I just wanted to relay an interesting quote from Christopher and His Kind. It is Christopher talking about his excitement over meeting E. M. Forster, saying the exact same things that I would say about Christopher himself:

“Forster was the only living writer whom he would have described as his master. In other people’s books he found examples of style which he waned to imitate and learn from. In Forster he found a key to the whole art of writing. The Zem masters of archery–of whom, in those days, Christopher had never heard–start by teaching you the mental attitude with which you must pick up the bow. A Forster novel taught Christopher the mental attitude with which he must pick up a pen.”

The quote appears on p. 105 of my edition of the book. And, for my own sake, it is interesting to note that I have never completed an E. M. Forster novel. His overtly “gay” novel, Maurice, was recommended to me by a boy named Jesse when I was a freshman in college. Jesse tried hard to seduce me, and he succeeded in all but the physical sense.

I read the first 100 pages of Maurice before self-righteously discarding it. It seemed to me that Forster was still so uncomfortable with his sexuality that the only thing he could do was go all Platonic in his discussions of the pure and academic love between two men. Never once did his characters simply delight in their sexual release. Which, at the time of my reading, was basically ALL that I cared about.

I am happy to say that Isherwood does not suffer from this problem.