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The Memorial
With The Memorial, Christopher Isherwood began his lifelong work of rewriting his own experiences into witty yet almost forensic portraits of modern society. Set in the aftermath of World War I, The Memorial portrays the dissolution of a tradition-bound English family. Cambridge student Eric Vernon finds himself torn between his desire to emulate his heroic father, who led a life of quiet sacrifice before dying in the war, and his envy for his father's great friend Edward Blake, who survived the war only to throw himself into gay life in Berlin and the pursuit of meaningless relationships.
296 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1932
21 people are currently reading
1625 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Isherwood
164 books1,518 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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April 18, 2022Como normalmente nado contra a maré, qual Adeus a Berlim, eu tinha mesmo de começar por um título menos conhecido, menos popular, aliás, tão pouco popular que o GR lhe atribui uma pontuação de 3,42. E é merecida? Com certeza que não!
A precisão e a capacidade de recriar cenários realistas é uma coisa que temos forçosamente de admirar em Isherwood.
O seu humor negro é resultado da realidade absurda que experienciou em vida e a sua consciência política é evidente desde as primeiras linhas de texto.
Em O Memorial - Retrato De Uma Família- o ritmo desapressado não torna a leitura muito fácil; a época em que o autor escolhe ambientar o romance também não é das mais empolgantes para a ficção, mas, para uma leitura histórica do que foi a Europa de século XX, os anos 20/30 não poderiam ter sido melhor escolhidos.
1928:
"Um mundo belo e feliz, no qual o Verão seguinte seria idêntico e os seguintes também -a maledicência provinciana, os bailes, o anúncio dos casamentos, as meninas debutantes, conversas sobre o que se dispendia para manter o nível de vida de cada um - os tiros, a caça, a criação - alusões humoristicas sobre gente que tinha enriquecido à custa do algodão - a Sra. Beddoes e os outros a passarem por entre a mesa de chá e a estula fria com
pratos com sanduíches de agrião peopino. Aquele velho mundo, seguro, feliz e belo."(p.77)
Velho, seguro, feliz e belo não fossem os conflitos familiares, a tentativa desesperada de afirmação de superioridade de classes; e uma tentativa de suicídio.
[E entra o flashback cinematográfico]
1920:
A guerra não é um incidente ultrapassado. Claramente exerce um poder sinistro sobre os Vernon e os Scrivens para quem a morte de Richard Vernon - elemento de ligação entre as duas facções - foi decisiva.
A morte, as privações, a insegurança tomaram definitivamente conta da Europa e traduzem-se em resquícios e maneirismos absurdos que perduram nos comportamentos da sociedade:
"Aquela sala era demasiadamente grande para três pessoas, quanto mais duas, e, na ideia de Eric, estava associada a visitas e a enormes refeições que duravam horas a fio. Para mais, tinha-lhe parecido vagamente patriota utilizar a sala mais pequena; como parecia patriota, então, fazer tudo, por mais inútil que fosse, que tornasse as coisas menos confortáveis."
137
1925:
Cambridge - dois estudantes, dois primos, cada qual lidando com a realidade de um mundo em repentina mudança, tentando o seu melhor pela sobrevivência.
Londres - duas mulheres, esposa e irmã do soldado morto, cada qual lidando com o passado tentando determinar que futuro resta a quem perdeu já tanto:
"...penso que a felicidade pertence aos jovens. Os velhos têm recordações.(...)Acho que se se foi muito feliz durante algum tempo da nossa vida, então nada mais interessa."
224
[E de volta ao presente]
1929:
"... parecia-lhe ter sido inacreditavelmente excessivo o que acontecera e tudo tão complicado e tão difícil que, se aos quinze anos alguém lhe tivesse trazido um livro e lhe tivesse dito: «Olha. É isto tudo que tens à tua frente», ter-se-ia sentido como uma estudante em exames, confrontada com um programa absurdamente extenso: «Mas eu não poderei nunca conseguir fazer tudo isso!» E, no entanto, conseguira até ao último pormenor; e, afinal, tinha sido fácil sem ser especialmente estranho ou excitante. E como tudo passara depressa!"(p.247)
Como quer que o mundo gire, em qualquer direção que a seta aponte, a vida tem as suas formas de se refazer. Para uns significa apostar tudo a troco de experiências fortes; para outros significa recordar; para outros ainda significa apagar o passado e criar um futuro de raiz.
