Customer Reviews

The Berlin Stories: The Last of Mr. Norris

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Between 1929 and 1933 Isherwood lived in Berlin and, after returning in London, he wrote the novel and the autobiographical sketches that make up this volume. Just how autobiographical these stories might be is left to the reader's imagination, of course, but they seemed to be based on German eccentrics whom the author knew and whom the reader will be unable to forget.

The novel that opens the book, "The Last of Mr. Norris" (published in 1935 in England as "Mr. Norris Changes Trains"), is a somewhat comic portrayal of a bumbling, vain double agent who wears an ill-fitting wig and operates in the sleazy underworld contested by Communist idealists and Nazi thugs. The narrator, William Bradshaw, is a British expatriate tutoring English to young Germans in Berlin--someone, in other words, a lot like Isherwood himself. He encounters Norris on a train, and they initiate an often bizarre, always uneasy, on-again, off-again friendship that propels them through drunken nights in sleazy pubs and dangerous rendezvous at Swiss ski resorts.

In the second half of the book, "Goodbye to Berlin" (published in 1939), Isherwood drops the alter-ego and presents himself as the narrator. Character sketches alternate with "diary entries" and feature an overlapping cast, and some of the minor figures from "Mr. Norris" make important cameos. The most famous story is "Sally Bowles," which later became John Van Druten's play "I Am a Camera" and inspired the musical "Cabaret."

Equally notable, however, is the homoerotic "On Ruegen Island (Summer 1931)," which recounts Isherwood living in a lakeside cabin with the effete, insecure Peter and the athletic, sexually ambivalent Otto, whose Nordic beauty seems transmigrated from an Aryan Youth poster. Otto appears again in a subsequent section called "The Nowaks," about Isherwood's schizophrenic life while sharing a crowded attic apartment with Otto's dysfunctional family. The final sketch, "The Landauers," concerns Bernhard, the presumed heir of a wealthy Jewish family who operate a Berlin department store. Bernhard's airy cynicism and adopted Eastern spiritualism thwart his business sense and ill-prepare him for the political dangers overtaking the country.

Both "Mr. Norris" and "Goodbye to Berlin" share a comic esprit eventually overwhelmed by the gravity of the Nazi menace. Together, these stories are an ode to the carefree bohemians, flappers, intellectuals, and misfits who enlivened Berlin before they were swept away by Hitler and his bullying monsters.

Originally published as a separate volume in 1939, GOODBYE TO BERLIN includes SALLY BOWLES, which was itself first published as a separate volume in 1937. Frankly autobiographical in nature (the narrator is here given as Christopher Isherwood himself), the collection at first seems little more than a series of character portraits and random events--but as the work progresses it gathers into a dark, often disturbing portrait of Berlin as Germany drifts into the control of the Nazi party, a riot of personalities and swirl of events laced with references to national anti-Semitism and cultural xenophobia, all of it combining to invite the horrors that will cumulate in the cataclysm of World War II.

This is the heart of the book and easily it's greatest part, but it is accompanied by THE LAST OF MR. NORRIS, originally published as a separate work in 1935 as MR. NORRIS CHANGES TRAINS, a work that opens THE BERLIN STORIES. Substantial in and of itself, the short novel presents the relationship between the narrator (here given as Bradshaw) and an elderly and not quite likeable Mr. Norris--a man seemingly engaged in the import-export business but whose covert dealings will ultimate move him to betray even his closest friends. In terms of character and events the novel pales beside GOODBYE TO BERLIN, but in tone and scope it heightens the sense of a society in which anything, no matter how improbable, can happen, and it is very fine indeed.

Readers who come to THE BERLIN STORIES with the idea that they will encounter the plot of CABARET are in for a rude awakening; although the characters are similar, the stories involved are not. In the 1950s Isherwood authorized John Van Druten to dramatize GOODBYE TO BERLIN for the stage, and the result was a critically and commercially popular play titled I AM A CAMERA. Isherwood approved of the final result--but he was considerably less fond of CABARET, which presented a love affair between Isherwood and Sally Bowles as the backbone story. Isherwood, unapologetically homosexual, was outraged, telling friends that he had never had any romantic or sexual relationship with that or any other woman. Consequently, it is best to regard CABARET as a grandchild of THE BERLIN STORIES and to read Isherwood's work for its own merits rather than this connection.

And those merits are many. Throughout the entire collection, Isherwood shows a talent for creating characters that leap from the page, with the legendary Sally Bowles a case in point; his prose is also quite remarkable, an unexpected mix of the flatly direct and perceptively poetic. He writes in a style quite unlike any other author I have encountered. Many consider THE BERLIN STORIES his finest work; in any case, Isherwood's style and perspective makes it a commanding, fascinating read. Strongly recommended.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

I am an Amazon reviewer who focuses on pointing out the utilitarian flaws or benefits of a given product; if you are looking for literary criticism, then this review will disappoint. My review, however, is critical if you want to make sure you have a complete copy of 'The Berlin Stories.' If you order the item, check to see if an errata sheet is included anywhere in the book. It's the size of a single sheet of paper slighly larger than the book and will be loosely inserted somewhere in the text. IF THIS SHEET IS NOT INCLUDED, THEN YOU DO NOT HAVE A COMPLETE COPY OF THE BOOK! The printer made an error at page ninety-six (96) of "The Last of Mr. Norris" and, as a result, the story loses both continuity and completeness.

