prendrelemick
08-13-2009, 02:29 AM
Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood.
On the cover of my copy the blurb reads; “ the best prose writer in English.”- Gore Vidal. (It is an old copy!) and do you know he could be right.
Isherwood set out to write his magnum opus based on his time in Berlin in the 1930's. But that didn't work out, and his ambitious project was reduced to a collection of six short , loosely connected sketches. So not the masterpiece he intended but stll a masterly piece of work.
“I am a camera” says the narrator (also called Christopher Isherwood.) “with its shutter open”. But he captures more with words than any camera can. As we look through his eyes. The sights sounds and smells of Berlin are opened up to us. He writes his discriptive prose like narrative, sparse and effective, the streets, houses, clubs and dives are involved in the stories as much as the human characters are.
And it is the human characters that are the subject of this book. Sally Bowles, good time girl, victim and preditor. Otto, rent boy and lothario. Bernhard, rich meloncholic jew and manipulator. We are looking through the narrator as they reveal themselves. Isherwood says little, never judges, has no opinions, he is an observer, or a collector, he captures them in prose.
Throughout the book , the Nazis are on the rise, by its end they are in power. Those we have met, the underclass and misfits are being rounded up and swept away. A gloomy end to that which began as a delightful observational comedy.
I'll give it a 9 out of ten, and urge anyone who wants to write, to read this and see how its done.
On the cover of my copy the blurb reads; “ the best prose writer in English.”- Gore Vidal. (It is an old copy!) and do you know he could be right.
Isherwood set out to write his magnum opus based on his time in Berlin in the 1930's. But that didn't work out, and his ambitious project was reduced to a collection of six short , loosely connected sketches. So not the masterpiece he intended but stll a masterly piece of work.
“I am a camera” says the narrator (also called Christopher Isherwood.) “with its shutter open”. But he captures more with words than any camera can. As we look through his eyes. The sights sounds and smells of Berlin are opened up to us. He writes his discriptive prose like narrative, sparse and effective, the streets, houses, clubs and dives are involved in the stories as much as the human characters are.
And it is the human characters that are the subject of this book. Sally Bowles, good time girl, victim and preditor. Otto, rent boy and lothario. Bernhard, rich meloncholic jew and manipulator. We are looking through the narrator as they reveal themselves. Isherwood says little, never judges, has no opinions, he is an observer, or a collector, he captures them in prose.
Throughout the book , the Nazis are on the rise, by its end they are in power. Those we have met, the underclass and misfits are being rounded up and swept away. A gloomy end to that which began as a delightful observational comedy.
I'll give it a 9 out of ten, and urge anyone who wants to write, to read this and see how its done.