Isherwood's immortal novel about political high-tension, passion and literary talent in 1930s Berlin
After a chance encounter on a train the English teacher William Bradshaw starts a close friendship with the mildly sinister Arthur Norris. Norris is a man of contradictions; lavish but heavily in debt, excessively polite but sexually deviant. First published in 1933 Mr Norris Changes Trains piquantly evokes the atmosphere of Berlin during the rise of the Nazis.
Isherwood's immortal novel about political high-tension, passion and literary talent in 1930s Berlin
After a chance encounter on a train the English teacher William Bradshaw starts a close friendship with the mildly sinister Arthur Norris. Norris is a man of contradictions; lavish but heavily in debt, excessively polite but sexually deviant. First published in 1933 Mr Norris Changes Trains piquantly evokes the atmosphere of Berlin during the rise of the Nazis.
Isherwood will be a name on everyone's lips with the release of the film adaptation of his novel A Single Man.
Christopher Isherwood was born at High lane, Cheshire, in 1904. He
left Cambridge without graduationg, tried briefly to study medicine
and in 1928 published All the Conspirators, followed by a second
novel, The Memorial in 1932. From 1928 onwards he lived mostly out
of England- four years in Berlin, five in various European
countries including Portugal, Holland, Belgium and Denmark. In 1939
he went to California, which became his home for the rest of his
life. His Berlin experiences produced two novels, Mr Norris Changes
Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1939).
Isherwood worked with the American Friends Service Committee during
part of the war. In 1946 he became a US citizen. Following his move
to America he wrote five novels - Prater Violet, The World in the
Evening, Down There on a Visit, A Single Man and A Meeting by the
River; a travel book about South America, The Condor and the Cows;
and Ramakrishna and his Disciples, a biography of the great Indian
mystic.
In 1971 he published Kathleen and Frank, a book based on the
correspondence of his parents and his mother's diary, in 1977
Christopher and his Kind, an autobiographical account of the years
1929 to 1939, and in 1980 My Guru and His Disciple, the story of
his friendship with the Swami Prabhavananda. He died in 1986.
A supreme example of a radiant prose rhythm married to the most
delicious dialogue – a portrait of the subtly ruinous Mr
Norris.
*Week*
Isherwood sketches with the lightest of touches the last gasp of
the decaying demi-monde and the vigorous world of Communists and
Nazis, grappling with each other on the edge of the abyss
*Sunday Telegraph*
What the Berlin stories retain, to a unique degree, is the ability
to tell us what it really felt like then - to feel involved with
the Germans and still to find that they retained their mystery; to
be in the mode, yes, of a camera, and yet to be furiously,
hopelessly involved
*James Fenton*
The first literary novel that really switched me on was Christopher
Isherwood's Mr Norris Changes Trains
*Daily Mail*
He immortalised Berlin in two short, brilliant novels both
published in the Thirties, Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye To
Berlin, inventing a new form for future generations - intimate,
stylised reportage in loosely connected episodes
*Daily Express*
Mr Norris Changes Trains brought him recognition as one of the most
promising young writers of his generation
*The Times*
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