Richard Vernon deixou mulher, filho, irmã, sobrinhos e um melhor amigo para trás. A tristeza não os matou, e não os matou a saudade e não os matou a dor. Cada um continuou a viver a vida que lhe cabia, mais próximos ou mais afastados, mais felizes ou menos do que quando ele era vivo. Mas a vida continuou. Porque não foi a morte de Richard que lhes retirou o tapete debaixo dos pés...
"Sabes - disse Franz, muito sério e evidentemente a repetir algo que ouvira aos mais velhos: - aquela guerra... nunca deveria ter acontecido."
254
Agora sim, venha O Adeus a Berlim...mas de preferência com uma edição mais cuidadinha que esta estava cheia de gralhas e erros tontos (como é mais antiga que eu - um nadinha - dou desconto por esta vez).
A precisão e a capacidade de recriar cenários realistas é uma coisa que temos forçosamente de admirar em Isherwood.
O seu humor negro é resultado da realidade absurda que experienciou em vida e a sua consciência política é evidente desde as primeiras linhas de texto.
Em O Memorial - Retrato De Uma Família- o ritmo desapressado não torna a leitura muito fácil; a época em que o autor escolhe ambientar o romance também não é das mais empolgantes para a ficção, mas, para uma leitura histórica do que foi a Europa de século XX, os anos 20/30 não poderiam ter sido melhor escolhidos.
1928:
"Um mundo belo e feliz, no qual o Verão seguinte seria idêntico e os seguintes também -a maledicência provinciana, os bailes, o anúncio dos casamentos, as meninas debutantes, conversas sobre o que se dispendia para manter o nível de vida de cada um - os tiros, a caça, a criação - alusões humoristicas sobre gente que tinha enriquecido à custa do algodão - a Sra. Beddoes e os outros a passarem por entre a mesa de chá e a estula fria com
pratos com sanduíches de agrião peopino. Aquele velho mundo, seguro, feliz e belo."(p.77)
Velho, seguro, feliz e belo não fossem os conflitos familiares, a tentativa desesperada de afirmação de superioridade de classes; e uma tentativa de suicídio.
[E entra o flashback cinematográfico]
1920:
A guerra não é um incidente ultrapassado. Claramente exerce um poder sinistro sobre os Vernon e os Scrivens para quem a morte de Richard Vernon - elemento de ligação entre as duas facções - foi decisiva.
A morte, as privações, a insegurança tomaram definitivamente conta da Europa e traduzem-se em resquícios e maneirismos absurdos que perduram nos comportamentos da sociedade:
"Aquela sala era demasiadamente grande para três pessoas, quanto mais duas, e, na ideia de Eric, estava associada a visitas e a enormes refeições que duravam horas a fio. Para mais, tinha-lhe parecido vagamente patriota utilizar a sala mais pequena; como parecia patriota, então, fazer tudo, por mais inútil que fosse, que tornasse as coisas menos confortáveis."
137
1925:
Cambridge - dois estudantes, dois primos, cada qual lidando com a realidade de um mundo em repentina mudança, tentando o seu melhor pela sobrevivência.
Londres - duas mulheres, esposa e irmã do soldado morto, cada qual lidando com o passado tentando determinar que futuro resta a quem perdeu já tanto:
"...penso que a felicidade pertence aos jovens. Os velhos têm recordações.(...)Acho que se se foi muito feliz durante algum tempo da nossa vida, então nada mais interessa."
224
[E de volta ao presente]
1929:
"... parecia-lhe ter sido inacreditavelmente excessivo o que acontecera e tudo tão complicado e tão difícil que, se aos quinze anos alguém lhe tivesse trazido um livro e lhe tivesse dito: «Olha. É isto tudo que tens à tua frente», ter-se-ia sentido como uma estudante em exames, confrontada com um programa absurdamente extenso: «Mas eu não poderei nunca conseguir fazer tudo isso!» E, no entanto, conseguira até ao último pormenor; e, afinal, tinha sido fácil sem ser especialmente estranho ou excitante. E como tudo passara depressa!"(p.247)
Como quer que o mundo gire, em qualquer direção que a seta aponte, a vida tem as suas formas de se refazer. Para uns significa apostar tudo a troco de experiências fortes; para outros significa recordar; para outros ainda significa apagar o passado e criar um futuro de raiz.
