be at a job. One must move about and see things. One's mind's got to be free. Oh, it's so obvious. But of course, nobody understands.” He’s not presented as an over-privileged, entitled snob with #firstworldproblems, but as a noble striver for freedom. If only everyone could be boho like Philip's chum Allen who resides in horrid ‘digs’ and live off bread and dripping (and a small private income).
In his foreword, written 30 years on, Isherwood doesn’t critique his main character, but instead his style, which he thinks he plagiarised from EM Forster and Virginia Woolf. It’s true that the opening chapter, set at the seaside, is reminiscent of To The Lighthouse, and the streams of consciousness are very Woolfian, albeit with more ellipses and dashes, particularly when it comes to matters of sexuality, whether hetero- or homo-. As for Morgan Forster, Joan, Philip's sister, is, like Lucy Honeychurch, torn between marrying the poor, possibly bi-sexual Allen, and the upright, conservative, rich Victor. But Joan, unlike Lucy Honeychurch, does not go against her mother's wishes. However, she does almost throw Victor over in order to nurse her sick brother, whilst never admitting that Philip is an excuse. Isherwood seems keen on Freudian motivation: Philip goes for a long, wet walk in the rain and brings on his recurring rheumatic fever, finally getting his way to write and paint. Orphaned Victor loves Joan, but spends all his time with her mother. At least the book proves that the generation gap didn't start in the '60s, as Philip and Joan complain about the awfulness of old people.
Isherwood does use some lovely language: “The thick drawn curtains dulled the noise of the rain”. “The smoke rolled up sullenly from the Surrey shore and hung in lowering wisps over the iron-dark water”, as well as horribly over-written descriptions: “Rainy daylight advanced in stage more exquisitely prolonged than the moments of an operation without anaesthetics.”
That said, I would recommend moving straight onto Isherwood's time as a “camera” in Germany, or reading Lions and Shadows, his behind-the-scenes of this novel.
November 25, 2015
دو و نیم ستاره
November 2, 2015
Having made it my goal to read Isherwood’s entire oeuvre, I begin with his first novel, published when he is twenty-four in 1928, although he later reveals he’d been working on it since he was twenty-one. It is a painful read, not because he’s a poor writer. It’s just that you now know he’s going to become so much better!
At first, I am confused. I can’t seem to locate any thread, any continuity holding the novel together. Then I realize, of course, however misguided the author’s purpose may be, that this may be his intention. He’s creating a narrative of a young man largely like him, chapters strung together, almost as journal entries—consisting of interior monologue, unattributed dialogue, and sections that are epistolary in nature.
The protagonist, Philip Lindsay, is in the battle of his life with a mother who has very little sympathy for his youthful desires: leaving a perfectly fine job (though he hates it) to return to the family estate and do little but paint and write. The novel is told alternating between his and three other characters. There is no central narrator or storyteller, the author asking readers to put all the elements together themselves.
Isherwood, it seems, is attempting to forge a new kind of novel, or if not, at least improve upon those that have recently come before him. He might have, at least, tried to master the traditional elements of a novel before experimenting so severely with point of view, inner monologue, and the rejection of traditional grammar, so much to the point that many times the text doesn’t make sense. It isn’t that Isherwood shouldn’t have attempted such a novel; it is that perhaps he could have used the steady hand of a knowledgeable editor, someone to guide and advise him on how to achieve his goals.
At first, I am confused. I can’t seem to locate any thread, any continuity holding the novel together. Then I realize, of course, however misguided the author’s purpose may be, that this may be his intention. He’s creating a narrative of a young man largely like him, chapters strung together, almost as journal entries—consisting of interior monologue, unattributed dialogue, and sections that are epistolary in nature.
The protagonist, Philip Lindsay, is in the battle of his life with a mother who has very little sympathy for his youthful desires: leaving a perfectly fine job (though he hates it) to return to the family estate and do little but paint and write. The novel is told alternating between his and three other characters. There is no central narrator or storyteller, the author asking readers to put all the elements together themselves.