This review refers exclusively to the copy of 'Berlin Stories' with the "double shadow" cover and an ISBN of 9-780811-218047; I do not know whether the same error was made in previous editions.

This review has nothing to do with wonderful written parts of the book. Instead it has all to do with the printed book itself. I have received two different copies of the same edition printed by New Directions Publications Corp. in 2008 and sold here at Amazon. Both of these copies, which I have since returned, have pages 176 and 177 from the first story, The Last of Mr. Norris, duplicated in the second story, A Goodbye to Berlin. I tried to contact the publisher about the problem but received no answer from the two emails I sent to them. So if you don't mind missing the information on these two pages, which I believe would actually have explained something that isn't to be found out later on, go ahead and order this missprinted copy of the book. But remember you've been WARNED!

Together with Evelyn Waugh, Christopher Isherwood has to be regarded as one of the most proficient writers of english this century. His ability to capture a mood, a time and a place is remarkable, his efficiency in doing so is breath-taking.

The Berlin Stories stand as a record of the seediness and more fundamental corruption of a city, a state and a people in the late 30s. Isherwood represents the impending shadow of nazism through the abdication of responsibility and self-protection of individual characters. Mr Norris, a Falstaff for the 20th Century, is half cartoon conman and half based on an actual person. His depravity and crookedness is admirable, he is technicolour amid the grey shabbiness of Isherwood's Berlin. We must also remember that this is Isherwood's Berlin and he has shaped and invented experiences to achieve an effect, the camera records, but it always lies. It is the technical brilliance of those lies that sets the Berlin Stories apart from any historical or social record that you'd care to mention.

Christopher Isherwood's "Berlin Stories" is perhaps most famous for having inspired the stage and screen masterpiece Cabaret, but those who are looking for an exact match between the two will be disappointed. The divine Sally Bowles does make an appearance (her charisma and verve are the book's high point), but only briefly, and her story only contains only seeds of what would become Cabaret's plotline. The primary similarities between the musical and its source material lie in the characterization of the aforementioned wannabe diva (who is every bit as vibrant on the page as she is in performance), as well as in the central themes and setting.

Berlin, 1930 - 1933: a city caught helplessly in an inexorable rush toward history as warring political factions fight for control and the Nazi party begins its rise to power. Violence and danger lurk in every street, and yet life goes on for the citizens of Berlin - who struggle to keep a degree of normalcy in their lives and food on their tables. They desperately cling to their traditional way of life as Germany's bloodthirsty future in WWII becomes more and more a nightmarish present. They are utterly unprepared for what lies ahead for them and their beloved nation. Could they have stopped Hitler? Almost certainly, if only they had taken the threat seriously. And therein lies the tragedy at the heart of Isherwood's masterpiece: that while it may be human nature to bury your head in the sand and hope for the best when trouble comes knocking, doing so will make you a passive co-conspirator and only allow the worst-case-scenario become a fully realized reality.

"The Berlin Stories" consists of two novellas that have been published together. "The Last of Mr. Norris" delves into the failure of Germany's communist party and, through the character of Mr. Norris, shows us the war profiteer at its worst. Norris doesn't care who ends up in power or what they do to Germany so long as he can use them to turn a profit and maintain his lavish lifestyle. The one complaint I have about it is that William Bradshaw's immediate friendship with the shifty Mr. Norris requires a suspension of disbelief on the reader's part. Why would he so readily trust Norris when his every instinct reveals him to be a charlatan and a swindler? Perhaps we are meant to see in William's willingness to trust Norris the larger concept that Germans eventually embraced Hitler despite their better instincts, but if that was Isherwood's intention it is a little too vague. "Goodbye to Berlin" is a series of vignettes with a writer named Isherwood (!) as its central character. The vignettes begin when it was still possible to hope for the best, and end in a cloud of violence as Isherwood is forced to leave Berlin, his once-and-still beloved city, in 1933.

"The Berlin Stories" is, ultimately, an elegy for the lost Germany that Isherwood had once fallen in love with, and the reader will be hard pressed not to mourn with him as the once vibrant city of Berlin descends into chaos and bloodshed. What is truly terrifying is that it actually happened, and it is incumbent upon us to make sure that it never happens again.
Grade: A

As another reviewer implies, Christopher Isherwood is a master of prose. He succiently and subtlely captures a time, places and people in 1930's Berlin. There are some wonderful characters including Sally Bowles, who is the model for stage version of Cabaret. Indeed, Isherwood, himself, in a forward to this book, tells us what happens when he meets Juliet Harris (?), who first plays Bowles on stage around 1959.