Richard Vernon deixou mulher, filho, irmã, sobrinhos e um melhor amigo para trás. A tristeza não os matou, e não os matou a saudade e não os matou a dor. Cada um continuou a viver a vida que lhe cabia, mais próximos ou mais afastados, mais felizes ou menos do que quando ele era vivo. Mas a vida continuou. Porque não foi a morte de Richard que lhes retirou o tapete debaixo dos pés...
"Sabes - disse Franz, muito sério e evidentemente a repetir algo que ouvira aos mais velhos: - aquela guerra... nunca deveria ter acontecido."
254
Agora sim, venha O Adeus a Berlim...mas de preferência com uma edição mais cuidadinha que esta estava cheia de gralhas e erros tontos (como é mais antiga que eu - um nadinha - dou desconto por esta vez).
May 31, 2024
Isherwood takes a crack at Downton Abbey. Or EM Forster. Or Brideshead Revisited, that other Portrait of a Family. Published in 1932, the book is set shortly after WWI, and traces the effects of the war on various lives, at least initially. The cast of characters is large, mostly upper-middle class, and their connection to one another isn't immediately evident. Many of them spend a significant chunk of the book within their own heads--especially in Book II--which clarifies many of the relationships but makes for slow reading. Book III is set at Cambridge and is nothing if not Waughian. Isherwood hasn't yet created Isherwood-as-narrator, although Germany is already a feature, along with at least one (likely more) explicitly gay character. It's a little unfocused, as if Isherwood couldn't quite decide what sort of novel he wanted it to be, but it's not to be dismissed as insignificant.
January 11, 2011
It took me until pretty much the last page in order to get all the interchangeable characters straight in my head as well as to understand what the hell was supposed to be going on. This was obviously written before Isherwood was a.) fully open to himself as a homosexual and b.) before he ruled. If you're just starting with Isherwood, don't start with this one (psst start with Berlin Stories!) and then only read this one if you've read everything else and are as much of an Isherwood geek as I am. Otherwise, avoid it.
November 7, 2015
Isherwood’s second novel is not a comfortable or cozy read. He is a bright, young author attempting to impress the literary world with perhaps a Modernist book, one like his heroes, E. M. Forster and Virginia Woolf, write. This novel, as the title would suggest, revolves, at first, around the World War I memorial that one English town erects to honor its own 130 fallen men, including one Richard Vernon. But the narrative is so much more: it tells the story of his surviving widow, Lily Vernon, her son, Eric, a host of other relatives, and a man, a friend of the late Mr. Vernon, who, as it turns out, is a homosexual. By novel’s end this man, Edward Blake, is living in pre-Nazi Berlin with a young man named Franz—perhaps heralding Isherwood’s courage to write more about gay life in his The Berlin Stories, which are to follow in 1934.
Isherwood, who later works in Hollywood as a screenwriter, writes here as if he is unreeling a film, endeavoring to tell his narrative without the aid of authorial explanation. For example, the four major parts shift from 1928, to 1920, to 1925, then back to 1929. Chapters unfold by way of various characters’ points of view, sometimes, from person to person, within a single chapter (what CW professors now call head-hopping). If you wish to know who is related to whom you must pay careful attention; you rarely see such words as “cousin,” “aunt,” or “uncle.” Moreover, certain symbols or motifs are sounded in the background, like distant chimes: clocks of all kinds, some ticking loudly, some stopping entirely; conservative people pining for the past; rituals of how life had unfolded before the war. One way Isherwood mitigates the distance he may create with his disjointed threads is that he is particularly adept in portraying the inner lives of his characters, without telling too much. Here, Eric Vernon contemplates his Aunt Mary juxtaposed against his mother:
And yet there is good reason, isn’t there? The woman, since the death of her husband, has treated Eric as if he is a grandchild who only comes to visit on special occasions, not a youth, who is attempting to reconstruct the world around him following such a catastrophic event. This novel may not be among Isherwood’s most noted, primarily because of its experimental nature, but it is still a solid, well-written book. Isherwood’s editors must sense his talent, are anxious to hurry him toward that next phase of his career.
