Goodbye to Berlin

The book, set in the early 1930s, is from a fleeting period when the liberal pleasures of the German capital made it the European place to be. An English teacher of reserved social origins, Isherwood writes of the Berlin characters who enlivened his life, against the forbidding backdrop of Hitler's rise to power. Cabaret, the film adapted from the book, led Isherwood to insist his version of events was far nearer to how things were.

Introducing the character of Sally Bowles, Goodbye to Berlin was adapted into the musical Cabaret, a byword for high-kicking razzmatazz. The novel itself is a different kind of gem: an entrancing, wistful portrait of the last days of Weimar as the Nazis prepare for power.

A series of episodes observed by the narrator, it’s based on the author’s own years in Berlin. ‘Sally Bowles’ was a real person (who spent the rest of her life trying to get away from the character). The one thing Isherwood changed was his own sexuality. He becomes a passive observer of other gay… show more.

This autobiographical novel of Berlin circa 1930 may be too well known for its own good, ever since it was adapted into Cabaret, a dazzling film that fails to do justice to the book. Look carefully past Isherwood’s apparently straightforward account of the daily struggles of his odd and dubious acquaintances, and note the backdrop of ominous political storms--the depression and above all the rise of the Nazis—that many of them are oblivious to.