I enjoyed this book just as much as [b:Mr Norris Changes Trains|705163|Mr Norris Changes Trains|Christopher Isherwood|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1320426661s/705163.jpg|1473499]. It lacks the persistent sense of foreboding that characterises the earlier book, but it makes up for it by more clearly showing the poverty and social decay that existed in Berlin during the rise of the Nazis. The desperation of all the characters is clear as they cope with the consequences of long term social and economic collapse. The final couple of stories then emphasise the terrifying rise of the Nazis with remarkable acuity.

Isherwood creates a narrator who is engaged and expresses his own emotions, but refuses to judge or sensationalise what he sees. So when he states that he "shuddered in disgust" or similar, it is never quite clear that the disgust is justified, merely that this was his reaction. It is left to the reader to decide how to respond. Of course, the result is that all the emotions are felt much more keenly by the reader because they own them. Add to this the vividness of the descriptions and the expert characterisation and reading the book is a wonderful experience. ( )

A little too slow moving for my current mood, which made me feel disconnected from the characters. The most interesting bits were at the end, where the author puts in some of his actual diary entries from 1932-33 and which describe the small acts of public violence and hatred, and how ordinary citizens responded to them. ( )

Here’s another semi-autobiographical book that I’ve read this year. You might have read my review of A Single Man, which I really enjoyed. The first time I’d actually heard of Isherwood was during a creative writing class when we were tasked with creating accurate descriptions of characters, and we were given an excerpt from this book to read – the part when Christopher meets Sally for the first time. I resolved to read it one day after that, and I am glad I have.
Goodbye to Berlin is an account of Isherwood’s time in Berlin, told through a mostly fictional way but including elements of his real life within it. There are many parts of it that are incredibly historically accurate, seeing as he did actually live through Germany as it transitioned into the Nazi Germany of World War Two. But there are elements of it, such as his own personal life, that are fictionalized. The reason, apparently, was because of his homosexuality, and he didn’t want to shout it from the rooftops that he was gay, so he kept that part on the downlow, although there are some mentions of spending time in a night club that could very well have been a gay bar. There is also a very explicit mention towards the end of the book of a club in which queer men gather to watch drag acts.
There isn’t a lot to the story plot wise – it is mostly just travel writing, Isherwood talking about his time in Germany and how he lived as a private English tutor and as he witnessed the way that the country changed very slowly. It details his holidays, his friendships, his acquaintances, his various living situations, and everything else that he comes across in those years that he lived in Berlin, all neatly packaged into six ‘chapters’ of the book that deal with one significant character or event at a time. Mostly, however, the story is painted by the spectacular characters that he introduces – Otto, Sally, Fritz, and many others.
What I really liked about this book, from the perspective of somebody reading it in the twenty-first century, is how if you pay attention, the signs of a Nazi Germany slowly rising are all there. And it also makes you more aware of what the real situation, on the ground, was like. Nazism didn’t take over overnight, and it wasn’t a radical change. It started with a few remarks here and there, an election won, and then slowly the Nazi party took the power they wanted. And Isherwood, living in the time when it’s all happening, clearly shows how it manifests itself. There are various remarks about Jews being ostracized and Jews being liked but also having snide remarks being made about them. The people, the commoners, were not all as racist as history might have painted them – most of them were not aware of the atrocities that would happen. Isherwood does a fantastic job of illustrating that, especially when you remember while reading that these were the people he hung around, and these were the people he spoke to on a daily basis. He knew these people, and he knew that they were not full of hatred, but simply misguided as a lot of people are even today.
Overall, I’d give this book a 3/5, for the simple reason that I myself am not a massive fan of travel writing, but I really did enjoy the historical insight that I got from reading this book.
( )

That perennial question: which is better the film or the book? is irrelevant here. They are both wonderful but the film (in this case Cabaret) and the book are so different. The six short stories that make up "Goodbye to Berlin" create an atmosphere and supply many of the characters that populate the film but the stories are very different. Isherwood is a beautiful writer and these stories evoke the joys, the tensions, the excitement and the fear of pre-war Berlin wonderfully. They are frightening to read in this age of the rise of populism and intolerance in much of the world. For that very reason they should be read today. ( )

Goodbye to Berlin is the product of a masterful writer, capable of beautiful, lyrical descriptions of settings and moods, and insightful into the character and personalities of the book’s characters.
While the book offers up a series of short stories, each offering capable of standing on its own, the whole forms as a sort of loosely constructed novel where characters developed in one story wander into others in the book, and many are brought together is the book’s last story.
Isherwood’s construction and sequencing of the stories is masterful as well. He begins with a story developing the setting and context, proceeds to the story of Sally Bowles wherein he focuses on the character of Sally, a beautiful, sad young woman who sleeps with men to earn money and whose innocence and guileless combines with her lack of intelligence to create an almost comical parody of a person.
Later in the book, this same ignorant woman has given herself entirely over to sex, sexuality and kinkiest and has become not immoral, but amoral.
In the background is the shouldering rise of the Nazi party which comes full grown in last of the stories.
Good writing make good books and this volume certainly rises to the occasion. ( )