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Nov 01, 2011

Austin rated it:

The Berlin Stories, upon which the musical Cabaret was based, pairs two novels by Christopher Isherwood. Both were inspired by his experiences as an English expatriate in Berlin in the early 1930s. The second 'novel' (if it really is a novel), Goodbye to Berlin, is in my view far superior to the first, The Last of Mr. Norris (I would skip it), but both contain extraordinarily vivid prose, and Goodbye to Berlin is a paragon of modern realism and one of my very favorite books.

Particula More...

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Mar 11, 2008

Tutti rated it:

The collecting of short stories/ charachter reflections by an aspiring writer, ex-pat, English teacher is a familiar account of adaptation and cross-cultural investigation although is set in one of the most fecund periods in modern history.
A chronicle of Berlin in 1932- 34 and the precursory atmosphere that would lead into the offical sanctioning of genocide which was the establishment of Nazi Germany.The works are diary excerpts and accounts of interactions with accquaintances published r More...

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Mar 14, 2009

Lenoir rated it:

I have to clarify with my 3 star rating that this is an average because it is really two different books in one. The first one is The Last of Mr. Norris. If I were reviewing that one alone I would have given it only 2 stars. It is about a man (the author I presume but he used a pseudonym) who rents a room in a flat in Berlin (early 1930s, pre-Hitler) and runs around with communists. He gets involved with Arthur Norris who is a very likable criminal with a fondness for dominatrixes. It's a nice s More...

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Dec 17, 2009

Kevin rated it:

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, an More...

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Nov 07, 2011

Sketchbook rated it:

Ishyvoo was at the Right place (or izzit: Wrong place)
at the right time. BBC-tv's newest, "Christopher and His Kind,"
is combo of the 2. A curio--.

6 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 04, 2011

Clayton added it

I found the first story (Mr. Norris Changes Trains) rather disappointing. It seemed to me mostly a series of character portraits strung together by a rather weak plot. I was even beginning to wonder why people made such a fuss about this book, and then I started the second novella, Goodbye to Berlin. This story was satisfied with being simply a series of character portraits, without any semblance of a real plot; instead, they were presented as memoir, clearly written long after the demise of More...

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Feb 21, 2012

Pparskey rated it:

This book has been on my "To Read List" for some time. Over the years, I've read about Germany on the eve of war (In the Garden of the Beasts, "Winds of War") and numerous books on the holocaust (Schindler's List, Number the Stars, The Diary of Anne Frank, War and Remembrance).

What I have missed, however, have been books that deal with Germany post WWI during the 20's and the early 30's before the Nazi's took hold. The dynamics in Germany during that time are f More...

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Jan 24, 2012

Meg rated it:

A fairly quick and easy read - none the less it was extremely interesting. These books deal with the author's life in a very bohemian Berlin during the end of the 1920s and the start of the 1930s. As such, it was a very interesting cultural read, because I am always interested in the geopolitical happenings of this era and less of the cultural happenings. So we meet a dominatrix prostitute, bisexual men and loose women and no one bats an eye - not the way I usually think of this time period. How More...

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Jan 13, 2012

John rated it:

I enjoyed both both stories. As with most readers, I think Goodbye to Berlin was better than The Last of Mr. Norris (which I read after The Berlin Stories). I read The Berlin Stories shortly after In the Garden of the Beasts and was hoping to get more color on Berlin during the late Weimar and early Nazi era. I think Isherwood is very good on character description and provides a sense of the living conditions his characters experienced. However, I was hoping for more on the politics of the er More...

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Nov 12, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

Reading these is like peeking into another world. Funny, tawdry, sad, touching, frightening...Berlin circa 1930 was a tough place to be if you weren't rich, or otherwise didn't entirely fit into the confines of social norms. Isherwood's writing never really gets dull, although the Goodbye to Berlin portion of this collection slows down a bit. Even that section, which is based on real-life events, he manages to structure as he might a fictional narrative.

At first I was tempted to s More...

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Nov 06, 2011

JaclynJune rated it:

Isherwood lived in Berlin in the years immediately prior to the Nazi takeover of Germany. His stories in this volume center around an outsider's observations of the culture in Berlin during this time, and the hardships many endured in Germany - including Jews, Communists, homosexuals, prostitutes and the impoverished.

