A review by bookishwendy
The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood
3.0
This is a slice-of-life collection of Berlin vignettes that are more character studies than stories. The first story "Mr. Norris Changes Trains" is more of a novella at 200 pages and yet...very little happens. One of the more frustrating things about this story and many of the others is that while I can see that the narrator is fascinated with his many subjects (Mr. Norris, Sally Bowles, Otto Nowak, Bernard Landau...) I don't really get why. (With the exception of Sally. I'd read a 200 page story about her.) Norris is frustratingly bland and evasive and rather slimy, yet we spend so much time with him. Much more actual "story" in these stories is revealed through subtext, and the times I managed to pick up the subtext scent were rewarding.
More interesting to me is the fact that I read Berlin Stories shortly after reading [b:Mephisto|223635|Mephisto|Klaus Mann|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348982704s/223635.jpg|216586] by Klaus Mann. They are set in the same place, and probably written around the same time and I started wondering if they hung out together (answer: yes). Interestingly, near the end of "Berlin Diaries" a man referred to only as D. confronts the narrator about about why he doesn't take more action against Nazism, then later is said to have fled to the Netherlands--as did the real Klaus Mann. Isherwood remains the observer and outsider throughout Berlin Stories, while Klaus Mann wields his 1936 Mephisto like a butcher knife. Both are interesting in their diverging--yet weirdly similar--points of view.
More interesting to me is the fact that I read Berlin Stories shortly after reading [b:Mephisto|223635|Mephisto|Klaus Mann|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348982704s/223635.jpg|216586] by Klaus Mann. They are set in the same place, and probably written around the same time and I started wondering if they hung out together (answer: yes). Interestingly, near the end of "Berlin Diaries" a man referred to only as D. confronts the narrator about about why he doesn't take more action against Nazism, then later is said to have fled to the Netherlands--as did the real Klaus Mann. Isherwood remains the observer and outsider throughout Berlin Stories, while Klaus Mann wields his 1936 Mephisto like a butcher knife. Both are interesting in their diverging--yet weirdly similar--points of view.