Mr. Norris changes
Mr. Norris is changing (British original title Mr Norris Changes Trains , published in the US as The Last of Mr. Norris ) is a 1935 novel by the British writer Christopher Isherwood . The short novel is often published together with the novel Lebwohl, Berlin as “The Berlin Stories”. Both novels were the basis for the musical Cabaret, which was created in the 1960s.
Time counted these "Berlin Stories" among the best 100 English-language novels that were published between 1923 and 2005, and justified this with the fact that these two short novels were perfect snapshots of Berlin in the 1930s, where exuberant emigrants dance and party more intensely, as if this would protect them from the approaching National Socialism. The British newspaper The Guardian included the story in its list of 1000 must-read novels. Isherwood, on the other hand, described his novel as a heartless fairy tale story in the 1950s because he did not really understand the suffering of those around him.
Mr. Norris is switching based on the impressions of Isherwood, who lived in Berlin in the early 1930s and witnessed the rise of Hitler. The figure of Mr. Norris is based on the writer Gerald Hamilton , the figure of the communist leader Ludwig Bayer on the German politician, publisher and film producer Willi Münzenberg .
action
The narrator of the plot is the young Briton William Bradshaw, who lives on language lessons in Berlin and lives in Miss Schröder's small and shabby pension. During a train ride, he meets his compatriot Arthur Norris, who also lives in Berlin. They become friends and see each other regularly. Through Norris, Bradshaw met people like the brothel owner Olga and the communist leader Ludwig Bayer. Gradually it becomes clear that Mr. Norris leads an unusual life: He is a masochist who meets his dominatrix Anni three times a week, and he counts himself to the communists, which is an increasingly risky political stance in Germany. It remains unclear what he lives on: He seems to run a business together with his assistant Schmidt, although the actual content of these business activities remains unclear. However, it becomes clear that Norris is being bullied by Schmidt. Norris ran into financial difficulties and eventually left Berlin.
When Norris returned to Berlin, he was wealthy again. He receives cryptic telegrams, the sender of which appears to be a French woman by the name of Margot. His assistant Schmidt reappears and tries to blackmail him. Norris uses Bradshaw as bait to persuade one of his friends, Baron Pregnitz, to go on vacation in Switzerland and meet “Margot” there, who turns out to be Dutch. While Bradshaw was still in Switzerland, he received a telegram from Ludwig Bayer urging him to return to Berlin. He learns from Bayer that Norris was spying for the French and that both his communist group and the police know about it. When Norris also returns to Berlin, Bradshaw notices that he is being watched by the police and he convinces Norris to leave Germany. After the Reichstag fire, the Nazis murder Bayer and most of Norris' communist comrades. Bradshaw returns to the UK, where he keeps receiving short letters and postcards from Norris. Norris has managed to escape from Germany, but wherever he goes, Schmidt turns up and continues to try to blackmail him. The novel ends with Bradshaw receiving another postcard from Norris in Rio de Janeiro asking:
"What did I do to deserve this."
History of origin
_Christopher_Isherwood.JPG)
Isherwood originally wanted to call his novel The Lost , the title he derived from the German Die Verloren . He found this fitting because, from his point of view, this term aptly described three different groups of people: those who allowed themselves to be seduced by Adolf Hitler, people like the members of the Landauer family, whom Hitler was already planning to destroy and those who had always been socially responsible were ostracized like its protagonists Sally Bowles, Otto Nowak and Mr. Norris. Isherwood began working on this novel in 1934. At that time he was living on the Canary Islands with his partner Heinz Neddermayer.
While working on the lost , Isherwood increasingly focused the plot on Mr. Norris, a process he later likened to the work of a surgeon separating Siamese twins . Characters like Sally Bowles and the Landauer family have disappeared during this process from Mr. Norris Rises and only appear in Lebwohl, Berlin .
With the focus on the character of Mr. Norris, Isherwood changed the narrative perspective to that of a first-person narrator . He believed that this would enable the reader to experience Norris in a form similar to that of Isherwood Gerald Hamilton.
