More Chinese Lanterns in Literature – Ishwerwood this time

A while back I blogged on the occasional appearance of Chinese lanterns in European literature – Bel Ami, Trilby, The Man Who Was Thursday and Women in Love etc. Here’s another that crossed my desk the other day in Christopher Ishwerwood’s Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935), his great book about the rise of the Nazis in Berlin.

In the early 1930s Isherwood, enjoying a prolonged sojourn in Weimar Berlin, some of it in the seedy and down at heel Alexander Casino populated by Berlin’s flotsam and jetsam, pimps and prostitutes which was lit by red Chinese lanterns and festooned with dusty paper streamers and trellis-work alcoves, arboured over with imitation cherry-blossom twined on wires.  Isherwood was not overly impressed with the decor but the lanterns got a mention.