Mr Norris Changes Trains: Christopher Isherwood (Vintage classics)

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I find a lot of my books after hearing about them on OTR, generally when I hear the book adaption presented on these older radio shows. I was first introduced to Christopher Isherwood this way & had no idea that he wrote the book behind the the theatrical "I Am a Camera" (1951) & Cabaret Broadway musical (1966) & film (1972). "Prater Violet" was portrayed on OTR but I decided on "The Berlin Stories" first since it sounded really interesting. I also have other works of his younger years on my to read list on Goodreads. Isherwood was an Englishman who later became a naturalized American citizen & born in 1904, so he was in his twenties when he was living in the Weimar Republic. Isherwood was a homosexual & it is interesting how he mentions some friends being gay but he only jokingly mentioned this about himself & we are uncertain of his sexual stance. He lives in the Berlin district that is friendly to the gay lifestyle since the turn of the twentieth century & thus attracts him to Berlin. This is not the important thing in my view but what I like is his analogy in one of his stories where he was like a camera recording events to be printed later & deciphered later. All his stories in this book are from his experiences with people he met in Berlin during the early 1930's. He gives the reality of the poverty, sexual morals decline, the rise of anti semitism, the competing ideologies (SDP, Communism & Naziism) & society in general in Germany. I learned more about the events unknown to me before that contributed to the rise of Hitler's Germany which Isherwood highlights. The Berlin Novels by Christopher Isherwood is a compendium of two short works, Mr Norris Changes Trains (or The Last of Mr Norris), first published in 1935, and Goodbye To Berlin, published in 1939. The two book combination first appeared in 1946 I believe.

Mr Norris Changes Trains - Christopher Isherwood - Google Books Mr Norris Changes Trains - Christopher Isherwood - Google Books

There are things about the story and its setting that made me think of Sex And The City and also Girls. Isherwood’s Berlin is full of bright young things and grifters who are living beyond their means in an effort to be somebody. It’s a shallow existence, and the only people who actually make something of it are the rich, because they don’t need to think about where the next pfennig is coming from. A good example of this is Fritz Wendel, who could be Charlotte in SATC or Marnie in Girls. So pleased to see your project is still underway. I no longer the collections of hers that I once had,… Here, meine Damen und Herren, is Christopher Isherwood's brilliant farewell to a city which was not only buildings, streets, and people, but was also a state of mind which will never come around again. Recently, I have had some interesting reading experiences with book choices for one of my Goodreads groups, Reading the 20th Century. A recent read was Dorothy Whipple’s, “Someone at a Distance,” which I initially thought would be boring, but found that I loved. Meanwhile, on paper, “The Berlin Novels,” looked like the type of book which would appeal to me. After all, despite the fact that I have watched virtually no films all the way through, I have seen, and enjoyed, “Cabaret,” which was taken from Isherwood’s novellas. Indeed, pre-war Berlin is a delightful, literary place to spend time. The sort of place where you can imagine Bernie Gunther propping up the bar at the Adlon, his eye on a pretty blonde and a nice, cool drink in his hand. Therefore, it is doubly disappointing that I really didn’t warm to this at all. This time, the narrator is given the name Christopher Isherwood, although the author warns that the reader can not assume that everything is autobiographical.The comedy in the book is by turns whimsical, surreal and acerbic. Mr Norris is the main source of amusement. He is a ridiculous figure. He becomes involved with the Communists, along with one of the young men who run the girls that Norris employs to indulge his masochistic fantasies. Otto ends up in prison. Something Otto says after being released made me laugh because of a childhood memory. With W.H. Auden he wrote three plays— The Dog Beneath the Skin (1932), The Ascent of F6 (1936), and On the Frontier (1938). Isherwood tells the story in his first autobiography, Lions and Shadows. Goodbye to Berlin is one of the best stories - actually series of stories - that I’ve ever read. George Orwell described Isherwood’s work on Berlin in the early 1930’s as “brilliant sketches of a society in decay”. It makes up the second half of this book. Proof, finally, that time is nonlinear! Liza Minelli's 'Sally Bowles' must have walked right off a 1973 screening of that great musical, 'Cabaret' and into Isherwood's Berlin of the early 1930s. Isherwood need not have even mentioned her name and we'd know Liza/Sally anywhere, anytime, any place when Isherwood writes: Only a week since I wrote the above. Scleicher has resigned. The monocles did their stuff. Hitler has formed a cabinet with Hugenberg. Nobody thinks it can last till the spring. The newspapers are becoming more and more like copies of a school magazine. There is nothing in them but new rules, new punishments, and lists of people who have been "kept in." This morning Goring has invented three fresh varieties of high treason."

Mr. Norris Changes Trains | novel by Isherwood | Britannica

I wanted to bask in Isherwood's good memories and forget the rest. But Isherwood doesn't let me. There is tragedy lurking in the words of a young Jewish woman who says "My father and my mother and I, we are not unhappy." Sleepwalkers, all of them. Or did they understand what really makes life good? Caring and kindness and love exist here, too. Mr Norris Changes Trains (published in the United States as The Last of Mr. Norris) is a 1935 novel by the British writer Christopher Isherwood. It is frequently included with Goodbye to Berlin, another Isherwood novel, in a single volume, The Berlin Stories. Inspiration for the novel was drawn from Isherwood's experiences as an expatriate living in Berlin during the early 1930s, [1] and the character of Mr Norris is based on Gerald Hamilton. [2] In 1985 the actor David March won a Radio Academy Award for Best Radio Actor for his performance in a dramatisation of the novel for BBC Radio 4. [3] the semiautobiographical work consists of Mr. Norris Changes Trains (1935; U.S. title, The Last of Mr. Norris) and Goodbye to Berlin (1939). Read More

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We returned to the sitting-room, followed by Hermann with the tray. “Well, well,” observed Mr. Norris, taking his cup, “we live in stirring times; tea-stirring times.”