Isherwood, who later works in Hollywood as a screenwriter, writes here as if he is unreeling a film, endeavoring to tell his narrative without the aid of authorial explanation. For example, the four major parts shift from 1928, to 1920, to 1925, then back to 1929. Chapters unfold by way of various characters’ points of view, sometimes, from person to person, within a single chapter (what CW professors now call head-hopping). If you wish to know who is related to whom you must pay careful attention; you rarely see such words as “cousin,” “aunt,” or “uncle.” Moreover, certain symbols or motifs are sounded in the background, like distant chimes: clocks of all kinds, some ticking loudly, some stopping entirely; conservative people pining for the past; rituals of how life had unfolded before the war. One way Isherwood mitigates the distance he may create with his disjointed threads is that he is particularly adept in portraying the inner lives of his characters, without telling too much. Here, Eric Vernon contemplates his Aunt Mary juxtaposed against his mother:
“And yet, here he was thinking about going to tea at Aunt Mary’s. He had another pang of guilt at his selfishness. It was curious that the thought of Aunt Mary often made him feel guilty towards his mother, apparently without any reason” (154).
And yet there is good reason, isn’t there? The woman, since the death of her husband, has treated Eric as if he is a grandchild who only comes to visit on special occasions, not a youth, who is attempting to reconstruct the world around him following such a catastrophic event. This novel may not be among Isherwood’s most noted, primarily because of its experimental nature, but it is still a solid, well-written book. Isherwood’s editors must sense his talent, are anxious to hurry him toward that next phase of his career.
September 4, 2016
This strikes me as one of the most underrated titles in Modernism. Despite the turn of many writers in the 1930s to more politically-engaged writing, this is a strong bookend to a period invested in the underlying structures of narrative and language. The impressions don't strike as profoundly as Woolf's (NB: she published the first edition), but the structure of the narration seems the result of a mind that plumbs nearly as deep. Additionally, its treatment of World War I demonstrates a maturity far ahead of the Isherwood of _The Berlin Stories_.
December 26, 2014
Usually I know just how many stars to give, but I was between 4 and 5 for this one. In the end it got 5, because it deserves them and because it's so undervalued. I take the reviewers' points, regarding the lack of plot and the overfill of characters, but what characters they were! They are portrayed so well. It's certainly one of those books that I find I miss when I've finished. And it's really quite ahead of its time, so much so that I'd love to know how it was received in 1932. Aside from that it's a very stylish book, and as most books today rely on plot to move forward, it's refreshing. It leaps back and forth in time and between viewpoints, but - and this is my point - commit and concentrate with this one, and you'll find it really worthwhile.
November 29, 2023
SOAP IMPRESSION:
Approximately 1/3rd of the way through this sophomore offering, the shining, glorious, urbane, and humane Christopher Isherwood emerges. Finding his ultimate ‘voice’ in the liberating vehicle of a lovable shitbag, Isherwood gets to prove what Modernism could have been to American writers had they not all been so cowed by Hemingway’s cock, Joyce’s genius, and a Proustian inheritance several seafaring leagues out of reach.
Approximately 1/3rd of the way through this sophomore offering, the shining, glorious, urbane, and humane Christopher Isherwood emerges. Finding his ultimate ‘voice’ in the liberating vehicle of a lovable shitbag, Isherwood gets to prove what Modernism could have been to American writers had they not all been so cowed by Hemingway’s cock, Joyce’s genius, and a Proustian inheritance several seafaring leagues out of reach.
December 26, 2017
I really do love Christopher Isherwood. In this novel, he writes about the satellite friends and family of one very charismatic and attractive set of aristocrats, the Scriven Family. The main sources of jealousy come from Edward Blake, best friends from cold, cruel English boarding school with Richard Vernon, Mary Scriven's brother, and Eric Vernon, Richard's son with his milquetoast wife, Lily. Both of them are social outcasts--Edward for being gay and a little bit too mean as a young man, and Eric for being just too awkward-- and both of them fall in love a little bit with the Scrivens. Eric hates Edward, for his predatory relationship with Maurice Scriven, meanwhile, Edward used to feel very possessive of Richard when they were younger.
