He left Cambridge without graduating, briefly studied medicine and then turned to writing his first novels, All the Conspirators and The Memorial. Although it’s never quite clear exactly what is being imported or exported, whatever it is, it doesn’t appear to be entirely above board. In Berlin they see each other frequently (including eating ham and eggs at the first class restaurant of Berlin Friedrichstraße railway station). he shouted, holding up one of them by the corner of the cover, disgustedly, as though it were a nasty kind of reptile. Parts of Berlin seem to be crumbling, political struggles are on (the communists and Nazis both fighting for power, violence and hate in the atmosphere), others are simply struggling to make ends meet, some are coping with the hate that is spreading, and some with their personal struggles.

Norris Trains by Christopher Isherwood - AbeBooks Norris Trains by Christopher Isherwood - AbeBooks

Although Mr Norris Changes Trains was a critical and popular success, Isherwood later condemned it, believing that he had lied about himself through the characterisation of the narrator and that he did not truly understand the suffering of the people he had depicted.I hoped for more from, “Goodbye to Berlin,” which involved a series of snapshots of Christopher Isherwood’s time in Berlin. What makes this novel so especially contextually fascinating is that it's a (thinly disguised) first hand account of not only the hedonism of cabarets and nightclubs, but the political situation at possibly the most pivotal point in history. The novel follows the movements of William Bradshaw, its narrator, who meets a nervous-looking man named Arthur Norris on a train going from the Netherlands to Germany. So it really is a goodbye to Berlin, capturing various facets that were, and that weren’t likely to ever be again.

Mr Norris Changes Trains – What I Think About When I Think Mr Norris Changes Trains – What I Think About When I Think

Norris Changes Trains for its characterization and rather unexpected ending, it is the second novel—Goodbye to Berlin-- I love. I don’t think that the vignette style entirely worked given that there was very little by way of compelling relationships or characters, elements that might otherwise have drawn some emotional investment. In Goodbye to Berlin, Isherwood masterfully uses dialogue to tell the story of the lively, erratic, optimistic Sally Bowles. As they approach the frontier William strikes up a conversation with Mr Norris, who wears an ill-fitting wig and carries a suspect passport.

He becomes involved with the Communists, along with one of the young men who run the girls that Norris employs to indulge his masochistic fantasies. Still, as a window into a remarkable period in German and world history, as well as an entrée into Isherwood's larger oeuvre, THE BERLIN STORIES is well worth reading. He believed that this would allow the reader to "experience" Mr Norris as Isherwood had experienced Gerald Hamilton. Isherwood, who once wrote, that “he liked to imagine himself as one of those mysterious wanderers who penetrate the depths of a foreign land, disguise themselves in the dress and customs of its natives, and die in unknown graves, envied by their stay-at-home compatriots” died at the age of 81 on January 4, 1986. He also became a disciple of the Ramakrishna monk, Swami Prabhavananda, head of the Vedanta Society of Southern California.

Mr Norris changes trains : Isherwood, Christopher, 1904-1986

Isherwood began writing the book in 1934, while he and his companion Heinz Neddermayer were living in the Canary Islands. I read a handful of these short little Isherwood novels years ago, and this one and A Single Man were the two that I most appreciated. This did warm up once William heads to Switzerland, on a clandestine mission but, frankly, I wasn’t that interested, or involved, in what would happen. She is merely acclimatizing herself, in accordance with a natural law, like an animal which change it's coat for the winter.Norris of the first novella is not the kind of character I warm to, though perhaps it is more that this is an earlier work than the other, and with the latter Isherwood found his voice.

Mr. Norris Changes Trains | The Modern Novel Isherwood: Mr. Norris Changes Trains | The Modern Novel

This process he likened to the surgery performed to separate Siamese twins, "freeing Norris from the stranglehold of his brothers and sisters". At one point in the novel, Bradshaw reflects on his impressions of Mr Norris, a very telling passage as it turns out. For the most part, though, that’s ‘just’ the background and atmosphere: character (in both senses of the word) is foremost in both of these works.In the late 1960s and '70s he turned to autobiographical works: Kathleen and Frank, Christopher and His Kind, My Guru and His Disciple and October, one month of his diary with drawings by Don Bachardy.