"I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking" (Isherwood 1). This phrase comes from the first page of Christopher Isherwood's most popular documentary styled novel, Goodbye to Berlin (1939). In this novel, Isherwood managed to establish a sort of "matter-of-fact" style by blending fact and fiction and achieving a naive, honest style for the narrator. "The phrase "I am a camera" often appears in his work indicating his belief that a narrator should serve the role of a simple recording device" (Caudwell 2). By achieving this, Isherwood provides the readers with an unsurpassed portrait of Berlin, a city in the process of internal decay, in the turbulent years of Hitler's rise in power. "It is as if...Isherwood is masquerading "as a war correspondent..." (Piazza 2). Isherwood is the outsider looking in, observing a war (holocaust) in which he is not involved; but he does show glimpses and portraits of characters that have been affected by it. "He immerses himself in the world of prostitutes, living almost anonymously in shabbily genteel and working class areas of the city and translating his experience of the demimonde image of what would eventually become the definitive portrait of pre-Hitler Germany, in Goodbye to Berlin" (Summers 1). Because Isherwood brilliantly recorded what he saw, Goodbye to Berlin is a valuable social document, which provides an insight into Isherwood's handling the theme of war. In this research paper, the main concentration is set on the effects (private and social) the introduction of war, by the Nazism movement, has on the individual portraits (characters) of Berlin. "Against the bleak but garnish background of a falling city, Sally Bowles, Peter and Otto, The Nowaks, The Landauers, and other Berlin denizens shuffle through their shabby cabaret choreography" (Bryfonski, Harris 283).
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