GOODBYE TO BERLIN ,Christopher Isherwood’s collection of interlinked semi-autobiographical stories set in the time right before the Nazis came to power in Germany, contains the line on the first page “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking." ….There is no better description of what a good writer does and by a good writer I mean a writer who doesn’t allow himself to get in the way of what he is trying to write.
GOODBYE TO BERLIN is famous for is rendering of the decadent world of the Weimar Republic Germany where anything goes at all hours like what we associate with Thailand today perhaps even more in your face is more than that….It is its characters-The clever, thrifty but ultimately caring landlady, the gay couple struggling to keep it together in a climate of fear as the Nazis become more powerful and Sally Bowles the most famous character to come out of this book….But this is not Liza Minelli from CABARET all warm insincerity and overdone free spiritedness….The Sally in the book is a much sadder figure….Taken advantage of, cheated, leading a sham life and ultimately self-destructive.
THE WORLD IN THE EVENING I guess would fall under the heading of a more conventional novel….While I was reading it, there were several times I thought what’s the point….However, I am glad I stuck with it because despite elements that seemed sappy or spoke towards that Hallmark tendency of some writers to try to wrap everything up neatly, the growth of the character and the ending are satisfying….
Stephen Monk, the protagonist, leaves his wife after catching her in what he assumes is an affair….Being independently wealthy, he runs away from Southern California to his godmother’s house in rural Pennsylvania where he promptly fractures his hip after being hit by a car….
Have you ever had something happen that seemed catastrophic at the time but forced you to sit down and think about your life and ended up being a blessing in disguise?....That’s what happens here as Stephen is not only forced to confront his current situation but more importantly his first marriage which ended in the death of his famous novelist wife….
The wisdom given here is one must learn to love themselves before they can really love others….Clichéd? maybe but explained well….I liked how in the first person narration of the Stephen character left out a lot of his selfish and bad acts and he had to be reminded of them by other characters most notably his second wife….I also didn’t understand the inclusion of a couple of neighbors of his godmother who happened to be a homosexual couple until Stephen himself revealed an affair he had with a man during his first marriage….The key here is not bisexuality but the egocentric insecurity of Stephen which led to this behavior….The gender of the person didn’t matter….The contrast of a regular homosexual couple with Stephen is further meant to show how damaged he is.
Christopher Isherwood studied and wrote about Eastern religions and there is that very perfect sense in this book about things happening when you are ready for them and information given to you at the time you can make use of it…This book goes overboard occasionally with needless dialogue but one thing THE WOLRD IN THE EVENING shares with GOODBYE TO BERLIN is Christopher Isherwood’s ability to create three dimensional characters who act in unpredictable ways the way real people do.
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