SOURCE: Lodge, David. Review of Goodbye to Berlin, by Christopher Isherwood. Washington Post Book World XXII, no. 12 (22 March 1992): 7.

In the following essay, Lodge reflects on the enduring popularity of the character of Sally Bowles.

Character is arguably the most important single component of the novel. Other forms (such as epic) and other media (such as film) can tell a story just as well, but nothing can equal the great tradition of the European novel in the richness, variety and psychological depth of its portrayal of human nature. Yet character is probably the most difficult aspect of the art of fiction to discuss in technical terms.

Christopher Isherwood's Sally Bowles, originally the subject of one of the lightly fictionalized stories and sketches that make up Goodbye to Berlin, is a character who has enjoyed a remarkably long life in the public imagination, thanks to the successful adaptation of the...