Christopher Isherwood
Paperback | Pages: 401 pages Rating: 4.03 | 10416 Users | 540 Reviews
Be Specific About Books Conducive To The Berlin Stories: The Last of Mr Norris/Goodbye to Berlin (The Berlin Novels #1-2)
| Original Title: | The Berlin Stories: Mr Norris Changes Trains / Goodbye to Berlin |
| ISBN: | 0811200701 (ISBN13: 9780811200707) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | The Berlin Novels #1-2 |
| Setting: | Germany Berlin(Germany) |
Explanation Toward Books The Berlin Stories: The Last of Mr Norris/Goodbye to Berlin (The Berlin Novels #1-2)
A classic of 20th-century fiction, The Berlin Stories inspired the Broadway musical and Oscar-winning film Cabaret.
First published in the 1930s, The Berlin Stories contains two astonishing related novels, The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin, which are recognized today as classics of modern fiction. Isherwood magnificently captures 1931 Berlin: charming, with its avenues and cafés; marvelously grotesque, with its nightlife and dreamers; dangerous, with its vice and intrigue; powerful and seedy, with its mobs and millionaires—this is the period when Hitler was beginning his move to power. The Berlin Stories is inhabited by a wealth of characters: the unforgettable Sally Bowles, whose misadventures in the demimonde were popularized on the American stage and screen by Julie Harris in I Am A Camera and Liza Minnelli in Cabaret; Mr. Norris, the improbable old debauchee mysteriously caught between the Nazis and the Communists; plump Fräulein Schroeder, who thinks an operation to reduce the scale of her Büste might relieve her heart palpitations; and the distinguished and doomed Jewish family, the Landauers.List Out Of Books The Berlin Stories: The Last of Mr Norris/Goodbye to Berlin (The Berlin Novels #1-2)
| Title | : | The Berlin Stories: The Last of Mr Norris/Goodbye to Berlin (The Berlin Novels #1-2) |
| Author | : | Christopher Isherwood |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 401 pages |
| Published | : | June 1st 1963 by New Directions (first published 1945) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Classics. Short Stories. Historical. Historical Fiction. Cultural. Germany. Literature. LGBT |
Rating Out Of Books The Berlin Stories: The Last of Mr Norris/Goodbye to Berlin (The Berlin Novels #1-2)
Ratings: 4.03 From 10416 Users | 540 ReviewsAssessment Out Of Books The Berlin Stories: The Last of Mr Norris/Goodbye to Berlin (The Berlin Novels #1-2)
Isherwoods The Berlin Novels explore the chaotic and troubling world of pre-Nazi and Nazi Germany. The vignettes read like a collection of photographic snap-shots, illuminating the various characters Isherwood knew in 1930s Berlin, as it has a strong autobiographical connection, Isherwoods prose is simple and straightforward, his characters are a collection of various misfits and miscreants who populate the Berlin in which Isherwood lurched from one sordid adventure to another. From theThese stories of prewar Berlin were so finely wrought that I couldn't put them down. Largely through the device of his autobiographical protagonist, Isherwood tells about the people who inhabit his rooming house and through them sketches all the stresses and tensions of the end of the Weimar Republic. Part of this work became the basis for the musical "Cabaret"
Mr Norris Changes Trains is somewhat like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes turned inside out in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes the narrator Dr. Watson assists a genius private investigator and in Mr Norris Changes Trains the narrator William Bradshaw assists a vulgar shady operatorOpposite me, in a big arm-chair, sat Arthur, with a thin, dark, sulky-looking girl on his lap. He had taken off his coat and waistcoat and looked most domestic. He wore gaudily-striped braces. His shirt-sleeves
Isherwood's own thoughtful, gentle, fallible nature, which the reader understands and idnetifies with immediately, stands in haunting contrast to the ominous changes taking place in Berlin during his stay there (1930-1934). For me, at least, the novel brings home--in a deeply personal way--how uncertain the political outcomes were as late as 1932; and then, how swiftly and crushingly the tides shifted. It also gives names and personalities to people--Nazis, communists, politcal know-nothings,
UPDATE Aug 2106 ... tried again ... just as boring After starting with great expectations, I found "The Berlin Stories" to be incredibly boring. The GR reviews of the book were far more interesting (for me) than the book itself. I guess I like character development as an adjunct to a plot, but not so much all by itself. I found no reason to care about the characters and the minutia of their lives, no matter how well described they were. A pity, since so much was happening in Germany in the time
It's hard not to romanticize/fantasize about living in Weimar-era Berlin... the art, the decadence, the imminent doom of a society that will be genocided and then bombed into nothingness. And I'm totally a sucker for it too. Isherwood hits all the right bullet points for this romantic image-- stoic Jewish families staring at the dawn of the Third Reich with brave faces on, exuberant youthful communists, expatriate actresses, Nazi landladies, independently wealthy sadomasochists, and prostitutes
Mr Norris Changes Trains is somewhat like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes turned inside out in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes the narrator Dr. Watson assists a genius private investigator and in Mr Norris Changes Trains the narrator William Bradshaw assists a vulgar shady operatorOpposite me, in a big arm-chair, sat Arthur, with a thin, dark, sulky-looking girl on his lap. He had taken off his coat and waistcoat and looked most domestic. He wore gaudily-striped braces. His shirt-sleeves
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