Prater Violet

Rating:
Summary: One of Isherwoods best
Review: For those who never wanted "Berlin Stories" to end, "Prater Violet" will be a welcomed treat. Isherwood's fictions were, for the most part, only thinly veiled memoirs - indeed he plays a part in most without even the contrivance of altering his name. However, whether they be fact or fictions, these stories are original and delightful. Isherwood's adventures in the film colony of London prove irresistible. Each of the characters, Chatsworth, Ashmeade and the great director Friedrich Bergmann, are drawn with wit and clarity. What is most remarkable is how fresh this material is considering it was published in 1945. A very fine and rewarding short novel.

Rating:
Summary: At the movies
Review: Isherwood's short novel is autobiographical fiction about being hired to write a screenplay for a movie called "Prater Violet" during early World War 2. There's lots of world politics, of course, as well as the politics of the worldwide movie industry (Hollywood included). Isherwood's writing is superb, and fills this brief space with a lush garden of a story. Here's a quote: "This business about the box office is just a sentimental democratic fiction. If you stuck together and refused to make anything but, say, abstract films, the public would have to go and see them, and like them..."

Rating:
Summary: brilliant and unpretentious
Review: one of the best fictional portraits of a movie director, right up there with "white hunter, black heart." and isherwood's quiet, unforced, amused style is a joy.