[In the following review, the reviewer provides a favorable assessment of Goodbye to Berlin.]

In Goodbye to Berlin Christopher Isherwood continues his account of the Berlin of pre-Hitler days, begun in Mr. Norris Changes Trains. One section of the book, Sally Bowles, has already been published as a separate volume. Goodbye to Berlin deals with that period of the author's life when he was earning his livelihood as a tutor in the German capital. Poverty and inclination led him to live in the cheapest boarding houses and mingle almost exclusively with the poorer classes. The people whom he knew are well described; the author's range is wide and his analyses of character suggestive and often acute. The tone of the book is objective and impersonal throughout. One would wish, perhaps, to know more about the author himself, but he remains in the background. “‘Christopher Isherwood’ is a convenient ventriloquist's dummy, nothing more.”

Isherwood has, fortunately, avoided the danger of appearing wise after the event; there are occasional descriptions of Jew-beatings and clashes between Nazis and Communists, but little to suggest that either Isherwood or his Berlin friends were aware, in 1932, of the fact that Germany was nearing the crossroads. The author's sole purpose, admirably achieved, has been to recreate the people and the atmosphere of a period only a few years removed from today in time, but centuries, one feels, in spirit.