The Last of Mr. Norris was particularly well-written - in it, Isherwood tells the story of a spy and con-artist who is playing fast and loose in Berlin with the Communist More...

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Nov 03, 2011

Tommy rated it:

This is split into two separate "books" with the second being more of a collection of short stories with overlapping characters and timelines.

Sally Bowles, who shows up in the second book, is by far the most engaging character in the book and truly a joy to read with an energy and laissez faire attitude seen in few characters. The closest parallel I can think of would be Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Apparently the real life woman Sally Bowles was b More...

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Sep 07, 2011

Vikki rated it:

Isherwood includes two stories in this compilation of his life in Berlin from 1929-1933. In “The Last of Mr. Norris” we meet the quirky and flamboyant character Sally Bowles (later adapted into Liza Minnelli’s part in “Cabaret”) she is one of many nonconformists that reside with Isherwood in a cheap boarding house. Berlin becomes its own character, a charming city of complex political changes with a shady and immensely hungry nightlife. At the heart of the story is the secretive and scheming Mr More...

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Sep 09, 2010

Al rated it:

Mr. Isherwood's famed views of life in early thirties Berlin, to a great extent autobiographical, done in two books: The Last of Mr. Norris, and Goodbye to Berlin. To me, a mixed bag. I found The Last of Mr. Norris somewhat boring; one wonders how anyone could have kept company with such a pathetic human being as Mr. Norris. After a hundred plus pages of keeping company with him, without much else going on, it all becomes a little tiresome. So, why didn't Mr. Norris become tiresome More...

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Jul 13, 2010

Rhonda rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Jan 16, 2011

Bryan rated it:

I have finished my first book of 2011, or is it my first two books? The Berlin Stories is two books combined into one; The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye Berlin. While the two are not directly linked, they do have a common narrator, boarding house and landlady (all the essentials to a great story).

Book one follows the narrator (presumably the author) on a trip from his native England, on the train, to Berlin, where he shares a berth with the odd, yet intriguing Arthur Norris. The More...

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Nov 22, 2011

Dusty rated it:

Dear Mr. Isherwood, how is it that we haven't before been introduced? Unlike several other reviewers, I actually adored both novels assembled in this volume. In fact, I may even slightly prefer the oft-panned The Last of Mr. Norris, for although Mr. Norris is obnoxious, his narrative coheres in ways that Goodbye to Berlin does not (and it provides a better glimpse of dear Frl. Schroeder). Of course, I don't mean to knock Goodbye, either, for it's a lovely array of vignettes with some exceedingly More...

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Aug 13, 2011

Lord rated it:

The first time I read this was about ten (!!!) years ago, when I was in my late-teens/early 20s. I had just seen 'Cabaret' for the first time, pined after living a life as divinely decadent as Fraulein Sally Bowles, and wanted to further revel in it. Even though I considered myself well-versed in double entendres involving gay shennanigans, I think I missed half the meaning of most of this book.

Re-reading this again with a queer sub-text as well as a much more informed background knowl More...

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Aug 03, 2011

Liz rated it:

The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood.

I'm desperate to finish "Time's Top One Hundred Books" This only being only the 23rd I've completed, and unfortunately it is hard to find many of the listed. This one, I had to bargain for. I had to fight my way to get my hands on the ONLY copy in the province thanks to library rules. But I got it, and I'm so happy to say I did.

The Berlin Stories is actually two novels in one : Goodbye to Berlin & Mr Norris Changes Trains More...

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Jun 13, 2011

Jessica rated it:

I fell in love with Isherwood earlier this year when I read "A Single Man." So I couldn't resist when the book club chose The Berlin Stories. Even though I was vastly overcommitted I did it anyway. And I'm glad.

It's not as dark as so much pre-WWII writing is. That's because most pre-WWII writing was written post-WWII and takes a look at the oncoming darkness head-on. With Isherwood it really seeps in so slowly you don't notice.

It is a very youthful book, full of More...

