Lead Review (Goodbye to Berlin)
- Book: Goodbye to Berlin
- Location: Berlin
- Author: Christopher Isherwood
The dark and decadent novella that inspired Cabaret
This reasonably short novel chronicles the author’s three years in Berlin, in the early 1930s, where he was working as an impecunious English teacher. The book is formed of a series of short stories, portraying characters he surely encountered in real life during the period. The novel is set against the tense, yet colourfully portrayed backdrop, whilst the storm clouds of war are gradually gathering. These are the dying days of the Weimar Republic, a society that is starting to fracture and implode, providing fertile fissures for demagoguery.
He tells the stories in such a confident and well observed way, they feel like quite personal experiences – he has then transposed his impressions into a rich fictive narrative. The variety of people who grace the pages, the chilling steps of boots on cobbles….
The novel opens at the guest house where he is staying, and this is where we first meet some of the characters – Sally Bowles, of course – and there is a Summer dalliance with Peter and Otto, and encounters with Jewish heiress Natalia Landauer, characters who will all inevitably be outlawed in the years to come. There is an overriding sense that time is being called on party life, and the relatively carefree young German people are heading for a sombre future.
A very good read to get a sense of the footsteps past that still, to this day, echo all around the modern city. This has become such a classic and is a must read if you are heading for Berlin and would like a bit of historical and social context.
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