Goodbye to Berlin

Title: Goodbye to Berlin
Author: Christopher Isherwood
Published: Originally in 1939, this edition by Vintage considerably later.
Genre: Drama!
Pages: 256


Okay, so THIS is blog post #100! Yay! Nice way to start 2012! And it's a classy book, too!

2/2 of the books Santa brought me. I discovered I like Mr. Isherwood's style while reading A Single Man last year, and these new editions have absolutely gorgeous cover art. This one is a collection of short stories which tie together through people in the early 1930's Berlin. There's six stories altogether, told in first person. The person's name happens to be Christopher Isherwood, but the reader apparently shouldn't assume this to mean that the stories are purely autobiographical.

The book tells in honest details how people of that time lived, when Hitler didn't really seem all that bad yet. There are, for instance, the Nowaks, a family of five living in an inhabitable attic room where Christopher also stays for a while, and the Landauers, wealthy Jewish family who own a famous department store. The bottom and top of the society, and oh, the society can be so decadent. There's also the rather mismatched couple of Peter and Otto, and Sally Bowles, perhaps Isherwood's most famous character, an upper-class English girl trying to make a legend of herself in Berlin.

What else could I say... well, nothing smart, apparently, since I've erased every attempt I've made so far, and I have to run in a minute! So, a small quote:


Sally made no reply. She lit a cigarette, slightly frowning.
'You say I seem to have changed,' I continued. 'To be quite frank, I've been thinking the same thing about you.'
Sally didn't seem surprised: 'Have you, Christopher? Perhaps you're right. I don't know... or perhaps we've neither of us changed. Perhaps we're just seeing each other as we really are. We're awfully different in lots of ways, you know.'
'Yes, I've noticed that.'
'I think,' said Sally, smoking meditatively, her eyes on her shoes, 'that we may have sort of outgrown each other, a bit.'