The novel was adapted into a Broadway play called I Am a Camera by John Van Druten (1951). Isherwood confirms this in his 1976 memoir Christopher and His Kind, writing, " liked the sound of it and also the looks of its owner." Adaptations It was described by contemporary writer George Orwell as "Brilliant sketches of a society in decay." In his autobiography Without Stopping, the author and composer Paul Bowles suggests that Isherwood, whom he met in Berlin, may have borrowed his surname for the character Sally Bowles. The book, first published in 1939, highlights the groups of people who would be most at risk from Nazi intimidation. Schroeder the "divinely decadent" Sally Bowles, a young Englishwoman who sings in the local cabaret and her coterie of admirers Natalia Landauer, the rich, Jewish heiress of a prosperous family business Peter and Otto, a gay couple struggling to accept their relationship and sexuality in light of the rise of the Nazis. Moving to Germany to work on his novel, Isherwood soon becomes involved with a diverse array of German citizens: the caring landlady, Frl. These are: "A Berlin Diary (Autumn 1930)," "Sally Bowles," "On Ruegen Island (Summer 1931)," "The Nowaks," "The Landauers," and "A Berlin Diary (Winter 1932-3)." It is written as a connected series of six short stories and novellas. It is episodic, dealing with a large cast over a period of several years from late 1930 to early 1933. Walk around the area where the rich people of the novel live – The Grunewald, or the Brandenburg district where Herr Noeske’s parents live and see the Germany that Christopher Isherwood wants to show you.The novel, a semiautobiographical account of Isherwood's time in 1930s Berlin, describes pre-Nazi Germany and the people he met. The country is changing but no one really knows how or what consequences it will have. False hope and false rumours circulate casting a shadow over the country as war beckons. Nazism is growing and everyone reacts to its threat in differing ways.
Several characters at various times enter stage left, each chapter a set piece of sorts showcasing the various sides to the city and its people. Since it inspired “Cabaret”- the book reads like an sumptuous snapshot of pre-war Berlin. These are stories of an oppressive Berlin and a country increasingly obsessed with the threat of Nazism and the changes it was undergoing in the 1930s.Īlthough fiction, it does read as an account of the changes that took place, and the various people that would have lived in the Germany at that time.
0 kommentar(er)
