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Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood - Waterstones

Mr Norris, based on Isherwood's friend, Gerald Hamilton, is a charming, nervous, middle-aged man whose lifestyle is supported by conning people, selling secrets, and other criminal activities. He's a bit of a comical, prissy figure with a wig that has a tendency to sit off-center. He has regular appointments with Anni, a woman with tall boots and a whip. La storia malinconica di un’amicizia tra due stranieri molto diversi tra loro, nella problematica Berlino dei primi anni Trenta. Dialoghi perfetti, ironia sempre presente, descrizioni di persone e ambienti rapide ed efficaci: Isherwood colpisce ancora. I'll leave you to discover Norris's fate for yourselves, it is an entertaining and apt conclusion for one so despicable, depraved and corrupt. There are things about the story and its setting that made me think of Sex And The City and also Girls. Isherwood’s Berlin is full of bright young things and grifters who are living beyond their means in an effort to be somebody. It’s a shallow existence, and the only people who actually make something of it are the rich, because they don’t need to think about where the next pfennig is coming from. A good example of this is Fritz Wendel, who could be Charlotte in SATC or Marnie in Girls.

Isherwood began work on a much larger work he called The Lost before paring down its story and characters to focus on Norris. The book was critically and popularly acclaimed but years after its publication Isherwood denounced it as shallow and dishonest.

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

In 1945, Isherwood published Prater Violet, fictionalizing his first movie writing job in London in 1933-1934. In Hollywood, he spent the start of the 1950s fighting his way free of a destructive five-year affair with an attractive and undisciplined American photographer, William Caskey. Caskey took the photographs for Isherwood’s travel book about South America, The Condor and The Cows (1947). Isherwood’s sixth novel, The World in the Evening (1954), written mostly during this period, was less successful than earlier ones. William meets Mr Norris on the train to Berlin, and they become good friends. Mr Norris introduces William to a group of people who engage in drunken, sexual partying. He also involves William with the Communist party leaders in Berlin. This was a difficult economic time in Germany. The Nazis were gaining power with their efficient brutal organization. The political scene is viewed through the eyes of the young, politically naive William. This is one of Isherwood’s Berlin novels; almost an historical novel of the last years of the Weimar Republic and was published in 1935. Isherwood was part of a group of young English writers and poets who found England repressive and sought a form of exile (this is also partly a novel of exile); the group included Auden and Spender as well. Berlin was the choice for Isherwood, mainly because an elderly relative had warned him against it, saying it was the vilest place since Sodom. Of course for gay men, such as Isherwood and Auden Berlin was much more liberal and less repressed than England. I wanted to bask in Isherwood's good memories and forget the rest. But Isherwood doesn't let me. There is tragedy lurking in the words of a young Jewish woman who says "My father and my mother and I, we are not unhappy." Sleepwalkers, all of them. Or did they understand what really makes life good? Caring and kindness and love exist here, too.I'm reading this alongside Isherwood's memoir, Christopher and His Kind for an upcoming column on the film Cabaret. So you might say I'm getting all the ins and outs of Weimar Germany, and set to music, no less! (*slaps own cheek* Did I say that?) For "Mr Norris Changes Trains" is set in a very well-defined place and moment of recent history: Berlin in the mid-thirties. That is precisely when Hitler seized power tightening his grip on a whole nation and - quite soon - changing for worse Europe as we knew it.

