Christopher Isherwood was an excellent writer--urbane, warm, witty, with appealing characters who interact in marvelously warm and interesting way. He began writing in the 1920s, with an autobiographical style that showed his disjuncture from the older generations, characters who were fatuous and entertaining, and certain not part of Christopher's new, modernist world. The stories possess a happy and adventuresome quality in the urban setting of Europe where most take place. While many people today may know Isherwood as a canonized gay advocate, it's important to recognize his highly erudite past. In "A Single Man," which was adapted into a film, he vividly portrays the gay life of a bygone era when being gay was deeply taboo. However, one of my personal favorites among his works is an earlier book titled "Down There on a Visit." This novel retains the style of his earlier prose when, as a Bohemian in his twenties, Isherwood dropped out of medical school and traveled across Europe.

The vignettes presented in "Down There on a Visit" offer a remote and romantic depiction of a fading aristocratic world, both in terms of means and attitudes. This narrative emerges from the period of depressed modernism after World War I. Isherwood's writing style exudes warmth, subjectivity, and a sharp focus on personality, wit, and acceptance of others. Through a diverse cast of eccentric characters, Isherwood brings to life a society post-World War I, predominantly inhabited by marginalized gay men who played significant cultural roles.

Isherwood's youthful stories carry an ironic lens, capturing the decline of the old order, the tendency of adults to underestimate him, and his delight in encountering peculiar individuals. The inner monologues are filled with intricate observations that wryly highlight the absurd pretenses of the older generation. One particularly poignant and tragicomic story is that of "Ambrose," an aristocratic gay man navigating Cambridge during his youth, later establishing a haven for unruly delinquents on a private island.

Another sorrowful tale is the true-life novelization of Paul, a gay prostitute from California. Isherwood skillfully portrays Paul's talent and sensitivity while unflinchingly chronicling his descent into self-destructive drug abuse in Europe, leading to his physical and mental deterioration and eventual premature death from heart failure. These stories offer a compelling glimpse into the flamboyant, perilous, creative, and occasionally fatal aspects of gay life during that era. Isherwood captures a time of tragedy but also of cultural ferment. Aside from the unusual content, the prose itself is magnificent, captivating readers with its beauty and power.