Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Bard Book; Avon Books (1983), 160 pages
Description
Isherwood's story centers on the production of the vacuous fictional melodrama Prater Violet, set in nineteenth-century Vienna, providing ironic counterpoint to tragic events as Hitler annexes the real Vienna of the 1930s. The novel features the vivid portraits of imperious, passionate, and witty Austrian director Friedrich Bergmann and his disciple, a genial young screenwriter: the fictionalized Christopher Isherwood.
Media reviews
New Yorker
In "Prater Violet," the Isherwood character who calls himself Christopher Isherwood and who is the focussing eye of all these narratives works in London on the script of a movie with an Austrian Jewish director. The director is a man of real talent: imaginative, energetic, and resourceful, a
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Viennese mixture of Jewish irony, worldly cleverness, and old-fashioned Goethean culture, whose soliloquies are brilliant examples of the author's mimetic gift. But in England, Imperial Bulldog Pictures sets him to making one of those idiotic films about the romance of gay old Vienna... It is to be hoped that Mr. Isherwood, with his recent experience of the Coast, will go on to give us the story of the more streamlined and larger- scale American methods of wrecking talent and suppressing issues. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member flissp
This is quite a succinct book, really being a mini Biography of the larger than life, Viennese film director Friedrich Bergmann during the pre-WWII period that Isherwood worked with him on the film Prater Violet. But he is an extremely entertaining, unrelenting and observant writer, who writes with
This was a very amusing read, but the larger, darker background story of the prelude to war and of day to day loneliness isn't lost. He is not afraid to laugh at himself, and the images that he creates are wonderful - here's a bit that had me laughing out loud at the beginning:
"He was off the line. I jiggled the phone for a moment, stupidly, with vague indignation. Then I picked up the directory, found Imperial Bulldog's number, dialled the first letter, stopped. I walked across to the dining-room door. My mother and my younger brother Richard were still sitting at breakfast. I stood just inside the doorway and lit a cigarette, not looking at them, very casual.
'Was that Stephen?' my mother asked. She generally knew when I needed a cue-line.
'No.' I blew out a lot of smoke, frowning at the mantelpiece clock. 'Only some movie-people.'
'Movie-people!' Richard put down his cup with a clatter. 'Oh, Christopher! How exciting!'
This made me frown harder.
After a suitable pause my mother asked with extreme tact: 'Did they want you to write something?'
'Apparently,' I drawled, almost too bored to speak."
...I'm smirking as I read it right now!
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great affection about a man who, for a while, seemed like a father to him.This was a very amusing read, but the larger, darker background story of the prelude to war and of day to day loneliness isn't lost. He is not afraid to laugh at himself, and the images that he creates are wonderful - here's a bit that had me laughing out loud at the beginning:
"He was off the line. I jiggled the phone for a moment, stupidly, with vague indignation. Then I picked up the directory, found Imperial Bulldog's number, dialled the first letter, stopped. I walked across to the dining-room door. My mother and my younger brother Richard were still sitting at breakfast. I stood just inside the doorway and lit a cigarette, not looking at them, very casual.
'Was that Stephen?' my mother asked. She generally knew when I needed a cue-line.
'No.' I blew out a lot of smoke, frowning at the mantelpiece clock. 'Only some movie-people.'
'Movie-people!' Richard put down his cup with a clatter. 'Oh, Christopher! How exciting!'
This made me frown harder.
After a suitable pause my mother asked with extreme tact: 'Did they want you to write something?'
'Apparently,' I drawled, almost too bored to speak."
...I'm smirking as I read it right now!
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LibraryThing member jburlinson
It is a marvelous moment when Isherwood, as narrator, casts off his "camera" disguise and lays bare his up-until-then unsuspected personal feelings. The character of the expatriate film director is a comic gem.
LibraryThing member CarltonC
A lovely but light fictional recreation of "Christopher Isherwood"'s experiences in the movie business in England before the outbreak of WW2.
Friedrich Bergmann is the real character of the book, the Viennese director of the eponymous film, and though his reactions to the news of the events of 1938
Overall this was a light and remarkably quick read.
Friedrich Bergmann is the real character of the book, the Viennese director of the eponymous film, and though his reactions to the news of the events of 1938
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in Austria, we learn of the general indifference of Britain to Nazi-ism immediately before the outbreak of WW2, such as the comment that people were joking about holidays in Europe next summer, if there is a Europe!Overall this was a light and remarkably quick read.
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Subjects
Language
Original publication date
1946
ISBN
0380018365 / 9780380018369