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. ( )

An enjoyable, fun read. ( )

If I could write half as well as Christopher Isherwood's style in these stories, I would be very happy. I loved the vignettes of life in Berlin that open almost every chapter before he returns to the main narrative. ( )

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. ( )

I liked these stories, but I just kept feeling like there was nothing much to them. They all take place in Germany in the 1930s...before everything goes to shit, but people know who Hitler is. Berlin was also supposed to be a mecca of risque behavior and sexual experimentation/freedom during this era. Given the charged political situation and the background of shadiness, I expected this book to provide a little more commentary or scandal...instead it reads mostly like observational autobigraphical accounts of the author's encounters with other people. Relationships. Money issues. Taking holidays. This quality doesn't make the stories bad at all, just perhaps a little too straightforward for my tastes.

As a sidenote, I was reading this book on my trip through California, and while hanging out at my hometown beach, an older man approached me. (It's quite unusual to see anyone reading at the beach where I'm from). He was very surprised to see someone reading The Berlin Stories and declared that he used to know Christopher Isherwood before his death. This dude was an artist and met Isherwood at a party in Santa Monica during the 1970s. The one thing that this stranger had to say when I asked what Isherwood was like was: "He was an interesting man. While he was living in Berlin, his publisher had proposed that he write a biography of Hitler. He refused because he wanted to have nothing to do with the Nazis, but it turns out that he actually regretted that decision. He thought in hindsight it would have been so interesting to speak to a man that later became so infamous." ( )