A Single Man

Title: A Single Man
Author: Christopher Isherwood
Published: 1964 originally, this Vintage edition in 2010. Oh, and I do love the cover art.
Genre: Drama
Pages: 152

If you, hypothetical reader –I don’t know if you really exist, or if I’m writing this just for my own amusement- have read other posts in this blog, perhaps more than just one, you’ve most likely gathered that I have a soft spot –a friend calls it a fetish- for gay men. You can call me a girlfag, I know I do. I’m also a big fan of Doctor Who. So when my girlfriend informed me of a movie (Christopher and his kind) where the current Who Matt Smith plays the author of this book –and many others- Christopher Isherwood, I was all over that. And while I was reading this book, I kept hearing Smith’s voice in my head. Good times!

Not that you needed –or possibly wanted- to read all that, but it’s how I stumbled upon this book.

It’s a pretty usual morning in the 1960’s California, and George Falconer, an English professor, wakes up as usual. Except that’s George’s lover Jim is dead. He’s been dead for some months now, and George is somewhat coping. Moving on. Getting on with his life, day to day to day.

A Single Man follows a single day in George’s life; how, despite his sorrow, he’s determined to keep on living, and how, despite the fact that Jim is dead, there are still good things and funny things in the world. The book is written beautifully, with sadness but also with hope and great sense of humour. Some bits had me laughing almost out loud. Only almost, since I was sitting in a bus.

There’s also a movie made of this book, and I watched it as soon as I could after finishing the book, to decide whether I’d understood the ending correctly, but the movie is very different from the book. Very. The scenery and the time of the world have been caught beautifully, but the spirit of the book has been turned into something else. It makes for a good movie, and towards the end it returns to the book’s idea, but I muchly prefer the book over the movie.

Waking up begins with saying am and now. That which has awoken then lies for a while staring up at the ceiling and down into itself until it has recognised I, and therefore deduced I am, I am now. Here comes next, and is at least negatively reassuring; because here, this morning, is where it had expected to find itself; what’s called at home.