This is very easy to read; the events are a bit disheartening at times and the characters aren't always admirable--but they're very true to life. The reader, too, really gets a picture of how German people felt during the rise of Nazism. Highly recommended!

While nowhere near as fleshed out as "Cabaret"--the film that was constructed from this and "I am a Camera," THE BERLIN STORIES are still great entertainment and a valuable look into pre-war Berlin and Germany.

Isherwood brings to life the squalid conditions and the "many families in one place" atmosphere that adds to the gloom and doom, and also the human interactions that makeup these stories.

If you're planning to delve into the land of Christopher Isherwood, I highly suggest this writing of his, along with his wonderful, though extremely extensive autobiographies. Great fodder about Stravinsky, Los Angeles, Arthur Kallman, and a host of others around the "LA roundtable" that is also a time capsule of an era we will never see again.

Every reader seeks some form of entertainment or enlightenment. Whether it is the newest romance novel or the most cutting edge work of science the reader expects to finish a printed work with a sense of fulfillment. Christopher Isherwood more than fulfills his assigned role as entertainer in his work The Berlin Stories. Using the setting of Weimar Berlin he weaves a tale of hope, heartache, and tragedy. However, Berlin Stories is not a novel about Weimar German culture, it is a novel about humans interacting and conflicting with their environment. Isherwood's work is not brilliant as a historical work; it is a brilliant character study not seen in literature of its time. The reserve that the author shows in narrating what the person says, and what he or she does allows the reader to step into the story and analyze the characters that Isherwood sees for ourselves.
Isherwood's characters are magical and memorable. Sally Bowles and her eternal search for fame and fortune, Natalia and her naive ways, and the confused Fräulein Schroeder, and many others show us the height of the author's art. He has taken the people he has known and loved and eternalized them without any damnation. Isherwood's world is a world of decadence and tenderness, heartlessness and love. All of these qualities make The Berlin Stories a fundamental work of fiction, and an easy read.

In the early 1930s the British writer Christopher Isherwood lived in Berlin working as a tutor teaching English to Germans. Through fictionalizations, he later documented his experiences in "The Berlin Stories," a book that actually consists of two novellas originally published separately, in 1935 and 1939 respectively. Together they cover the tumultuous political and social spectra that constituted the city--possibly the most culturally and technologically advanced in Europe at the time--and which simultaneously tore it apart while human monsters were preparing to bring the world to war.

Berlin has been suffering from a dire economy since the first World War, and extreme conditions--high inflation and high unemployment--lead to extreme solutions; Communists and the newly risen Nazis are becoming visible and powerful (but mutually opposing) political entities. To this end, the first novella, called "The Last of Mr. Norris," builds itself from a simple meeting between two characters into a literate tale of espionage. Isherwood's narrator, William Bradshaw, meets another Englishman named Arthur Norris on a train en route to Berlin, where Norris claims to operate an import-export business, and soon becomes his friend. Evasive and habitually nervous, Norris is a subtly ridiculous figure with an unconvincing wig, a domination fetish, a duplicitous secretary named Schmidt, and a companion named von Pregnitz, a wealthy baron.

The plot proceeds linearly but tensely, as Bradshaw accompanies Norris one day to a meeting of a group of Communists to whom Norris gives a speech about the combined threat of British imperialism and capitalist exploitation. His machinations are more complicated than this display of apparent hypocrisy might reveal, however. The important thing to know about Norris is that he is the most pathetic of opportunists; he has no devotions, no commitments, no beliefs, and no desires but to make enough money to live comfortably if not richly. He has created his own hell, and somehow Schmidt will always be there as his punisher, the devil on his back.

In "Goodbye to Berlin," the second novella, Isherwood casts himself into the role of narrator in a more personal and realistic series of sketches based on people he had met while living in the city. He introduces us to the unforgettable femme fatale Sally Bowles, a promiscuous English girl who sings in cabarets and plans to become an actress by any means necessary; Otto Nowak, a likeable teenager from a working-class neighborhood, the kind of place where the kids, unlikely to find gainful employment in this economy, could easily be lured to join the Nazis; and the Landauers, Jewish owners of a large department store, who stand as a reminder of the imminence of the Nazi destruction of German Jewry, of a people whose prosperity is coming to a violent end.

These are not sad stories, but they convey the transience of friendship and the hardships of life in a city confronting an uncertain future. As I read, I observed that Isherwood portrays almost everybody as younger than he or she appears, indicating that Berlin at this time is a city in which people grow up, and grow old, quickly. As if to allay this unnatural aging, the dialogue is exceptionally lively and witty; Isherwood's characters are involved in what he at one point astutely calls "verbal card-playing." As they talk, we can clearly sense their dreams and fears, and we find ourselves concerned about where the forces of history will take them, or leave them.