Goodbye to Berlin
Goodbye to Berlin is a 1939 novel by Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood set during the waning days of the Weimar Republic. The work was later published together with Isherwood's earlier novel, Mr Norris Changes Trains, in a 1945 collection entitled The Berlin Stories.
 First edition cover | |
| Author | Christopher Isherwood |
|---|---|
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Hogarth Press |
Publication date | 1939 |
| Pages | 317 |
| OCLC | 5437385 |
The novel was inspired by Isherwood's 1929-1932 sojourn as a pleasure-seeking British expatriate in poverty-stricken Berlin during the twilight of the Jazz Age. Many of the novel's characters were based upon actual persons, and the insouciant character of Sally Bowles was based on cabaret singer Jean Ross.[1]
Background
The novel, a semi-autobiographical[2] account of British author[3] Christopher Isherwood's time in 1930s Berlin, describes pre-Nazi Germany and the colorful persons which he encountered including bohemian chanteuse Jean Ross and businessman Gerald Hamilton.[1] The work is episodic, dealing with a large cast of characters over a period of several years from late 1930 to early 1933. It is written as a connected series of six short stories and novellas. These are: "A Berlin Diary (Autumn 1930)", "Sally Bowles", "On Ruegen Island (Summer 1931)", "The Nowaks", "The Landauers" and "A Berlin Diary (Winter 1932-3)".[4]
After moving to Germany to work on his novel, Isherwood moves around the city frequently and soon thus becomes involved with a diverse array of German citizens:[3] the caring landlady, Fräulein Schroeder; the "divinely decadent" Sally Bowles, a young Englishwoman—based upon Jean Ross—who sings in the local cabaret and her coterie of admirers; Natalia Landauer, the teenage Jewish heiress of a prosperous family business; Peter and Otto, a gay couple struggling to accept their relationship and sexuality in light of the rise of the Nazis. In his 1976 memoir based on this period of his life, Christopher and His Kind, Isherwood writes that:
"He liked to imagine himself as one of those mysterious wanderers who penetrate the depths of a foreign land, disguise themselves in the dress and customs of its natives and die in unknown graves, envied by their stay-at-home compatriots".[5]
The book, first published in 1939, highlights the enclaves of people who would be most at risk from Nazi persecution. It was described by contemporary writer George Orwell as "brilliant sketches of a society in decay". In her book Anti-Nazi Modernism, author Mia Spiro remarks that "Despite that which they could not know, the novels that Barnes, Isherwood, and Woolf wrote do reveal the historical, cultural, political, and social conditions in 1930s Europe that made the continent ripe for disaster".[6]
In his autobiography Without Stopping, the author and composer Paul Bowles suggests that Isherwood, whom he met in Berlin, may have borrowed his surname for the character Sally Bowles. Isherwood confirms this in his 1976 memoir Christopher and His Kind, writing, "[I] liked the sound of it and also the looks of its owner."[7]
Adaptations
The novel was adapted into a Broadway play called I Am a Camera by John Van Druten (1951). It was a personal success for Julie Harris as the insouciant Sally Bowles, winning her the first of her five Tony Awards for Best Leading Actress in a play, although it earned the infamous review by Walter Kerr, "Me no Leica." The title is a quote taken from the novel's first page ("I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking."). The play was then adapted into a less successful film, also called I Am a Camera (1955), featuring Laurence Harvey, Shelley Winters and Julie Harris, with screenplay by John Collier and music by Malcolm Arnold.
The book was then adapted into the Tony Award-winning musical Cabaret (1966) and the film Cabaret (1972) for which Liza Minnelli won an Academy Award for playing Sally. Bob Fosse directed the movie and won the award for Best Director.
Notes
- 1.^ It is incidental to allow it to occur to a reader of 1930's literature that Bowles was the maiden name of the matriarch of the Mitford family.
References
- Izzo, David Garrett (2005). Christopher Isherwood Encyclopedia. London: McFarland & Company. pp. 97, 108–110, 144. ISBN 0-7864-1519-3.
- "Christopher Isherwood Is Dead at 81". The New York Times. 6 January 1986. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
- Doyle, Rachel B. (12 April 2013). "Looking for Isherwood's Berlin". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 3 May 2020.
- Isherwood, Christopher (1960). Goodbye to Berlin. London: Hogarth Press.
- Isherwood, Christopher, 1904-1986, author. Christopher and his kind : 1929-1939. ISBN 978-0-374-53522-3. OCLC 879582861.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
- Spiro, Mia (2013). Anti-Nazi Modernism: The Challenges of Resistance in 1930s Fiction. Northwestern University Press. ISBN 978-0-8101-2863-7. JSTOR j.ctv47w3sg.
- Christopher and His Kind, p. 60.
