2014 Book 72: Mr. Norris Changes Trains
Book 72: Mr. Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood, isbn: 9780099771418, Vintage UK, 230 pages, $7.99
The Premise: (from the Goodreads page) 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.
My Rating: Four stars out of five
My Thoughts: There's a lot more going on in this book than the back cover copy / Goodreads summary lets on. Yes, it does all start with Bradshaw's chance encounter with Arthur Norris on a train, and Norris' odd behavoir at the border check-point that implies he's up to more than he says he is. But the novel progresses from there, charting what will ultimately be the rise of the Third Reich through the eyes of a true outsider, a British schoolteacher tutoring Germans in English. We see the rise and fall of various political parties, including the Communists, but there's an inevitability to the Nazis rise that the characters tacitly acknowledge (and hope against) from very early on in the book. For that alone, the book is an excellent read (based, as I understand it, on some of Isherwood's own experiences in Berlin at the time).
William Bradshaw, the main character and narrator, is not an "innocent abroad." Although we're not really told what brings him to Berlin in the first place (other than perhaps wanderlust and the urge to make his way in the world out of sight of his family's watchful eyes), I never got the sense he was really in over his head until towards the end of the book. Bradshaw is clearly based on Isherwood himself, so perhaps the implied motivations for the move to Berlin are all the reader who is familiar with Isherwood's life really needs. Bradshaw (and here, he may differ from Isherwood) is also not as world-wise as he'd have people believe, because it does take him an awful long time to recognize that Arthur Norris is only out for one person: Arthur Norris. That does not stop Bradshaw from being drawn deeper into Norris' circle and therefore his small group of co-conspirators.
Much is made through the book of Norris' interest in sado-masochism; much less is made of Bradshaw's homosexuality except in his use to Norris as a way to tempt other men into Norris' ploys. A major plot point turns on another character's unreciprocated attraction to Bradshaw, and another on Norris' own sexual proclivities, but Bradshaw's own romantic life is never a plot point. This, I'll admit, surprised me a bit, knowing this book is one of two of Isherwood's that served as the basis for the musical Cabaret. I'll have to assume for now that more of Bradshaw's own romantic life is covered in Isherwood's "Goodbye to Berlin," which I haven't read.
Another thing that caught me by surprise: by the end of the book, I couldn't help but feel at least a little bad for Arthur Norris. He's so self-involved/absorbed, and so set in his habits and wants, that he doesn't see the holes he's digging himself into until it's far too late to climb out without a lot of help ... and even then it's a risky proposition at best.
Norris' machinations, often playing both ends against the middle, get more involved and outlandish as the novel goes on and Bradshaw is drawn deeper into them (at first, he's involved only peripherally). The cat-and-mouse games are intriguing.
The book is a brisk read, Bradshaw's narration personable and not too "terribly British."
The Premise: (from the Goodreads page) 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.
My Rating: Four stars out of five
My Thoughts: There's a lot more going on in this book than the back cover copy / Goodreads summary lets on. Yes, it does all start with Bradshaw's chance encounter with Arthur Norris on a train, and Norris' odd behavoir at the border check-point that implies he's up to more than he says he is. But the novel progresses from there, charting what will ultimately be the rise of the Third Reich through the eyes of a true outsider, a British schoolteacher tutoring Germans in English. We see the rise and fall of various political parties, including the Communists, but there's an inevitability to the Nazis rise that the characters tacitly acknowledge (and hope against) from very early on in the book. For that alone, the book is an excellent read (based, as I understand it, on some of Isherwood's own experiences in Berlin at the time).
William Bradshaw, the main character and narrator, is not an "innocent abroad." Although we're not really told what brings him to Berlin in the first place (other than perhaps wanderlust and the urge to make his way in the world out of sight of his family's watchful eyes), I never got the sense he was really in over his head until towards the end of the book. Bradshaw is clearly based on Isherwood himself, so perhaps the implied motivations for the move to Berlin are all the reader who is familiar with Isherwood's life really needs. Bradshaw (and here, he may differ from Isherwood) is also not as world-wise as he'd have people believe, because it does take him an awful long time to recognize that Arthur Norris is only out for one person: Arthur Norris. That does not stop Bradshaw from being drawn deeper into Norris' circle and therefore his small group of co-conspirators.
Much is made through the book of Norris' interest in sado-masochism; much less is made of Bradshaw's homosexuality except in his use to Norris as a way to tempt other men into Norris' ploys. A major plot point turns on another character's unreciprocated attraction to Bradshaw, and another on Norris' own sexual proclivities, but Bradshaw's own romantic life is never a plot point. This, I'll admit, surprised me a bit, knowing this book is one of two of Isherwood's that served as the basis for the musical Cabaret. I'll have to assume for now that more of Bradshaw's own romantic life is covered in Isherwood's "Goodbye to Berlin," which I haven't read.
Another thing that caught me by surprise: by the end of the book, I couldn't help but feel at least a little bad for Arthur Norris. He's so self-involved/absorbed, and so set in his habits and wants, that he doesn't see the holes he's digging himself into until it's far too late to climb out without a lot of help ... and even then it's a risky proposition at best.
Norris' machinations, often playing both ends against the middle, get more involved and outlandish as the novel goes on and Bradshaw is drawn deeper into them (at first, he's involved only peripherally). The cat-and-mouse games are intriguing.
The book is a brisk read, Bradshaw's narration personable and not too "terribly British."