38 pages • 1 hour read
Christopher IsherwoodGoodbye To Berlin
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1939A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “A Berlin Diary (Autumn 1930)”
The novel opens with Christopher Isherwood, our narrator, looking out of his window, noting scenes of city life in Berlin. He is an Englishman and feels alone in the foreign city. Isherwood describes Frl. Schroeder, his landlady, who is about 55 years old and calls him “Herr Issyvoo.” At one point in time, Frl. Schroeder used to be an independently wealthy woman and was very picky about people she took in as lodgers. Frl. Schroeder now has no room of her own in her own house; she sleeps in the living room behind a screen. Frl. Schroeder has heard that Isherwood was once a medical student and confides in him that she is unhappy about size of her bosom and the strain it puts on her heart.
There are four other lodgers staying in the flat with Isherwood: Frl. Kost, Frl. Mayr, Bobby, and a commercial traveler. Frl. Kost is a prostitute, Bobby is a mixer at a west-end bar called the Troika, and Frl. Mayr is a music-hall jodlerin. Isherwood rarely sees the commercial traveler at all.
Bobby is rather intimate with Frl. Schroder. He often tickles her and slaps her bottom. Frl. Mayr and Frl. Schroeder like to consult cards and fortunetellers together. Frl. Mayr is also an ardent Nazi and does not like Frau Glanterneck, a Galician Jewess who lives in the flat below Frl. Schroeder. Frau Glanterneck once insulted Frl. Mayr’s singing and in retaliation, Frl. Mayr wrote anonymous letter to Frau Glanterneck’s husband-to-be, detailing several lies about her.
Isherwood is a private English tutor. His first pupil in Berlin was Frl. Hippi, who lives in a very wealthy neighborhood. Frl. Hippi is less interested in learning English than she is in flirting with Isherwood. Frl. Hippi “never worries about the future” (19) and is mostly unconcerned with the “political situation” (19) happening in her country.
A series of events soon disrupts the relative peace of Frl. Schroeder’s flat. It begins when Frl. Kost reports a fifty-mark note has gone missing from her room. Frl. Schroeder first suggests that one of Frl. Kost’s clients took it and then suggests Kost is lying to avoid paying rent. Angry, Frl. Kost announces she will vacate her room at the end of the month. Isherwood later accidentally discovers that Frl. Kost and Bobby are having an affair. Frl. Schroeder becomes very jealous about the affair when she finds out. She eventually makes a scene when Frl. Kost won’t leave the bathroom when Isherwood needs to use it (much to Isherwood’s embarrassment). Frl. Schroeder is so worked up that she begins to have heart palpitations and Frl. Mayr ends up having to take charge of the situation to help Frl. Schroeder calm herself.
Chapter 1 Analysis
Isherwood uses diary entries as a framing device for his novel. In Chapter 1, Isherwood observes life in Berlin through the lens of Frl. Schroeder’s apartment. We are introduced to a small cast of characters occupying the apartment along with Isherwood and observe their relationships and dynamics. Even though this chapter is called “A Berlin Diary,” it lacks any of the confessional feeling that most diaries have. Instead, Isherwood is content to report the daily activities of Frl. Schroeder, Frl. Kost, Frl. Mayr, and Bobby, rather than pass judgment or express emotion.
Even though Isherwood is far from home, the concerns of the people he lives with are universal: concerns with rent, what are the neighbors up to, what are the roommates up to, and what to do for fun. Perhaps this sentiment is embodied best in Frl. Hippi, Isherwood’s student. When Frl. Hippi asks Isherwood why he’s come to Germany, Isherwood replies that it’s because “the political and economic situation […] is more interesting in Germany than in any other European country” (17). Frl. Hippi, however, doesn’t care about any of this. She responds, “I think it shall be dull for you here? You do not have many friends in Berlin, no?” (17). A reader will likely come to this book knowing the historical trajectory that Germany is on during the year 1930, but for the people going about the logistics of their everyday lives in the story, it’s largely irrelevant. It seems appropriate, then, that from the next chapter on, the novel focuses on the relationship Isherwood has with his friends in Berlin.
Related Titles
By Christopher Isherwood
