Goodbye to Berlin

Finally, finished.

The first book I started and finished since my arrival in Brazil and I'm so happy I did.

I've been so taken by travel, Clarissa, her family, life in Porto Alegre, dogs, new food and basically just overawed by everything that I've been averaging all of 10 pages a day, at best. This is a rather poor show.
It shall be amended.

Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood

Fast, fluid, driven, exploratory and delightful.

Set in the late 1920's/early 1930's, Isherwood's character (himself) is living as a university graduate and author in the German capital of Berlin, bouncing from boarding house to doss house as he strives to make a living as an English Language teacher and endeavouring to both begin and finish his newest novel (the last being some time out of print, having sold a whopping 5 copies).

As the story progresses, Herr Isherwood meets a variety of people, ranging from the artistic jet set to mentally impaired young men, their families and the successful yet modest Jewish fraternity of the hateful capital.

Isherwood's conversations and descriptions of the city and it's people are both enticing and unbiased, allowing himself none of the retrospective angst that modern authors might allude to and fairly conversing with all manner of life, forgiving their ingrained racism and at the same time evaluating his own self admonished failures.

The story races along, ensuring the reader must keep pace and thrive in the bohemian wanderings of the main character. Our interests are peeked by an author that does at no time relinquish the responsibility of the narrator, constantly querying and investigating all elements of the story, including his own personality.


Read it, you won't be disappointed.