Isherwood, it seems, is attempting to forge a new kind of novel, or if not, at least improve upon those that have recently come before him. He might have, at least, tried to master the traditional elements of a novel before experimenting so severely with point of view, inner monologue, and the rejection of traditional grammar, so much to the point that many times the text doesn’t make sense. It isn’t that Isherwood shouldn’t have attempted such a novel; it is that perhaps he could have used the steady hand of a knowledgeable editor, someone to guide and advise him on how to achieve his goals.
May 26, 2025
This book was so claustrophobic and so queer I loved it!! Would be perfect to read in one afternoon
December 9, 2020
I had intended to read The Goldfinch next, but my dad insisted I read Great Expectations first as he believes Donna Tartt was clearly influenced by it. While searching for a copy of the latter in my dad's room I found this - an Isherwood I had not yet read, and his first published novel. The foreword in this edition, written nearly 30 years after publication, gives you some clue as to how self conscious his writing is; he criticises himself for his imitation of Virginia Woolf, but perhaps Woolf is appropriate for the dimly-lit Kensington townhouse the core characters inhabit. As would become custom, his author avatars are here too in the form of delicate but petulant Philip, and boorish (not to mention poor-ish) medical student Allen Chalmers. I admit to much use of a dictionary while reading this book - astrakhan sticks out in my mind in particular - but the language helps to place it firmly on the continuum, there could be no doubt about when it was written. A slice of stifled 20s upper-middle-class life, struggling furiously against all its expectations and restraints.
August 26, 2018
Isherwood’s first novel published in 1928 and written when he was 21. As a novel it’s certainly not without it’s problems. There are some rather half-hearted experiments with style and it is pretentious to a fault. Yet, there is some very endearing quality about the book. Perhaps because in subject and style it is so much of its time and also because however much Isherwood subsequently developed as a writer, there is a lot of talent in evidence. Certainly a flawed piece of work, but one which I really enjoyed.
November 28, 2025
In my longstanding goal to read all of Isherwood’s work, I randomly stumbled upon his first novel at my local library!
On the whole, I found the book to be pretty good. I’ll echo what a lot of other reviews here have said and agree that it really reads like a first novel. However, I saw the early signs of capital “I” Isherwood in the dialogue and the latter portion of the book.
The plot is a bit slow but it fits in well with books about cultural shifts in the interwar period. In some ways it reminded me of Evelyn Waugh and Woolf. Despite the obvious temporal markers of the plot, I loved the universal theme of young people being annoying trying to live authentically and avoid becoming their parents, especially in the midst of upheaval. Ironically this book was a pretty salient read for me. Yay Isherwood!
On the whole, I found the book to be pretty good. I’ll echo what a lot of other reviews here have said and agree that it really reads like a first novel. However, I saw the early signs of capital “I” Isherwood in the dialogue and the latter portion of the book.
The plot is a bit slow but it fits in well with books about cultural shifts in the interwar period. In some ways it reminded me of Evelyn Waugh and Woolf. Despite the obvious temporal markers of the plot, I loved the universal theme of young people being annoying trying to live authentically and avoid becoming their parents, especially in the midst of upheaval. Ironically this book was a pretty salient read for me. Yay Isherwood!
December 15, 2018
A family struggle to live with each other.
Some of writing was good and the changing attitudes of the family members to each other was well conveyed but overall if felt dated / slow.
Some of writing was good and the changing attitudes of the family members to each other was well conveyed but overall if felt dated / slow.
February 7, 2023
not a bad book, but very unlikeable main characters!
October 10, 2025
ATT: You are reading a pro forma Transmission from the Godhead of Retroactive Reviews 2025
I have no idea why I didn’t write anything about ______. It was so fucking _________ and _________ that, possibly, I was at a rare loss for words. Or maybe I was on the lam. I can’t remember; hey, it’s been a few since ___________ and I crossed paths.
(If you’re reading this, this is a form letter—a placeholder, if you must—done retroactively as a stop-gag corrective of historical wrongs I committed by failing to uphold my end of the book-reader compact. That compact, my own, dictates that I record SOMETHING/ANYTHING (not a Rundgren reference, but…) to mark my engagement with a given novel/work/etc. at a fixed time in my personal life history. These ‘reviews’ are not really reviews (no shit, I know) at all; their purpose is that they act as pretty accurate reflections of where my head/heart was at the time of engagement. It’s something between the book and I, and a good way to check your hubris from time-to-time. If you find any part of it enriching, that’s a wild compliment. If not, you can just feel free to move along—I can almost guarantee that no offense was genuinely intended. Almost.)