This actually reminded me quite a bit of Brideshead Revisited, but I enjoyed this so much more. Both novels have the wistfulness of the aristocracy seeing their way of life being whisked away from them. Both novels have a gay undercurrent, particularly at boarding school, but not necessarily out in the real world where these men were expected to marry nice girls and have children to continue the family line. But The Memorial was just so much more enjoyable to read! The characters were so much more finely drawn. Awkward, stuttering Eric who idolizes Maurice Scrivens and his friends, Edward who is such an asshole and no one really laughs at his jokes, until he gets a bit older and manages to create this haughty, worldly persona for himself, and even Lily, who everyone thinks is so boring, but is really quite sweet and just not obnoxious like Mary Scrivens. It all felt very true and painful.
The story is told in and out of the inner monologues of the main characters, jumping back and forth on the post-WWI timeline in London, Paris, and Berlin. It made it really very interesting to notice these stark contrasts between Eric as a 17-year-old and Eric as a bitter 25-year-old, between Edward in a depressed, self-hating mode, and Edward in a life-of-the-party mode. Well done, Isherwood!
This actually reminded me quite a bit of Brideshead Revisited, but I enjoyed this so much more. Both novels have the wistfulness of the aristocracy seeing their way of life being whisked away from them. Both novels have a gay undercurrent, particularly at boarding school, but not necessarily out in the real world where these men were expected to marry nice girls and have children to continue the family line. But The Memorial was just so much more enjoyable to read! The characters were so much more finely drawn. Awkward, stuttering Eric who idolizes Maurice Scrivens and his friends, Edward who is such an asshole and no one really laughs at his jokes, until he gets a bit older and manages to create this haughty, worldly persona for himself, and even Lily, who everyone thinks is so boring, but is really quite sweet and just not obnoxious like Mary Scrivens. It all felt very true and painful.
The story is told in and out of the inner monologues of the main characters, jumping back and forth on the post-WWI timeline in London, Paris, and Berlin. It made it really very interesting to notice these stark contrasts between Eric as a 17-year-old and Eric as a bitter 25-year-old, between Edward in a depressed, self-hating mode, and Edward in a life-of-the-party mode. Well done, Isherwood!
June 22, 2016
I love Isherwood novels, as a general rule, so my giving this one three stars probably means I just read it at the wrong moment. Also, since the author is dead, it can't do any harm to low-rate this one, even if I am probably wrong to do so. Isherwood has long been one of my favorites, so when I was poking around in Books Inc., and saw they had his first novel on sale, I decided it was time to give it a go. Sadly, I am so over-saturated with reading about the English of this period that even when the novel is fresh and different, I am too jaded to appreciate it. I can't help feeling I learn too much about characters that don't interest me, and not nearly enough about the ones that do, which is within my rights as a reader of course, but perhaps not fair to what the writer set out to accomplish. Spoiler alert: I should at least be grateful for a novel from this period that shows us a gay character without having to kill him off. Most likely, this one of those books I will reread later and appreciate more, so just ignore this whole review, please.
July 24, 2013
Isherwood's second novel, touted as the novel in which Isherwood becomes Isherwood, left me a little disappointed. I read A Single Man ages ago, loved it for its prose, but this left little to be liked. It's a character study with little to no real engaging plot. The characterizations are incredibly lifelike. The prose, however, was sparse and lacking in melody. There were bits and pieces in which you can see (and hear) Isherwood for what he is known, but they occur in the first and fourth parts. Good to read if you've read Isherwood before, but not a good place to start if you haven't.
Good, but still missing something.
Good, but still missing something.
January 21, 2025
If you’re like me and every so often want to read something that reminds you why the novel is a unique form, how it can paint better than portraiture, how it can develop more than a film, why anyone would endeavor to write in an age when reading seems doomed to distraction, then I would tell you to read something like this novel, whose full title is “The Memorial: A portrait of a family.” The book is about how inter and post war life in London has impacted a family so profoundly that its lingering effects take on an aesthetic dimension. Its a very subtle work, adopting the classic modernist technique of telling through omission, negation, contradiction, sarcasm, and subversion, but primarily the novel as Isherwood himself described it, takes on the illusion of a “drawing room comedy” to reveal a national allegory told through a broad and poignant decline of a family.
