Liberation Read Free

mysteries of Madame Blavatsky, a pure product of the 1890s. In America, Hinduism was more puzzling than anything (“Why didn’t he go directly on to Zen?” most of us wondered; Hinduism seemed to Zen what Jung seemed to Freud: seedy, not very rigorous, slightly embarrassing).
    He was a wonderful host, and that’s how I choose to recall him. Carefully dressed, he’d climb out of an easy chair and greet a friend warmly, show him around his house. I remember seeing a photo of the very young Don with Marilyn Monroe and Chris with Joan Crawford (“our dates,” Chris emphasized). In his study he showed me a school picture of Auden and himself, something he kept close by. He mentioned Tennessee Williams (“We had an affair in the 1940s when we were both still rather presentable”). There were Hockneys to be seen and works by other artist friends and of course Don’s studio to be visited. If we drove to a nearby restaurant for dinner Chris lay down in the back seat (“I was driving Don mad with all my wincing, so if I lie down I don’t see anything or complain”). It gratified me that even if I was a very marginal player in his drama, nevertheless he accorded me all his warmth and cleverness and kindness, if only for an evening.
    Â 
    Edmund White
    New York City
    February 25, 2011

Textual Note
    American style and spelling are used throughout this book because Isherwood himself gradually adopted them. English spellings mostly disappeared from his diaries by the end of his first decade in California, although he sometimes reverted to them, for instance when staying at length in England. I have altered anomalies in keeping with the general trend; however, I have retained idiosyncrasies of phrasing and spelling which have a phonetic impact in order that his characteristically Anglo-American voice might resound in the writing, and I have let stand some English spellings that are accepted in American since Isherwood had no reason to change these. I have generally retained his old-fashioned habit of liberal capitalization because this is often a key, like quotation marks but with less emphasis, to his private language of camp.
    I have made some very minor alterations silently, such as standardizing passages which Isherwood quotes from his own published books, from other published authors, and from letters. I have standardized punctuation for most dialogue and quotations, for obvious typos (which are rare), and very occasionally to ease the reader’s progress. I have usually retained Isherwood’s characteristic use of the semi-colon followed by an incomplete clause. I have spelled out many abbreviations, including names, for which Isherwood sometimes used only initials, because I believe he himself would have spelled these out for publication, and I have corrected the spellings of many names because he typically checked and corrected names himself. Square brackets mark emendations of any substance or interest and these are often described in a footnote. Around his sixty-seventh birthday, Isherwood began to misspell names and occasionally transposed them or got them wrong in some other way; he had seldom made such errors before. For simple misspellings of this kind, I have generally not added footnotes. But for more significant and potentially confusing errors, I have done so, especially where Isherwood himself draws attention to them.
    Square brackets also mark information I have added to the text for clarity, such as surnames or parts of titles shortened by Isherwood. And square brackets indicate where I have removed or altered material in order to protect the privacy of individuals still living.
    This book includes a seven-month run of entries from Isherwood’s 1976 pocket diaries; these were pre-printed appointment books, seven days to a page, in which he jotted down whom he met each day and, very briefly, main events. He called them his day-to-day diaries. The entries fill