So, clearly, __________ pretty much made me revaluate my entire cosmological and epistemological edifices, those false shells I’d enacted over years to protect whatever core ‘me’ I felt uncomfortable exposing. And it is so fucking _______! The _______? Unbelievable, right? Good/bad times…Ahhhh. Anyhow, __________ by ____ _________ obviously deserves a reread to inform a proper write-up. In between now and whenever that reread happens (foregoing death or living on the lam again), all I can say is ___________________.
I know. That’s why I’ll be back.
X Cody
10.25
I have no idea why I didn’t write anything about ______. It was so fucking _________ and _________ that, possibly, I was at a rare loss for words. Or maybe I was on the lam. I can’t remember; hey, it’s been a few since ___________ and I crossed paths.
(If you’re reading this, this is a form letter—a placeholder, if you must—done retroactively as a stop-gag corrective of historical wrongs I committed by failing to uphold my end of the book-reader compact. That compact, my own, dictates that I record SOMETHING/ANYTHING (not a Rundgren reference, but…) to mark my engagement with a given novel/work/etc. at a fixed time in my personal life history. These ‘reviews’ are not really reviews (no shit, I know) at all; their purpose is that they act as pretty accurate reflections of where my head/heart was at the time of engagement. It’s something between the book and I, and a good way to check your hubris from time-to-time. If you find any part of it enriching, that’s a wild compliment. If not, you can just feel free to move along—I can almost guarantee that no offense was genuinely intended. Almost.)
So, clearly, __________ pretty much made me revaluate my entire cosmological and epistemological edifices, those false shells I’d enacted over years to protect whatever core ‘me’ I felt uncomfortable exposing. And it is so fucking _______! The _______? Unbelievable, right? Good/bad times…Ahhhh. Anyhow, __________ by ____ _________ obviously deserves a reread to inform a proper write-up. In between now and whenever that reread happens (foregoing death or living on the lam again), all I can say is ___________________.
I know. That’s why I’ll be back.
X Cody
10.25
January 20, 2024
I always feel with books like this there’s nothing I can said that hasn’t been said before so, briefly, I love Christopher Isherwood and that’s why I have avoided reading this book for so long. Having heard much about it that is not complimentary, some of it written by Isherwood himself.
I found the book very hard going at times. The story is largely dull. The way it’s written is often quite difficult. I found the parts where people’s thoughts are presented almost as dialogue very hard to get through.
I’m glad this wasn’t the first of his books I read as I think I may never have found out how wonderful the rest of them are.
It made it up to two stars in the end as the enjoyable parts really are very enjoyable.
I found the book very hard going at times. The story is largely dull. The way it’s written is often quite difficult. I found the parts where people’s thoughts are presented almost as dialogue very hard to get through.
I’m glad this wasn’t the first of his books I read as I think I may never have found out how wonderful the rest of them are.
It made it up to two stars in the end as the enjoyable parts really are very enjoyable.
April 6, 2018
Very much a first novel. Sometimes utterly confusing, sometimes very lucid and readable. Worth reading as part of Isherwood's canon because you can see the novelist he's going to become, but it's not a great book in it's own right.
June 1, 2015
Partly charming but not really very good. Sorry.
June 17, 2016
Ambiguous to the last, I never fully grasped the subtexts but Isherwood's prose and dialogue were above average and the characters sympathetic.
December 29, 2021
This book did not spark joy.
December 2, 2020
I just really couldn't get into this book. I was pretty lost from the start. I feel like this has to do with the characters sort of just being thrown at you. There is no point at the beginning of the story that allows you to make an assessment of the characters and the role they play in the story. This only marginally becomes clear as you keep reading. I also feel the actual story was sort of weak and had no real substance. Then again that could, of course, be attributed my inability to become emersed in the story. I will say the language and dialogue was okay, and a bunch better in terms of the flow than the only other Christopher Isherwood book I have read (Goodbye to Berlin). None of the less I didn't particularly enjoy reading this one.
Read
September 19, 2023An overall mediocre book.
I was excited to read this originally as I really enjoyed some of Isherwood's other novels but I was sorely disappointed!