July 25, 2024
Very much a young man’s work: stop-start style, patchy, spirited in some places and rushed in others. Impressive portrait of the Mother, however, and merits comparison with Henry Green’s similar achievement in Blindness:
‘For a moment he hardly recognized Lily. She was hideous with grief. Her eyes swollen into slits, her mouth heavy and pouting, her face blotched and sallow. He hung back, scared. The smile shrank from his lips. She gave a kind of hoarse cry. He rushed into her arms. That was agony. He knew then that everything he'd imagined he'd suffered at school was nothing, mere selfishness, triviality. She reopened the wound and tore it ten times wider. And now it would have made no difference to Eric if ten fathers had been killed. It was only for her he felt. Father was dead. But she was alive and suffering like this right before his very eyes.’
‘For a moment he hardly recognized Lily. She was hideous with grief. Her eyes swollen into slits, her mouth heavy and pouting, her face blotched and sallow. He hung back, scared. The smile shrank from his lips. She gave a kind of hoarse cry. He rushed into her arms. That was agony. He knew then that everything he'd imagined he'd suffered at school was nothing, mere selfishness, triviality. She reopened the wound and tore it ten times wider. And now it would have made no difference to Eric if ten fathers had been killed. It was only for her he felt. Father was dead. But she was alive and suffering like this right before his very eyes.’
January 12, 2010
The Memorial is Christopher Isherwood's second novel and though it comes highly recommended with wonderful blurbs and recommendations from scholars, it is not one of the author's finest works. I did not like it. One problem for me is that the book really does not have a plot, for which it is recognized and for which it is acclaimed as a series of highly developed character studies. Unfortunately, I could not develop much connection with any of the characters. The biggest disappointment is that the book does not contain that wonderful fluid and elegant prose that Isherwood is capable of producing. I intend to continue to read more of this author and hope none of his other products are as dismal.
January 6, 2020
Noticeably one of Isherwood's first works. It felt like he spent a long time just writing character sketches without a clear idea of what said characters would do, then realized he had enough material for a novel and tried to paste it all together. Bizarrely and confusingly paced, only occasionally interesting as prose, and with far too many characters to juggle (all of whom you never see again just as they start to get interesting), The Memorial still manages to allude to some worthwhile themes and character conflicts. It just never feels like Isherwood knew what he wanted to do with this book.
Also: Arbitrarily nonchronological. Sections go from 1928 to 1920 to 1925 to 1929. No reason for the first section to be out of sequence and only muddles the reading.
Also: Arbitrarily nonchronological. Sections go from 1928 to 1920 to 1925 to 1929. No reason for the first section to be out of sequence and only muddles the reading.
September 4, 2013
Isherwood's character portraits in The Memorial were wonderful, as usual, but I thought he took on too many characters, and the narration was a bit hard to follow. The suicide scene early in the novel was intense and memorable. At first I found Eric to be the most interesting character, but by the end it was definitely Edward.
February 21, 2020
My quest to read everything that Christopher Isherwood ever wrote ahead of writing my MA dissertation continues. The Memorial had not been on my radar before I started researching, but I ended up thoroughly, thoroughly enjoying it. If anyone out there is looking for a book which encapsulates how traumatised British society was after WWI, then this is definitely that book.
Isherwood's usual subjects, as I'm sure everyone knows, are the interwar period, Berlin, and gay life in the early part of the twentieth century. All of those things are still present in The Memorial, but to a lesser extent than in the likes of Goodbye to Berlin or Christopher and His Kind. Instead of being an interwar book per se - as in a book that deals with the tense feeling of hanging in suspension between the wars - this is very much a book about the hangover of WW1. In some ways, it feels like a book in which WWI is still continuing, because it's all anyone talks about or thinks about, and it influences every decision they make. As the title implies, this book is a memorial to the conflict, and the whole point of memorials is that they make things harder to let go of. There were so many interesting ideas about the impact of memorialisation in here that I don't recall ever seeing in a book before. For a novel concerned almost exclusively with civilians, it certainly made for a very, very interesting war read.
