The Berlin Stories
3.6
9
5
1
Paperback(Reissue)
USD
16.16
$16.16
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780811218047 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | New Directions Publishing Corporation |
| Publication date: | 09/17/2008 |
| Edition description: | Reissue |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Sales rank: | 99,536 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
The Berlin Stories
3.6 out of 5
based on
0 ratings.
9 reviews.
 |
This book is perfectly fascinating! The characters are so real and they hit so close to home. My personal favorite is the collection of sketches and scenes entitled 'Sally Bowles'. Sally is one of the most interesting and extraordinary characters one can find in literature. Her relationship with Christopher is magnificent ... it is so pure. I reccommend seeing the movie version (Cabaret) with Liza Minelli. Ms. Minelli makes an enchanting Sally Bowles, and Michael York is a lovable Brian (Christopher).
|
|
i enjoyed this book. the first part, the last of mr. norris, is a short novel. the second part, goodbye to berlin, is sort of a collection of sketches. my favorite of the sketches is 'the landauers.' sorry, sally, but i find natalia landauer more interesting. my favorite sentence in this book comes from chapter 8 of mr. norris, 'like a long train which stops at every dingy little station, the winter dragged slowly past.'
|
|
Splendid. Wonderful evocation of pre-War Berlin. Norris is a terrific character.
|
|
This collection did not match any of my expectations ¿ that is, it wasn¿t what I expected to read. There really is a difference there ¿ let me explain. First, it is my fault. I was expecting a collection of short stories, and right on the back it says, ¿¿contains two related novels.¿ However, I did read enough of the back to know that some part was the inspiration for Cabaret. But, reading the back more carefully, the only part that is Cabaret (and its predecessor I Am a Camera) are the ¿misadventures of Sally Bowles.¿ She plays but a small part in this entire production. Then, once I came to grips with this being two novels, I started the second ¿ Goodbye to Berlin ¿ and found that this didn¿t match my new conceptions. Rather than a novel, I would better describe it as a connected set of writings ¿ some almost diary entries (upon which much of this is based.) This is where Sally Bowles does indeed make her short appearances ¿ once as the main force of a story, the second as a protagonist.I only go through this background to let you know that the book/novels/stories worked their way past my conceptions, preconceptions, or misconceptions (choose what you would like to call them) to make me understand why people have turned to them for inspiration in their private and creative lives. There is no doubt that you are hearing Isherwood¿s true stories of his life in Berlin during the time of the rise of Hitler. And the intertwining of everyday situations with the important (but underplayed) events of the world makes for entertaining reading. As the blurb promises, the characters are entertaining ¿ but never are they drawn too broadly. They are believable people. And never do world events overshadow the life of getting through life. In fact, events are just a backdrop. Hitler¿s name is dropped. The previous war is mentioned. Events in England are glanced at. But these stories and these people are never about those events. And, although I¿ve said it more than once in different ways, these stories are about people ¿ people who come to life in the telling.
|
|
This one I really loved when I was young and had a romantic notion of Berlin before the war as an open and cosmopolitan place, a refuge for literary British and American types (and Russians, Poles, Hungarians, Ottomans, etc etc.) In the end, it was eclipsed by other books.
|
|
Great read. Read this then watch Mack the Knife, listen to Kurt Weil, think about Weimar Germany.
|
|
Except for a great opening line, nothing about Isherwood's collection of short stories grabbed me. Sally Bowles is a fabulous character but the narrator himself is desperately dull. A pathetic man in love with a vibrant woman does not an interesting story make.
|
|
|
|
|