Mr Norris Changes Trains: Christopher Isherwood (Vintage classics)

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Isherwood casts himself as William Bradshaw, a young man, eager for the experience of living in another country, earning his living by teaching English to private students. Ultimately, Mr Norris is a portrait of pre-war Berlin, a story that is by turns charming, witty and tragic. Left wing, fairly openly homosexual (when it was illegal) intellectual, finely crafted poets, playwrights and or novelists.

His features are somewhat out of kilter, not least his chin which appears to have slipped sideways ‘like a broken concertina,’ plus he’s wearing a wig. In line with Isherwood's other works, descriptions are light and airy rather than overdone to the point that they become meaningless, and they allow the story to continue easily. Mr Jonathan Norris MBChB, FRCOphth, MSc (Oxon) has been the Lead Consultant for Oculoplastic / Eyelid surgery at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford since 2011 and is the current Clinical Lead of the Oxford Eye Hospital. There are strong homosexual overtones and an overpowering combination of the games and deceits of both the spy and gay worlds of the era; the 'honey trap' being a prime example. His experiences provided the material for Mister Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1938), still his most famous book.In 2017 he completed an MSc at Oxford University in Surgical Science and Practice for which he was awarded a Department for Continuing Education Scholarship. Presumably the population, post the first world war, wanted desperately to believe in something good, and this is portrayed through William’s character and how he sees Norris. Despite the troubled times of its setting, Mr Norris is a warm and engaging story which charts the somewhat peculiar friendship that develops between two men following a chance encounter on a train. He waxes regretfully poetic about the violence of the SA, and the way the whispers about that violence were drowned out by the propaganda machine. While the social situation is depicted in some detail covering living conditions of both the poor as well as the rich, the political situation is always in the background - from where it sometimes pops up as the main story itself, especially in the second book.

It was transformed into wonderful suits of clothes which he presented after a week or two, in disgust, to his valet; into oriental knick-knacks which somehow, when he got them back to his flat, turned out to be rusty old iron pots; into landscapes of the latest impressionist genius which by daylight next morning were childish daubs. Isherwood's friend Stephen Spender preferred the original title, saying of the new one that "It gives one the sense of earrings. It made me wonder whether NYC’s Germanic past was a reason for the present day culture having similarities to that of interwar Berlin. The novel is almost a chronological account of their friendship, which includes Norris’ frequent disappearances and reappearances and fluctuating finances, whilst William speculates about the reasons behind this with rather naïve assumptions.

It’s one of the things that works so well here as I couldn’t help but find Mr Norris engaging in spite of his flaws. Many of his works are more like diaries than plot driven stories, but the journey is very enjoyable even if the destination isn't very exciting.