Unlike the rest of Isherwood's fiction that I've read so far, The Memorial is an ensemble piece too. It follows several characters - most especially Lily, Eric, and Edward - and offers all of their differing perspectives on the carnage of war and, more specifically, the loss of Richard, who was Lily's husband, Eric's father, and Edward's friends. I really enjoyed the interweaving of voices in this novel, and I think it derives a lot of its impact from showing that people react to traumatic events in different ways, and that their behaviour, in turn, influences the behaviour of those around them. This felt like a very communal book in many ways, which I was not expecting from Isherwood, whose other works are famously autobiographical (not that this one isn't), written using first-person narrators who often have the same name as him, and - dare I say? - a tad egotistical. The sense of community evoked within The Memorial was therefore very refreshing, as well as something which took what is essentially a familiar story about grief to a whole other level.
I'm surprised by how little read this book is! I acknowledge that Isherwood isn't necessarily the widest read of modernist writers anywhere, and he's certainly a lot wackier and more unique elsewhere, but this felt like such an essential portrait of the time he came of age in that I would have imagined it would attract more interest than it does. It's also really well-written, using many of the hallmarks of canonical modernist writing, and, for those interested in the queer elements of Isherwood's writing, there are most definitely hints of a gay community in (surprise surprise) Berlin in here, though those are maybe more subtle than in his other works. The Memorial therefore has much to recommend it by. Don't write it off simply because it's an early work by a lesser-modernist writer. It's a little bit of a hidden treasure.
Isherwood's usual subjects, as I'm sure everyone knows, are the interwar period, Berlin, and gay life in the early part of the twentieth century. All of those things are still present in The Memorial, but to a lesser extent than in the likes of Goodbye to Berlin or Christopher and His Kind. Instead of being an interwar book per se - as in a book that deals with the tense feeling of hanging in suspension between the wars - this is very much a book about the hangover of WW1. In some ways, it feels like a book in which WWI is still continuing, because it's all anyone talks about or thinks about, and it influences every decision they make. As the title implies, this book is a memorial to the conflict, and the whole point of memorials is that they make things harder to let go of. There were so many interesting ideas about the impact of memorialisation in here that I don't recall ever seeing in a book before. For a novel concerned almost exclusively with civilians, it certainly made for a very, very interesting war read.
Unlike the rest of Isherwood's fiction that I've read so far, The Memorial is an ensemble piece too. It follows several characters - most especially Lily, Eric, and Edward - and offers all of their differing perspectives on the carnage of war and, more specifically, the loss of Richard, who was Lily's husband, Eric's father, and Edward's friends. I really enjoyed the interweaving of voices in this novel, and I think it derives a lot of its impact from showing that people react to traumatic events in different ways, and that their behaviour, in turn, influences the behaviour of those around them. This felt like a very communal book in many ways, which I was not expecting from Isherwood, whose other works are famously autobiographical (not that this one isn't), written using first-person narrators who often have the same name as him, and - dare I say? - a tad egotistical. The sense of community evoked within The Memorial was therefore very refreshing, as well as something which took what is essentially a familiar story about grief to a whole other level.
I'm surprised by how little read this book is! I acknowledge that Isherwood isn't necessarily the widest read of modernist writers anywhere, and he's certainly a lot wackier and more unique elsewhere, but this felt like such an essential portrait of the time he came of age in that I would have imagined it would attract more interest than it does. It's also really well-written, using many of the hallmarks of canonical modernist writing, and, for those interested in the queer elements of Isherwood's writing, there are most definitely hints of a gay community in (surprise surprise) Berlin in here, though those are maybe more subtle than in his other works. The Memorial therefore has much to recommend it by. Don't write it off simply because it's an early work by a lesser-modernist writer. It's a little bit of a hidden treasure.
July 6, 2025
This, like most of Isherwood’s books, is autobiographical. It really reads like a diary, in which character names are written as if already known and significant, without background or explanation. Once you accept this, there are some quaintly fun bits. But this was very early in his career and doesn’t, to me, represent his final form or prowess. If you can only read one Isherwood, make it A Single Man. If you can read two, add Goodbye to Berlin (not the whole Berlin Stories). If you can’t do any of that, watch the Single Man film and see the musical Cabaret.
September 4, 2018
I worship Isherwood and Berlin Stories is perhaps my favorite novel ever. Even so, I gave up on this after the first hundred exceedingly dull pages.