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Jan 08, 2012

Teresa rated it:

I read this book because I knew Cabaret was inspired on "Goodbye to Berlin" and also after watching the movie "Christopher and His Kind".
This book gives an overview of Berlin during the early 30's. What's interesting is that it was written during that period (first published in 1935) and not form the eyes of a German, but an Englishman. I think this is quite paramount, as most of the time a outer witness can provide with a more impartial description of events.
In so More...

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Sep 07, 2007

Mark rated it:

These 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"

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Sep 04, 2011

Chris rated it:

I took this to Berlin with very high hopes--perhaps too high--for a wonderfully romantic portrait of ex-pat life in the 20th-centruy heyday of Berlin that would enlighten and enrich my experience. Well, I was let down. Isherwood seems to think that the wild world of Berlin alone can carry a story (which, admittedly, is what I was thinking too when I picked it up), but it's not so. Far too realist for my tastes. I would've been better off reading Isherwood's diaries, or even just watching Cabaret More...

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Jan 13, 2012

Jess rated it:

The Berlin Novels are a great read if you are interested, as I am, in the social and domestic difficulties of war. Through a few books and many TV programmes I have grasped some idea of what it must have been like in England at the time, but I have never experienced (as it were) pre-war Berlin. And with both narrators being English themselves, you see this new world from a perspective you can understand.

Mr Norris Changes Trains clearly exemplifies what a wonderful character writer Chr More...

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Apr 13, 2011

Mark rated it:

Although Mr Norris Changes Trains does have a linear narrative, Goodbye to Berlin is just a collection of random events and characters. Both books really go nowhere, but it's a pretty enjoyable journey getting there! They are written in simple, yet evocative language, so you can really "see" the characters and places. However, the main character in both books is so annoying; a totally blank personality-free observer, with the occasional bout of peevishness. He describes Nazi beatings w More...

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Aug 24, 2011

Lily rated it:

This was an incredible book, especially in preparation for my World War II class in the fall. It was especially interesting comparing it to Cabaret (which it is based off of.) Sally Bowles only shows up in a few chapters in the second book, but aspects of the movie are sprinkled throughout. The portrait of inter-war years Berlin was so fascinating. First, my review of The Last of Mr Norris:

Mr. Norris was such a charming, debaucherous fellow. It's a good thing he left when he did, beca More...

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Jul 28, 2009

Ann rated it:

The Berlin Stories are really two books in one, and should be treated as such -- The Last of Mr. Norris is a fully-formed novella, and probably deserving of four stars, I thought; Goodbye to Berlin reads more like a disjointedly charming, charmingly disjointed set of diary entries. It's impossible to talk about either without mentioning Cabaret, and though I'm not staking out a stance on the evocative powers of books vs. movies, I think I prefer my Weimar Germany with a little more Joel Grey an More...

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Nov 23, 2008

Valerie rated it:

I loved these stories. They gave a really different view of Germany during the rise of the Nazis, it had never occurred to me that the problem of why people didn't stop them wasn't just blind devotion to Hitler's vision of a restored Germany, partly it was disbelief that the Nazi party would ever amount to anything because they seemed like a pack of dumb thugs, so the people with the perspective to know they were evil just didn't take them seriously. And then it was too late and people had to More...

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Aug 20, 2009

Meave rated it:

It gets better with every page. Of course, I'm terribly biased, having fallen in love with Berlin myself a few years ago and being crazy about German and all--this is sort of a dream-book for me, like if I'd read it 15 years ago I would've mooned over it for weeks, wishing I could've lived during that time (not that I'm denying having done that a thousand times already as a grown-up person).

My ridiculous imaginary nostalgia aside, The Berlin Stories is just a wonderful pair of novel More...

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Apr 19, 2010

Mireille rated it:

Peter is skinny but wiry. In his games with Otto, he holds his own, it seems, only by an immense, furious effort of will. It is Peter's will against Otto's body. Otto is his whole body; Peter is only his head. Otto moves fluidly, effortlessly his gestures have the savage, unconscious grace of a cruel, elegant animal. Peter drives himself about, lashing his stiff , ungraceful body with the whip of his merciless will. (A Berlin Diary: 335)

The tiny flame of the lighter flickered between More...

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