The name of the first-person narrator William Bradshaw is derived from Isherwood's full name (Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood). Isherwood used his own name in later novels because he believed that the use of "William Bradshaw" was a rash evasion. It was Isherwood's explicit goal not to give the first-person narrator an important role so that the reader could concentrate fully on Norris. While Isherwood was already relatively openly homosexual at the time of writing, he refused to describe Bradshaw as homosexual because he feared it might divert attention from Norris. However, there were also pragmatic reasons for this decision: Isherwood did not want to provoke a scandal and also feared that his uncle, who was supporting him financially at the time, would withdraw this support.
When Isherwood sent his manuscript to Hogarth Press , the novel was still titled The Lost ; It was only in preparation for publication that the title was changed to Mr. Norris Changes Trains . Isherwood ultimately chose this title because he wanted to emphasize not only the constant relocation that Norris was forced to make to escape his enemies and lenders, but also to emphasize his ever-changing political views and interests. However, Isherwood's American publisher asked him to change the title for the American market. In North America, the novel was therefore ultimately published under the title The Last of Mr. Norris . According to Isherwood's own account, this led to a number of misunderstandings because several readers thought the American title was the next volume.
Isherwood's subsequent distancing
Mr. Norris is changing, found favor with literary critics and was a sales success at the same time. Isherwood himself distanced himself from his early work. He later pointed out that he had drawn himself incorrectly in the figure of the first-person narrator and that, above all, he had not correctly grasped the suffering of the people he was describing. In a foreword to an edition of Gerald Hamilton's 1956 memoir Mr Norris and I , Isherwood wrote:
“Today I am repulsed by the heartlessness of Mr Norris . It is a heartless fairy tale about a real city where people lived through the misery of political violence and lack of food. The wicked Berlin nightlife was in reality pitiful: All the kisses and hugs had a price tag and the prices had fallen drastically in this ruinous predatory competition ... and all the deformities - they were in reality quite ordinary people who were very pragmatic through illegal actions tried to ensure their survival. The only real malformation was the young foreigner who went through these desperate scenes in a serene and cheerful manner and misinterpreted them so that they fit into his childish imagination. "
German-language editions
- Christopher Isherwood: Mr. Norris changes , Roman (original title: Mister Norris changes trains , translated by Wolfgang Eisermann), Albino, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-8880-3005-6 ; as Fischer-TB 5453, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-596-25453-1 .
literature
- Jonathan Fryer: Isherwood: A Biography . Doubleday & Company, Garden City, NY 1997, ISBN 0-385-12608-5 .
- Isherwood, Christopher (1945). "Preface", The Berlin Stories . New Directions Publishing Corporation.
- Isherwood, Christopher (1976). Christopher and His Kind . Avon Books, a division of The Hearst Corporation, ISBN 0-380-01795-4 (Discus edition).
- Miles, Jonathan (2010). The Nine Lives of Otto Katz. The Remarkable Story of a Communist Super-Spy . London, Bantam Books, ISBN 978-0-553-82018-8 .
- Singh, RB (1994). The English Novels During the Nineteen-thirties . Atlantic, ISBN 81-7156-384-8 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Time selection of the best 100 best English-language novels between 1923 and 2005 , accessed on April 19, 2014
- ↑ 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read: The Definitive List , accessed April 20, 2014.
- ↑ Isherwood (1945), "Foreword"
- ↑ Miles (2010), p. 81
- ↑ Christopher Isherwood: Mr. Norris changes, end of the novel. The original quote is: " What have I done to deserve all this?"
- ↑ Isherwood (1976), p. 175
- ↑ Isherwood (1976), p. 178
- ^ Isherwood (1976), p. 184
- ↑ Isherwood (1976), pp. 184 to 186
- ^ Isherwood (1976), p. 188
- ↑ Fryer, p. 144
- ↑ Isherwood (1976), p. 189
- ↑ cited in Fryer, pp. 146–147. The original quote is: What repels me now about Mr Norris is its heartlessness. It is a heartless fairy story about a real city in which human beings were suffering the miseries of political violence and near-starvation. The "wickedness" of Berlin's night-life was of the most pitiful kind; the kisses and embraces, as always, had price tags attached to them, but here the prices were drastically reduced in the cut-throat competition of an over-crowded market. ... As for the "monsters", they were quite ordinary human beings prosiacally engaged in getting their living through illegal methods. The only genuine monster was the young foreigner who passed gaily through these scenes of desolation, misinterpreting them to suit his childish fantasy.