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'What's nationality these days?' asks the English tramp on a Greek steamer in V. S. Naipaul's In a Free State, and the question seems equally apt whether it is applied to Naipaul or to Christopher Isherwood. Writers are generally assumed to draw their inspiration for material from their native roots: sometimes they write better without them or by transplanting them. 'I write because I am trying to study my life in retrospect, and find out what it is made of, what it is all about, ' Isherwood once observed in an interview, and that quest has led them on the path of the expatriate for most of his adult life. His first two books, All the Conspirators (1928) and The Memorial (1932), studies of English life in the aftermath of 1918, sprang from an initial revolt against his background and education, the struggle of an only son to avoid spiritual suffocation. The years spent in Germany which inspired the Berlin novels and stories of the 1930s continued the process of discovery: his emigration to America in 1939 and his growing interest in Eastern religion represented the third and most decisive stage in this search for an authentic self. Francis King's essay traces this evolution all through Isherwood's very diverse oeuvre, describes his struggle and final success in assimilating his American experience, and points out that his last books, A Meeting by the River (1967), and his memoir of his parents, Kathleen and Frank (1971), mark a final reconciliation with and acceptance of his heredity. He notes the extent to which autobiographical material, as Isherwood would be the first to admit, has played a far larger part than invention in shaping his novels. The scope of Isherwood's world has been restricted by this somewhat solipsistic approach, the method summed up by the adaptation of the title of Sally Bowles into I am a Camera, but the essay pays tribute to the lucidity, the honesty and the outstanding gifts of description and dialogue which characterize all his best work. Francis King was born in 1923 and educated at Shrewsbury School and Balliol College, Oxford. He has written fifteen novels, three collections of short stories, a volume of poetry and two travel books. He regularly reviewed fiction for the Sunday Telegraph and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was awarded the Somerset Maugham Prize in 1952 and the Katherine Mansfield Short Story Prize in 1965.
This is the first book to treat the impact of religious, philosophical and psychological traditions of the East on Western intellectuals, artists, travellers and spiritual seekers in the twentieth century. Addressed to both general readers and scholars of religion, it is especially valuable for its penetrating and inter-religious analysis of two of the most compelling themes now facing the world: the emergence of cross-cultural religious understanding of the natural order and ecological crisis and the metaphysical basis for both the formal diversity and essential unity of religious traditions of both East and West. The West has long romanticized the "mysterious" East, but it has, also, judged its traditions as "uncivilized." Our notions about Eastern spirituality have been formed by a succession of travellers, scientists, artists, intellectuals, poets, philosophers and missionaries, as well as by Eastern travellers who have spent time in the West. This book helps us to recognize the influence of Eastern ideas upon modern Western thought by tracing the history of engagements between East and West up until the present day. It concludes with a section that helps us to perceive the timeless value of the many Eastern contributions to the West's current intellectual and spiritual state.
The influence of East on West - of Eastern ideas on Western thought - has become an increasingly vexed issue in recent times. Opinion is divided between two main schools: those who believe that Oriental ideas have exercised a considerable influence on Western thought, and those who, for a variety of reasons, believe that such influence has remained negligible.In this Reader A. L. Macfie suggests that the reality lies somewhere between these two extremes, and that the interest taken by Western thinkers in Eastern thought in the modern period has moved from one of passing interest, through serious attention, to some level of assimilation and acceptance.Eastern Influences on Western Philosophy explores the extent of Oriental influence on European thought, primarily in the period of the Enlightenment and the nineteenth-century period of doubt and scepticism that followed it. As such it is the first Reader to bring together in one place a series of specific historical and textual studies of Oriental influence upon European thinkers. Starting with Malebranche and ending with Heidegger, other Western thinkers considered include Leibniz, Voltaire, Hume, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Emerson, Thoreau, Nietzsche, Jung and Buber.To accompany the readings the editor's introduction explores the idea of influence in the context of the chosen readings, and at the same time raises the question of how far Edwards Said's thesis regarding Orientalism actually applies to Western thought.Key Features:* Reflects increasing interest in relationship between Eastern and Western Philosophy* Covers major European figures from the 18th and 19th centuries and the way Eastern thought influenced them* Substantial editorial introduction places readings in context and explores the influence of the East on the West* Previous work by editor praised for its accessibility