Customer Reviews
An Extraordinary Portrait Of Weimar Berlin! - By: Jana L. Perskie, 17 Mar 2005 
"I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking," wrote Christopher Isherwood, at the beginning of "Goodbye to Berlin." "Recording the man shaving at the window opposite & the womanin the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed." In the six portraits of Weimar Berlin that comprise "Goodbye To Berlin," Isherwood chronicles his life among the demimondein this gloriously decadent capital city. He lived there, off & on, between 1929 & 1933. These marvelous stories are a fusion of fact & fiction. With each tale, & the passing of time, the sense of foreboding & the author's prophetic imagery intensifies, as Germany prepares to embrace Adolph Hitler.
Berlin was still a charming city of broad avenues, parks & cafés during this period. It was also a grotesque metropolis of night-people, visionaries, political fanatics - a place filled with intrigue, where vice & virtue were foundin abundance - more of the former than the latter. 1930s Berlin was a powerful city of mobs & millionaires. And it was one huge salon, a center of European intellectual life where the arts & sciences flourished. This is the scene which provides a backdrop for Isherwood's stories.
The six "Goodbye To Berlin" stories form a relatively continuous narrative. In "A Berlin Diary - Autumn 1930," Isherwood introduces the reader to his landlady, the infamous Fraulein Schroeder, "Schroederschen," who calls him Herr Issyvoo. She is able to recite a history of her former lodgers by looking at the spots, stains & spillages left behind on her furniture, carpets & linens. Fellow flatmates include: Frl. Kost, a young woman, plump, blonde & pretty, who makes a living at the world's oldest profession - extremely upscale, of course; Bobby, who is a mixer at a west-end bar called the Troika, has adopted an English Christian name because they are all the rage; a commercial traveler, who is out most of the time, livesin the tiny attic which Frl. Schroeder refers to as the Swedish Pavilion; & Frl. Mayr, with her enormous arms, bull-dog jaw & coarse string-colored hair, is a music hall singer - the bestin all of Germany, Schroeder assures with pride.
"Sally Bowles" certainly is divine decadence, & her antics make for a wonderful story. I had a difficult time keeping the image of Liza Minnelli singing "Cabaret" out of my mind, however. I must say though, after reading about Isherwood's Sally, I have to laud Ms. Minnelli on her performance. Her characterization is indeed recognizablein this Ms. Bowles.
"On Ruegen Island - Summer 1931" describes the author's holiday & the two characters he becomes involved with at a summer resort, Otto Nowak & Peter Wilkinson. Otto is a working class German youth, who uses his attractiveness to freeload off of men & women alike, rather than earn an honest wage. Peter Wilkinson, an Englishman livingin Berlin, is extremely neurotic & very attached to Otto, although the two quarrel & bicker constantly.
"The Nowaks," Otto, (of Ruegen Island), & his immediate family, take Isherwoodin as a lodger. As money becomes more difficult to come by & the effects of hyperinflation take their toll on Christopher's pocketbook, he has to economize & temporarily leaves Frl. Schroeder's relatively luxurious flat, for the slum-like, working-class projects of Wassertorstrasse.
In "The Landaurers," a wealthy Jewish family is aware of what isin store with the rise of Hitler's Nazism. Natalie befriends Isherwood, & through her so does her family. In this story the perils ahead are obvious & the Landaurers make preparations to leave Germany.
Andin "A Berlin Diary - Winter - 1932-33," Isherwood bids farewell to Berlin. He will not return until 1952.
These are well written & important stories which paint a picture of a never-to-be-forgotten time. The language & content give a real sense of the period, & Christopher Isherwood's taut & descriptive narrative is superb. Highly recommended!
JANA
Stunning, Atmospheric, Prescient - By: , 10 Mar 2003 `Goodbye to Berlin' is writing at its best: spare, unadorned, & sincere. Christopher Isherwood fliesin the face of today's tendency towards florid, pretentious writing, which seems to favor five similies when none would have done. His evocation of pre-WWII Berlin through a series of interlinked stories, & the deft, subtly drawn characters - the famous Sally Bowles is just one - is unforgettable.
Perhaps it is the way Isherwood writes with a remarkable lack of ego - as his famous quote states, events are captured as objectively as a camera records light onto a photographic film. This does not mean he is impassive; quite the opposite. His desire is clearly to record a fragile time exactly as it was. Nobody knows the outcome of history until it happens, & the rise of the Nazi party as told here is all the more horrifying, as we experience it as the people themselves must have done - first a fringe party regarded as little more than a joke, then as rulers of the country,in a frighteningly short space of time.
Although it's small & perfectly formed, you'll never want it to end. Isherwood's original intention was to include these episodesin a much larger opus about Germanyin the Weimar Republic, but there's something about the fragmented quality of the eventual book which is perfectly suited to its subject matter.
It takes pride of placein my library.
Amazing portrayal of a city soon to change - By: , 29 Jan 2003 What is uniquein this book is its lack of reference to Nazism. Only at the end do we really see politics enter the novel & feel Berlin's doom closing in. Almost everyone Isherwood comes across are not political- they just want to get on with life. As an exception to this there is a group of Communists her sets out to meet but they seem devoted to theory alone.
The sense of Berlin's eminent change builds up momentum throughout the novel- at the start it is difficult to imagine the city Isherwood is writing about is soon to lose a vast amount of its population to the camps, the army or the bombs & most of its buildings destroyed. The light-hearted section detailing Sally Bowles's friendship guides us into more serious pieces on poverty & charged relationships ending with Isherwood's exit from Berlin, as the Nazi's power grows too strong.
Isherwood's writing seems modern for its time & has a sense of amusing reality that reminded me of George Orwell's Down & Out In Paris In London. What struck me as his finest point was the wayin which his characters just leap off the page into reality & seem bursting with life. This makes the ending seem even more poignant than it is as we leave many of these characters to face their fate.
This is a wonderful last glance back at the old Berlin that no longer exists.
Hello to old Berlin - By: akissterrible@yahoo.co.uk, 17 Aug 2000 This book is known as the original of "Cabaret"- which is why I bought it. And am I glad I did- don't expect the story as seen on stage or film, for here you will find several accounts of pre-war Berlin from various view points. The book is made up of several, smaller, novella's that are vaguely related while independentin themselves. Isherwood's strength liesin his ability to create characters that are believable (all, or at least most, were based on real persons that Isherwood had met), & to evoke the atmosphere of the Berlin of the 30's. His writing style is quite simple, yet says all that there is to say- which makes this book very easy to read. He manages to create the increasingly opressive atmosphere of pre-war Germany throughout the book; which grows into an observation of Germany's response to the growing threat of Nazism- which makes us feel as though we could possibly have been there. It is a fascinating account of the changes that took place, & it shows how people can be led astray to believe false truths etc. This has to be one of my favourite books of all time because of what it is- A study of various characters, A document of a changing Germany, An echo of a lifestyle now lost...Read & Enjoy- with crude fascination!
