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Lost Horizon Mass Market Paperback – January 1, 1933
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- ASIN : B001794EYQ
- Publisher : Pocket Books (January 1, 1933)
- Item Weight : 4.8 ounces
- Best Sellers Rank: #6,898,354 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #116,253 in Classic Literature & Fiction
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About the authors
General Press publishes high-quality POD books in almost all popular genres including Fiction, Nonfiction, Religion, Self-Help, Romance, Classics, etc.
James Hilton (1900–1954) was a bestselling English novelist and Academy Award–winning screenwriter. Hilton worked as a journalist until the success of his novels Lost Horizon (1933) and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1934) launched his career as a celebrated author. After moving to California, Hilton continued to write novels and screenplays.
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I read James Hilton's Lost Horizon when I was in High School. That was a LONG time ago: the 1970s. Lost Horizon appeared on some list of "classics every college-bound high school student should read". I read these books not because I was concerned about getting into college, but because most of them were very good books. And this certainly was. It became one of my favorites. I liked it enough to read Hilton's Good-Bye, Mr. Chips, which was good, but not as good as Lost Horizon.
Old soldier and current diplomat Hugh Conway flees Afghanistan by plane with a few others. His plane is hijacked and flown into the mountains of Tibet, where it comes down in the hidden valley of Shangri-La. Shangri-La, it transpires, is a kind of paradise. People who live there age only slowly. The head of the lamasery is nearing death and asks Conway to take his place. The book ends with Conway departing Shangri-La.
This probably sounds familiar. The story of someone finding a paradise, then leaving is one of those that gets told over and over. In fact, I was reminded of Lost Horizon by the recent release of Here in Avalon, which has essentially this same classic plot. In high school I also read Mutiny on the Bounty, which surprisingly, struck me very similarly. (In that case paradise is Tahiti.) And I recently read the classic Japanese story of 浦島太郎 - Urashima Tarou -- the old man who is taken to an undersea paradise on the back of a turtle. Elements of his story appear even in Holly Black's Folk of the Air. In the canonical version of this story, the story ends with the hero leaving paradise. Indeed, that is the way that Mutiny on the Bounty, Here in Avalon, Urshima Tarou, and Lost Horizon all end. (The frame story of Lost Horizon suggests that Conway may seek to find his way back to Shangri-La.)
It puzzles me a little that, until I was reminded of it by Here in Avalon, Lost Horizon had virtually vanished from my consciousness. It was a best-seller in its time and two successful movies were based on it. And my judgment as a high school student was that it deserved the accolades. To check this, I just dug up some current lists of books recommended for high school students, and Lost Horizon is not there.
Well, there is an easy explanation for that. The 1970s were a long time ago. Neither Harry Potter nor The Hunger Games existed. If a place was to be found for those and so many others, some books had to drop off the lists. I am not about to go all old-person-shouting-at-clouds about this. I think highly of both Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. If Lost Horizon is the price of pointing students at those books, I won't say it's unjust.
However, if you're looking for a brief (166 pages in kindle) and very good classic novel for your next flight or beach sojourn, Lost Horizon should be on your list of candidates.
The novel starts with four men talking about the events in Baskul after dinner, where civilians were evacuated owing to a riot. Four were flown in a special airplane that went missing. One of the four was a British Foreign Service officer, Conway. All had not been seen since. Later, the narrator left with another man left together, and the conversation continued. The narrator told a story of finding Conway in China and accompanying him part of the way home. During this time, Conway regains his memory. He tells the narrator what happened, who writes the story down, and gives the manuscript for the others to read.
The main storyline starts with the evacuation of Baskul and catching the last plane out. The four are Conay, H.M. Consul, Captain Mallinson, H.M. Vice-Counsul Miss Brinklow, a British missionary, and Barnard, an American. They discover the following day that they are traveling in the wrong direction. The plane lands on a plateau with a small village, where they refuel and take off again. They fly into the mountains, run out of gas, and crash. They are rescued and brought to an entrance of a protected valley, Shangri-La. The main storyline unfolds as they learn of their situation. They will have to stay until the porters come next in two months.
This novel is a fantasy, as Shangri-La does not exist. Otherwise, it is an adventure genre as the main storyline follows the four main characters as they react to this new situation in which they find themselves. I liked how the author portrays these characters as slowly changing and the characters' reasons as their stay lengthens. There is intrigue and a little conflict as the outlook of the four diverges.
As this novel was written in the early 1930s, I also found it interesting that several times during the novel, the fear of strategic bombings is raised. During World War I, this type of bombing was introduced. While it was not very successful at the time, many air power advocates, like Giulio Douhet, started redefining this concept. I learned this during a history class, but I saw that it was a real issue in the minds of several of the characters in the novel and probably of the population in general. Lastly, one of the main characters is an American. The author had the British speak in British English, and the American speaks in American English. It enhanced the attention to detail in the author's portrayal of the characters.
On the downside, this novel is only 137 pages, and I thought it might be a quick read. I was wrong. Reading this novel took as long as a 400-page novel. Especially in the prologue, many informal British words that were common at the time were used. I like reading British police procedures and have not encountered most of these words before.
Overall, I did enjoy reading this novel. This novel is not an action-packed thriller but more adventure. It met my requirements of seeing the world through the eyes of an author in the 1930s. I rate this novel with four stars. Also, if you have watched the movie based on this novel, the saying that the novel is always better than the movie is very true in this case. For example, you will learn who the pilot was and why he chose these four people to kidnap. Learn this and more.