Book Review: LOST HORIZON by James Hilton

Lost Horizon by James Hilton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"But what are the opinions of reasonable men against iron and steel?"

This was another secondhand classic purchase that proved to be worth the hype (translation: turned to a movie, three times)!!!

In the years leading up to World War II, an Englishman is found by a former schoolmate in a hospital in China. He has lost his memory, only to recover it upon hearing a performance of Chopin's music, and proceeds to tell a story so magical, it's like a grown up version of Narnia!

He starts with a hijacked airplane that "accidentally" crash lands high up in the mountain ranges of Tibet. The four survivors are saved and taken into a most peculiar lamasery where Christianity and Buddhism seem to coexist, as well as other faiths, where the inhabitants speak dozens of languages, play dozens of instruments, and the library houses practically every important work of music (including unpublished Chopin manuscripts) and literature known to man! But mysteries abound. If the lamasery is so old, why do they have indoor plumbing? Why are there modern luxuries despite the ancient architecture? And how come the people in the lamasery of Shangri-La live for hundreds of years?!?

"This storm you talk of..."
"It will be such a one, my son, as the world has not seen before... It will rage till every flower of culture is trampled, and all human things are levelled in a vast chaos..."
"And you think all this will come in my time?"
"I believe that you will live through the storm. And after, through the long age of desolation, you may still live, growing older and wiser and more patient. You will conserve the fragrance of our history and add to it the touch of your own mind...Here we shall stay with our books and our music and our meditations, conserving the frail elegancies of a dying age, and seeking such wisdom as men will need when their passions are all spent. We have a heritage to cherish and bequeath."

Originally published in 1933, the book is a jewel, a treasure trove of elegant turns of phrase. To me, it was as if each sentence exuded fragrance... such a welcome break from the brutal and angry language of the Internet!

This book seems to be an anti-war tract, a call to civility, a return to simpler and nobler pursuits. And we desperately need more of these!

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