∎ Read Goodbye to Berlin Christopher Isherwood 9780586047958 Books

Goodbye to Berlin Christopher Isherwood 9780586047958 Books

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Goodbye to Berlin Christopher Isherwood 9780586047958 Books

Having seen Cabaret, I was certainly aware of Christopher Isherwood. After reading a biography of Joel Grey, my interest was further piqued and I decided to buy Isherwood's "The Berlin Stories," upon which "I Am a Camera" and "Cabaret" were based. Isherwood is a wonderful writer and stylist. The second paragraph in his novel, "A Berlin Diary" (the second novel in this book) is one of the most finely crafted paragraphs I've ever read: "I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed."

The characters are wonderfully developed. Isherwood does a masterful job of describing their everyday lives against a background in which the Nazi presence is at first only fleetingly acknowledged and then steadily becomes a larger and more menacing presence as the stories progress. His ability to focus on everyday life while merely implying the terror that is about to engulf their society gives that threat of terror even greater impact. This book is a masterpiece of style and great story-telling.


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Goodbye to Berlin Christopher Isherwood 9780586047958 Books Reviews

Christopher Isherwood is at the very top of the writing profession. His vocabulary, sentence structure, and turn of a phrase are second to none.
Mr. Norris Changes Trains is a story set in the transition period of the Weimar Republic to Nazism. Isherwood imparts this regime change as almost banal and blasé with regard to the everyday lives of some of the inhabitants of Germany in general and Berlin in particular. There is a plot, simple, but intriguing none the less. The characters seem life like and real. The action certainly seems to be authentic. This is a great story and Goodbye to Berlin I remember as being just as good. Can't recommend highly enough.
I'm acting in a production of "Cabaret" and decided to read the book on which it is loosely based, just for a little background. I wasn't at all familiar with Christopher Isherwood, so I had no idea what to expect.

I'm a bit of a pre-WWII German history nerd so I knew a fair amount about the politics of the period, but knew nothing about the cabaret culture and the people who inhabited that world. I was immediately drawn in, and didn't want to put the book down when it ended. The characters are well-drawn, and even the not-so-likeable were portrayed as multifaceted, complex human beings -- real people -- living in an amoral, hedonistic culture where pretty much everything was permissible. Most chose not to see what was going on outside their own little part of Berlin, and were indifferent to it if they did see. And why not? They moved in a time and place that were somehow outside reality. Few of them were rich, but many were capable of living as if they were, simply by telling a few lies and acting the part. One could get money, one way or another. Pleasure was the goal, and if one stayed in the right circle, life was a party.

There was, as there always is, another side of the story. In this case, it was the poor who lived outside the charmed circle, scraping by any way they could. Their existence was day-to-day, with hunger, disease, miserable living conditions and winter cold or oppressive summer heat as their constant companions. Isherwood drew these characters, too, as complex humans, motivated not by the pursuit of pleasure but by the desire to survive.

After reading "The Berlin Stories" I spent quite a bit of time online, finding out more not only about the cabaret culture, but about Berlin in they months preceding the Nazi takeover of the German government. What a time it was. And to think I discovered it because I'm in a play and simply wanted to find some stuff to help me develop my character.
It's a good book but quirky, and a little disjointed in places. Two different works joined together but not perfectly blended. We read it in our LGBT book group and some really liked it, while others didn't get or got but didn't get into the subtle nuances of the book, that which is not said but which is essential to fully appreciate this collection of "stories." The protagonist is basically an observer, and the reader has to really go under the surface to infer things about him Bradshaw (in the first half)/Isherwood (in the second). There are clues, so the reader must look closely. But I liked all the vignettes of wide variety of individuals living back then in free-wheeling Berlin on the eve of the Nazi rise to power. Many characters are in moral decline living in a society in moral decline, sensing that something horrible is coming but not quite knowing what or being able to fully admit it. Everyone seems to be hiding behind a mask, usually in an effort to deny reality or to make money. Norris is the prime example. His mask is so extensive that he doesn't seem to have any integrity at all. He uses everyone for his own advantage and isn't above putting people in extreme danger if he can make a profit, even if it means setting up his only real friend Bradshaw. If his true nature were revealed, he wouldn't be that different from Schmidt. In the second half of the book, the character who uses others the most is none other than Sally Bowles. Despite their complete lack of ethics, however, I also liked both characters. They seemed like their lives were somehow shipwrecked and that they were trying to make the best of it. And they're fun to be with -- never a dull moment! Decadence has its own charm, but ultimately it self destructs. And in the end, the character of Isherwood (not to be confused with the writer himself) takes off his mask and reveals himself rather than simply passively observing.
Having seen Cabaret, I was certainly aware of Christopher Isherwood. After reading a biography of Joel Grey, my interest was further piqued and I decided to buy Isherwood's "The Berlin Stories," upon which "I Am a Camera" and "Cabaret" were based. Isherwood is a wonderful writer and stylist. The second paragraph in his novel, "A Berlin Diary" (the second novel in this book) is one of the most finely crafted paragraphs I've ever read "I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed."

The characters are wonderfully developed. Isherwood does a masterful job of describing their everyday lives against a background in which the Nazi presence is at first only fleetingly acknowledged and then steadily becomes a larger and more menacing presence as the stories progress. His ability to focus on everyday life while merely implying the terror that is about to engulf their society gives that threat of terror even greater impact. This book is a masterpiece of style and great story-telling.