'A further reservation in favour of strangeness': Isherwood's Queer Pastoral in The Mortmere Stories and 'On Reugen Island'

Christie believes that as the test of Christopher Isherwood's emerging realism, "The Mortmere Stories" invite critical reassessments of the authors' purported immaturity. A juxtaposition of Isherwood's pastoral and his subsequent, trademark realism suggests a contingent rather than linear development of the two forms, a development relying in no small part upon a conflicting dynamic that can produce innovative dialogic effects.