MR NORRIS CHANGES TRAINS MR NORRIS CHANGES TRAINS

The real star of the book is the underbelly of Berlin in the early 1930s which is marvellously drawn. The various communists and the rather disorganised party machine contrasting with the well run and rather sinister Nazis, who most people seem to think don’t stand a chance of power. This is the tail end of Weimar and a look at the sleazier side of Berlin. It is beautifully written and is a joy to read. The ending outlines the Nazis taking power and the destruction of the communist party.This is an odd novel. Here we have a book which is at the same time a relic from the past and something modern. Isherwood's writing is precise, witty, and thoroughly enjoyable. What is most interesting about both novels is his delicate handling of homosexuality, which was illegal in his native England at the time of publication (even in Berlin the patrons of the gay bars are perpetually on the lookout for raids). Though it is quite apparent to even the least sophisticated reader that the majority of the male characters in these novels are either bisexual or homosexual, Isherwood never explicitly lets on to it, a stylistic tightrope-walking act that provides an underlying tension throughout. Norris’ finances clearly are a mess and his source of income unclear and vague. The role of Schmidt, who is particularly aggressive, is also unclear. Kuno turns out to be gay, interested in a relationship with Bradshaw (he is rejected) and in reading English schoolboy books that feature only boys and no adults. However, his political career starts to take off when the Nazis take power. Norris disappears for a while and then turns up again, sans Schmidt and takes a room at Fräulein Schroeder’s, where Bradshaw is staying. He receives mysterious telegrams from Paris (which Bradshaw and Fräulein Schroeder often steam open) from someone called Margot. He also seems to be financially in better shape than before, till Schmidt turns up, demanding money with menaces. With the Nazis on the rise, Norris plans one last coup, with the help of Bradshaw, to put his finances on sound footing. Of course, it doesn’t work out as planned and he turns out to be more pathetic than dangerous. Mr Norris Changes Trains was published in 1933 and (along with Goodbye to Berlin) is drawn from Isherwood's experiences as an expatriate living in Berlin during the early 1930s. Isherwood originally intended to call this novel The Lost, a title he conceived in German, Die Verlorenen. The title The Lost would have encompassed three different meanings: "those who have lost their way", by which he meant Germans who were being misled by Adolf Hitler; "the doomed", those like the character Bernard Landauer whom Hitler had already marked for destruction; and "those whom respectable Society regards as moral outcasts", like the characters Sally Bowles, Otto Nowak and Mr Norris himself. [5] Isherwood began writing the book in 1934, while he and his companion Heinz Neddermayer were living in the Canary Islands. The Lost was initially planned as a much more comprehensive work, but Isherwood jettisoned much of the material and many of the characters, including Sally Bowles, the Nowaks and the Landauers, to focus on Mr Norris. This process he likened to the surgery performed to separate Siamese twins, "freeing Norris from the stranglehold of his brothers and sisters". [6] The excised material formed the basis for the rest of his Berlin Stories. He completed work on the novel on 12 August of that year. [7]

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

Coincidentally Gerald Hamilton also appeared in another book I recently enjoyed, the stunning Rendezvous at the Russian Tea Rooms: The Spyhunter, the Fashion Designer & the Man From Moscow by Paul Willetts which is also well worth reading. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-05-20 08:05:55 Boxid IA40118214 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier William ha lasciato l’Inghilterra per allontanarsi dalla famiglia e vivere l’avventura. Si può dire che la trova: locali notturni, teatro e cabaret, il nazismo che dilaga inquietante, cene al ristorante bevendo champagne, ma anche birrerie, una misteriosa dame francese (Margot), complotti e ricatti, aristocratici omosessuali, pedinamenti, retate, omicidi, e dopo l’incendio del Reichstag, meglio tornare a casa. The early days of their unusual friendship, in which it’s hard to tell who is using whom and for what purpose, are full of surreal moments. At a New Year celebration, Bradshaw becomes drunk while eating supper with his landlady and fellow lodgers, then heads to a party where he becomes aware of just how drunk he is. A supreme example of a radiant prose rhythm married to the most delicious dialogue – a portrait of the subtly ruinous Mr Norris. Sebastian Barry, WeekHe was extremely nervous. His delicate white hand fiddled incessantly with the signet ring on his little finger; his uneasy blue eyes kept squinting rapid glances into the corridor. His voice rang false; high-pitched in archly forced gaiety; it resembled the voice of a character in a pre-war drawing-room comedy. He spoke so loudly that the people in the next compartment must certainly be able to hear him. (pg. 8) Anyone who still wonders how events can spin out of control should read. "[T]hese people could be made to believe in anybody or anything." And "The newspapers are becoming more and more like copies of a school magazine. There is nothing in them but new rules, new punishments, and lists of people who have been - "