Mr. Norris Changes Trains

Mr. Norris Changes Trains (in U.S. it is titled "The Last of Mr. Norris") is a 1935 novel by British writer Christopher Isherwood. It is frequently included with "Goodbye to Berlin", another Isherwood novel, in a single volume, "The Berlin Stories". Inspiration for the novel was drawn from Ishwerwood's experiences as an expatriate living in Berlin during the early 1930s. [ Isherwood, Christopher. "Preface", "The Berlin Stories". New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1945.]

Plot summary

The novel follows the movements of William Bradshaw, its narrator, who meets a nervous-looking man named Arthur Norris on a train going from Holland to Germany. As they approach the frontier William strikes up a conversation with Mr. Norris, who wears an ill-fitting wig and carries a forged passport.

William and Mr. Norris succeed in crossing the frontier. Afterward, Mr. Norris invites William to dinner and the two become friends. In Berlin they see each other frequently. Several oddities of Mr. Norris's personal life are revealed, one of which is that he is a masochist. Another is that he is a communist, which is dangerous in Hitler-era Germany. Other aspects of Mr. Norris's personal life remain mysterious. He seems to run a business with an assistant Schmitt, who tyrannises him. Norris gets into more and more straitened circumstances and has to leave Berlin.

Norris subsequently returns with his fortunes restored and apparently conducting communication with an unknown Frenchman called Margot. Schmitt reappears and tries to blackmail Norris. Norris uses Bradshaw as a decoy to get an aristocratic friend of his, Baron Pregnitz, to take a holiday in Switzerland and meet Margot under the guise of a Dutchman. Bradshaw is urgently recalled by one of the leaders of the Communist groups called Bayer, who explains that Norris was spying for the French and both his group and the police know about it. Bradshaw observes they are being followed by the police and persuades Norris to leave Germany. After the Reichstag fire, the Nazis eliminate Bayer and most of Norris's comrades. Bradshaw returns to England where he is kept informed of the movements of Norris who has fled Berlin, pursued by Schmidt. The novel's last words are drawn from a letter that Mr. Norris sends to William from Rio de Janeiro: "What" have I done to deserve all this?"

Footnotes