I originally dnfed it since I found it so hard to get into but I eventually gave it another try.
This book is trying so hard to be so many great things and fails miserably, the characters are insufferable, the plot is ok at best and the setting is just bland. I really wanted to like this book!
I would not recommend it to anyone trying out Isherwood's writing, read Goodbye to Berlin or A Single Man instead!
I was excited to read this originally as I really enjoyed some of Isherwood's other novels but I was sorely disappointed!
I originally dnfed it since I found it so hard to get into but I eventually gave it another try.
This book is trying so hard to be so many great things and fails miserably, the characters are insufferable, the plot is ok at best and the setting is just bland. I really wanted to like this book!
I would not recommend it to anyone trying out Isherwood's writing, read Goodbye to Berlin or A Single Man instead!
September 30, 2024
All the Conspirators’ is Christopher Isherwood’s first novel – and you can tell it’s the work of an author still trying to find his voice. It doesn’t have the fluency of his Berlin novels, neither does it grab you the way his non-fiction does. This maybe because with almost no exception the characters aren’t very pleasant. In fact the main protagonist – Philip – is an entitled, spoilt manchild. Isherwood went onto write much better novels. This one is for completists.
July 1, 2025
What ???
This book was very confusing. It starts out with conversations where you can’t keep track of who is speaking. About 2/3 of the way through, when I finally had the characters figured out, I read the beginning again. Then, when I finally was getting into the story, it ended! As if someone told the author to write x many pages and he quit when he reached it. Very disappointing.
This book was very confusing. It starts out with conversations where you can’t keep track of who is speaking. About 2/3 of the way through, when I finally had the characters figured out, I read the beginning again. Then, when I finally was getting into the story, it ended! As if someone told the author to write x many pages and he quit when he reached it. Very disappointing.
November 30, 2017
I hate Philip, he was such a whiny character. During the whole first half I just kept hoping he would die... The synopsis made it seems like the mother was the problem, but actually no, it was just a random guy who couldn't get his act together, poor little boy smoking, eating, brooding in his room to annoy his mom.
I'm sad because I like the tone of Isherwood usually.
I'm sad because I like the tone of Isherwood usually.
January 1, 2019
An engaging read with recognisable characters. Perhaps not Isherwood at his best, but nevertheless a very realistic portrayal of the struggles young adults go through in attempting to break away from the moulds their parents have created. By the end, I had sympathy for all the characters, but especially Phil who is trying to start an artistic career despite his mother's best efforts.
January 10, 2022
I did not enjoy the style of skipping over important conversations and alluding to specifics later. Unpicking details from some intermingled flashback sections was tiresome and broke up my flow while reading. The characters did not particularly interest me.
Isherwood's first novel, published when he was 21.
Isherwood's first novel, published when he was 21.
January 12, 2020
Couldn't read it
October 11, 2024
An Isherwood flop
This was absolutely the worst book I've ever read by Isherwood. I've read most of his work. The extraneous details don't fit at all
This was absolutely the worst book I've ever read by Isherwood. I've read most of his work. The extraneous details don't fit at all
October 8, 2017
Isherwood has been a hit and miss author for me. All the Conspirators (1928) was his first novel and a big miss. The novel follows these siblings who basically just do everything in their power to reject their mother. This novel was written in the 1920s for a 1920s audience. It is just so utterly boring. Nothing happens. It is plotless. It’s your typical inter-generational class war novel. All the Conspirators reads like all the worst chapters of Forster filled with characters that Wodehouse would have a field day with.
May 21, 2016
His other books are better than this first effort, but it's still insufferably boring. I have no interest in experimental narrative styles, and the characters are all dull and poorly drawn. Even though it's only 200 pages, I gave up at 150; the actual story isn't compelling enough.
Isherwood is, overall, a good, clean writer, so as a technician he's probably a good role-model for aspiring scribes (his spare prose reminds me of Coetzee). But I prefer conventional plots with high stakes; lucid prose is meaningless without a strong story.
Isherwood is, overall, a good, clean writer, so as a technician he's probably a good role-model for aspiring scribes (his spare prose reminds me of Coetzee). But I prefer conventional plots with high stakes; lucid prose is meaningless without a strong story.
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