Not a review.
This is yet another book I've read in parts and excerpts over so many years that I feel a nostalgia for the characters even in the pieces I hadn't read.
My copy of the book holds an inscription made out to my father, in Berlin, in the early 1980s. The first time I read one of these stories was also in Berlin, after talking to a man who told me stories of my dad crossing the Wall. I love how this city connects us, how easily and terrifyingly it could have been our home. ( )

OK stories I read a long time ago. Saw film: "I am a Camera" first, which led to it. "Cabaret" based on these stories. ( )

The Berlin Stories is two novels set in Berlin in the early 1930s. It is between world wars, and the citizens of Berlin are somewhat complacent about the Nazis. However, the Communist party and the Nazis compete for allegiance, and there is a subtle foreshadowing of the coming world events. Still, most Berlin citizens are living life as usual, nonchalantly expecting life to continue as it had in the past.

Chris Isherwood, the author, inserts himself in the second story, Goodbye to Berlin, and it becomes apparent that the stories are semi-autobiographical. In the first story, Mr. Norris Changes Trains, Isherwood creates a character that represents himself, Bill Bradshaw. It was inappropriate when these novels were published to speak of homosexuality. So, Isherwood, an openly gay man, used many “code” words or euphemisms to describe his gayness. He cleverly described his friends and those who frequented the gay bars of the day without ever using expressions that would be forbidden.

The Berlin Stories is best known for the character Sally Bowles, who inspired the musical stage show and movie Cabaret.

The problem with most of these stories is that Isherwood casts himself as a complete outsider, so that his main character stands awkwardly on the verge of being an active participant in the action but almost always ends up a passive observer. When the main character speaks of good friends like Otto or Arthur, I never get a sense that those relationships are really as strong as the character says, and the interactions that the reader does glimpse really don't portray these friendships in the most believable light. A symptom of this deficiency is the main character's sexuality -- or lack of one. It seems that beyond concealing Bradshaw's/Isherwood's personality, Isherwood buries any sexual/romantic feelings he may have, too. Or perhaps that's where the root of the problem begins?

But the character's exacting, saucy narration and observations were still fun to read. Isherwood's description of people and places, though simple in style, conveyed a sense of reality that's hard to shake off, and with sarcasm to boot. His characterization of particular people especially -- like Sally Bowles, whom I loved, though I'm biased as a Cabaret fan -- riveted. On the other hand, I really disliked the Otto and Peter parts, which I slogged through, and thought represented Isherwood at his weakest. Were they shameful gay lovers, perhaps? I couldn't tell.

At his strongest, Isherwood reveals a world especially fraught with identity conflicts. That he picked one of the most interesting turning points in history at its epicenter -- the late Weimar Republic as it began to transition into the Nazi dictatorship, with the enfeebled German population compelled to choose between Nazism, communism and, to a much smaller degree, democracy -- only emboldened his sense of setting and character. Perhaps his ability to set his characters in this historical milieu is where he shines most. ( )

Isherwood, an Englishman (and ancestor of the judge who signed the death warrant of King Charles I) lived in Berlin for about four years in the early 1930's. Berlin Stories is a fictional but semi-autobiographical account of his life there. The character Sally Bowles in the movie Cabaret is attributed to one of Isherwood's female friends there.

Some things should be mentioned. This female friend of Isherwood said that Sally Bowles is in some ways quite unlike herself. And that the Berlin he portrays is not accurate. No doubt the first is true and the second not unreasonable. Yet in that wild and turbulent city at that time, little chance that any two accounts would correspond. Isherwood was said (by Auden) to have zero political interests. He does show some interest but it is colored by the hindsight from having been written several years later. Perhaps a disinterested writer provides a more dispassionate viewpoint.

Isherwood was gay. He intended Berlin Stories to disguise this aspect, and that is fine. I believe that Isherwood later re-wrote the stories to include the gay business. See Christopher and His Kind, 1976, if that's what you want. Yet gay vibes inhabit these Berlin Stories.

None of this matters. Isherwood knew how to write. The flavor of ca. 1932 Berlin is evident, and if that is your interest, then you may do much worse than by starting here for the zeitgeist and an enjoyable read. ( )