Going back to Shangri-La

When I was in high school, I probably read Lost Horizon by James Hilton at least once a year. Even at the time, I couldn't tell you why. There was just something very relaxing and calming about the book.

Lost Horizon didn't create the idea of the mystical monastery in Tibet. Apparently the idea had been around for literally centuries. However, Hilton definitely helped popularize and codify the idea. People who have never heard of the book know what Shangri-La is.

My memories of it as a teenager was that Hilton's Shangri-La was a more low-key, realistic mystic monastery. Basically, what made it special was that everyone got along and some people got to live to a really old age. Which, when you think about it, it's still pretty fantastical. However, thanks to comic books and movies, I was used to the idea that people got taught mystical martial arts and magical powers at these monasteries. Compared to that, Shangri-La seemed pretty realistic.

Re-reading the book after twenty years made me a little bit more critical of the book. For one thing, the high lama talks about developing telepathy, which seems pretty fantastic to me.

I also couldn't help but notice how European this perfect Tibetan Valley is. The guy in charge is European. It has all kinds of modern, western amenities. The musical focus, particularly strong in Mozart and Chopin, is western. And, it turns out that Europeans are the ones who responds best to this extended life treatment.

It wasn't enough to bother me. Despite all that, the book doesn't come across as being particular racist or imperialist. Still, I am surprised that I missed it when I was younger.

The last thing that struck me on this rereading was how Hilton managed to create a chain of unreliable narrators. The primary narrator learns Conway's story from a friend who claims to have met Conway after the world declared him dead and who claims to be telling Conway's story without any embellishment. On top of that, even with in Conway's own narrative, there is no actual proof ever given that any of this extended life or telepathy business is real.

I really like that. Hilton does it in such a smooth way that I didn't realize how unreliable the narrative was until the very end. When one of the characters points it out! What this really does is help bring back the realism that I remembered from when I was a teenager.

Earlier this year, I reread Hilton's other classic, Goodbye Mister Chips. I found that I got a lot more out of it reading it as an adult. Lost Horizon didn't have as strong an effect. But both books really impressed me with Hilton's craft as a writer. His ability to undersell themes and situations to make them more powerful is amazing.

Lost Horizon might not be as deep and meaningful as I thought it was a couple of decades ago. At the same time, I have a deeper appreciation for the craft and skill that went into writing it. It's a best seller and classic for good reason.

  

What I got out of rereading Goodbye, Mister Chips

On a whim, after being reminded of the book by some graduation announcements, I reread Goodbye, Mister Chips by James Hamilton. 

It's been a good twenty years since I last read it, when I went through a phase of reading a bunch of books that you are forced to read in high school English classes in order to hit some of the ones I hadn't been assigned to read.

I remember that I went into the book expecting it to be depressing, something like a British Death of a Salesman. Instead, I remember finding it a relaxing, even uplifting little read. Mind you, I didn't actually remember much more until I reread it.

Truth to tell, I liked even more now, having lived a bit more life.

Goodbye, Mister Chips is the story of an old, now retired teacher, looking back at his long career and how many boys he taught and helped. What I personally got out of it was that it was the story about how a man, with the help of age and humor, learned how to become the glue that held a school and, in a sense, England together.

It's a pretty sentimental piece but Hamilton makes it work by underselling it to us. Brookfield isn't a top of the line school but a good second tier school that turns out its share of good Englishmen. Mr. Chipping, the titular Mr. Chips, is likewise depicted as having an second rare degree and not even being that good at reaching Greek and Latin. 

However, he is good at building community.

Hamilton wrote the entire book in a passive voice, telling about what happened in Mr. Chips' life as opposed to showing. Even the death of his young wife in childbirth is undersold, although it is still a tear jerker.

The book does work itself up to a climax, World War I, when Mr. Chips is asked to come out of retirement and help the school. When the headmaster dies, he has to step up and run the school during a war that is shaking the foundations of society. Which, of course, he does.

His crowning moment is calming a class of boys during a German bombardment by having them translate a quote from Caesar about the German tribes. It's a nice moment of believable courage.

When Mr. Chips inevitably dies at the end, which you could see coming from the first chapter, it isn't a tragedy but a testimony of all the lives he's touched and improved.

The moral of the book might be that the old, traditional ways are best or, as per the influence of Mr. Chips' short-lived but progressive wife, that traditional ways need to be tempered by modern ideas. Heck, it might just be that Hamilton really liked his school years.

What I took out of Goodbye, Mister Chips is that the elderly continue to make a valuable, even essential, contribution to both community and society. Long after he retires and even on the night before he dies, Mister Chip continues to be an important part of the life of the school. 

The world we live in today is changing even faster than Hamilton's world but I'd like to think that still rings true.