The Berlin Stories

The Berlin Stories is a 1945 omnibus by Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood and consisting of the novels Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1939). The two novels are set in Jazz Age Berlin between 1930 and 1933 on the cusp of Adolf Hitler's ascent to power. Berlin is portrayed by Isherwood during this chaotic interwar period as a carnival of debauchery and despair inhabited by desperate people who are unaware of the national catastrophe that awaits them. The first novel focuses on the misadventures of Arthur Norris, a character based upon an unscrupulous businessman named Gerald Hamilton whom Isherwood met in the Weimar Republic. The second novel recounts the travails of various Berlin denizens whose lives are directly or indirectly affected by the Nazis' rise to power. Isherwood based the character of Sally Bowles on teenage cabaret singer Jean Ross, Isherwood's intimate friend during his sojourn in Berlin. The omnibus inspired the John Van Druten play I Am a Camera, which in turn inspired the film I Am a Camera as well as the famous stage musical and film versions of Cabaret. Sally Bowles is the best-known character from The Berlin Stories, and she became the focus of the Cabaret musical and film, although she is merely the main character of a single short story in Goodbye to Berlin. In later years, Ross regretted her public association with the naïve and apolitical character of Sally Bowles. Although The Berlin Stories secured Isherwood's reputation, the author denounced his writings after the collection's publication. In a 1956 essay, Isherwood lamented that he misunderstood the suffering of the people which he depicted. He regretted depicting many persons as "monsters" and noted they were "ordinary human beings prosaically engaged in getting their living through illegal methods. The only genuine monster was the young foreigner who passed gaily through these scenes of desolation, misinterpreting them to suit his childish fantasy." In 2010, Time chose the collection as one of the 100 Best English-language works of the 20th century.