Read
January 6, 2021not a word out of place!
June 9, 2022
3.75 I liked the second half lots but first I got confused lol
March 9, 2025
the last line of this book being “it ought to have never happened” feels very much applicable to the matter at hand
October 18, 2015
This book was a great exercise in modernity, non-linear time passages, shell shocked men after the war, some sort of semblance of stream of consciousness toward the end, everything Jean Rhys and Virginia Woolf were doing two decades earlier. I liked this book but it was by no means great, Eric, Maurice and Edward were the only interesting characters and all the extra ones like Lily and Mary and Ram's B all seemed to blur into one, indeed it is very unclear what happens in this novel and the idea it shows a society in decay is laughable, it shows a series of unconnected events and was not the good writing I have come to expect from Isherwood.
March 7, 2016
Wanted to like this one but never really got into it the way I have with his other books. Contained the line 'Other people were brilliant and erratic. He just slogged on.' which I quite liked and wrote on the back of an U-Bahn ticket because my phone had died. Other than that, it sort of felt like some other person trying to write and Isherwood style story but leaving out all the good bits.
April 25, 2018
Kind of boring?
I found the plot & characters unengaging, but other aspects of the writing were good so I'll probably read one of his other books eventually.
I found the plot & characters unengaging, but other aspects of the writing were good so I'll probably read one of his other books eventually.
May 1, 2021
A well written book about ghastly people.
December 31, 2023
A wonderful story about a group of largely unlikeable people.
November 25, 2023
"'Who?' asked Earle, quite at sea as to what was going on." A quote from the book that completely encapsulates my feelings about Isherwood's novel. This book is quite difficult to follow or understand. It is divided into four "books" - starting in 1928, then to 1920, back to 1925, and finally to 1929. The subtitle is "Portrait of a Family," which does little to explain any plot or even point of the book. The back cover refers to "the deliciously forbidden world of Berlin in 1928 -- where a World War I flying ace finds caring romance in the muscular arms of his German lover," but if you pick up on this point in the book, you're a much better reader than I am. Indeed, any idea of a German lover does not appear until the last two pages of the book. So many members of the "family" are addressed in this novel, that you need to make a cheat sheet to remember who they are and how they tie to anyone else. While I have enjoyed other Isherwood works, I found this work very disappointing, and I can see why it was out of print from 1946 to 1977.
February 8, 2023
This was an interesting read for me to compare it with Isherwood's masterpiece the Berlin Stories, which came just after it. In fact, The Memorial is mentioned in Berlin Stories as the book Isherwood is working on and has trouble describing to his new German friends who are anxious to read it. As Isherwood describes the book in Berlin Stories, I got the sense that he was describing a kind of apprentice work that he needed to work through and leave behind to get to the style he perfected in Berlin Stories, and after reading Memorial, that's pretty much the impression I had. There are lots of small gems of scenes and characters and lines, as well as bits that feel cribbed from E. M. Forster and Virginia Woolf. The structure is interesting and some of the characters are affecting, though at the end, the book didn't quite cohere. Since this is about the dissolution of a British family, maybe that was the point...
April 20, 2023
3.9 if I could do decimal points (it's 2023, please GoodReads add decimal points). Lots of characters, little hard to get my head around them for the first 50 pages but definitely worth hanging in there!
After reading a lot of Isherwood's later work it's interesting to see some ideas and scenes from later books taking form here. I found a lot of parallels between this book and A Single Man which is interesting considering it was published over 30 years later.
Not quite as polished as these later works, but as always there are some beautiful observations and dialogue.
After reading a lot of Isherwood's later work it's interesting to see some ideas and scenes from later books taking form here. I found a lot of parallels between this book and A Single Man which is interesting considering it was published over 30 years later.
Not quite as polished as these later works, but as always there are some beautiful observations and dialogue.
March 29, 2018
In some ways this is an odd little book, but it's compelling and you can see hints of the future of Isherwood's writing. You're left rather frustratingly wanting to know more about the motivations and backgrounds of most of the characters, Edward and Eric in particular. In some ways Eric is the most obscure character of all, and you feel that Edward wants a novel of his own. The jumps in time are occasionally hard to follow. But I'm glad to have read this book.
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