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Lost Horizon, by James Hilton.
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James Hilton is far too much undervalued in literature and he deserves far more respect. This is one of his best works, though many others are close and generally he is a high level.
Conception of a place that is hidden in clear sight under open sky in high and extremely remote mountains, designed to protect in a tranquil surroundings as much of precious treasures of knowledge as possible, while making it possible to create and live as well, all this at the place called Shangri La, which became a name for utopia of dreams - this was his creation, his gift to humanity, and while it might very well have been based on a real place in Himaalaya or elsewhere in India; still, it is his gift that west had the concept at all generally - while the connotation of what it stood for was forgotten by most, so people know the name but not the meaning.
Lost Horizon is about finding such a heaven while wars rage on in world out there with threats of annihilation.
February 5, 2016.
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Reading this umpteenth time, still feels different. Not that these realisation new, now, they were just as obvious decades ago when one read these works during seventies.
Why Hilton made up a name like Baskul, when clearly he meant Kabul, only didn't want to be pinned for it, is hard to think an answer to; but such glitches 're callousness of an author in context of cultures not his or her own, leave a bad taste.
In particular, Hilton, like many of his contemporaries who were intellectual, comparatively open minded thinkers of a liberal bent - in that era the various bits generally went together - still stumbled over a racism that, combined with colonialism, couldnt get past either antisemitism or an adherence to a Macaulay prescribed attitude regarding India and her ancient culture.
This work, in particular, is an example thereof - almost every concept herein, while new and strange to West in particular and most cultures rooted outside India in general, are as familiar to India as air India breathes. They have not only roots in India but have blossomed, proliferated, grunted, and grown into complexes of tall families of the philosophy indigenous to India.
Yet Hilton has to give credence to every other of possibilities in this tale, setting Chinese and European above, Indian and Tibetan below; for that matter, setting the very place away from Himaalayan ranges while claiming it's close to a peak much taller.
This attitude towards India, a racism combined with disdain of subjects of empires, a colonialism that makes the otherwise intelligent like Hilton blind in heart and mind, is shared by others like Upton Sinclair, George Eliot, Pearl Buck, and even W. Somerset Maugham who wrote Razor's Edge based on his experience but then went on to deprecate it to the point of denial.
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"Then he turned to the window and gazed out. The surrounding sky had cleared completely, and in the light of late afternoon there came to him a vision which, for the instant, snatched the remaining breath out of his lungs. Far away, at the very limit of distance, lay range upon range of snow peaks, festooned with glaciers, and floating, in appearance, upon vast levels of cloud. They compassed the whole arc of the circle, merging towards the west in a horizon that was fierce, almost garish in coloring, like an impressionist backdrop done by some half–mad genius. And meanwhile, the plane, on that stupendous stage, was droning over an abyss in the face of a sheer white wall that seemed part of the sky itself until the sun caught it. Then, like a dozen piled–up Jungfraus seen from Mürren, it flamed into superb and dazzling incandescence."
"While he was still contemplating the scene, twilight fell, steeping the depths in a rich, velvet gloom that spread upwards like a dye. Then the whole range, much nearer now, paled into fresh splendor; a full moon rose, touching each peak in succession like some celestial lamplighter, until the long horizon glittered against a blue–black sky.
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It's a pity that something so beautifully written couldn't be portrayed well on celluloid, despite more than one attempt.
The first attempt 1937, in black and white era, shattered when, instead of a silence of Himaalayan peaks and valleys, they instead showed a chanting procession of monks a la Vatican going up and down staircases, long past midnight, to mark the passing on of the head of the monastery - and it wasn't Himaalayan either, but very church, which the monastery definitely is not portrayed as anything remotely close to resemble.
The second, 1973, in colour,, beautiful in some ways, failed in attempting entertainment by being a light musical. The Chinese princess being portrayed by the delicate beauty Olivia Hussey was one thing, but her cavorting a la Sound Of Music, instead of being the silent blushing beauty as written by the author, was the filmmakers breaking a spell with a hammer, just to cater to that part of audience that presumably were not fans of this work or concept.
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The description fits, even falls short of, Kailaas, a mountain revered as holy in India since antiquity, and the reverence inherited - but naturally - in Buddhism, especially in Tibet.
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" ... "As a matter of fact, murder is the very last thing one would expect in a Buddhist monastery. It would be rather less likely than being killed in an English cathedral."
""Like Saint Thomas of Canterbury," said Miss Brinklow, nodding an emphatic agreement, but completely spoiling his point. ... "
"The remark served to fix their glances on the glittering cone towards which the valley pointed. Sheerly magnificent it looked in the full light of day; and then their gaze turned to a stare, for they could see, far away and approaching them down the slope, the figures of men. ... "
"As the figures moved down the valley they revealed themselves to be a party of a dozen or more, carrying with them a hooded chair. In this, a little later, could be discerned a person robed in blue. ... "
A shade of saffron, not blue, would be normal of attire of a Lama, just as it would of a Hindu monk. White would be acceptable, but is more commonly attire of average normal males in India, just as black is common in Europe. Saffron indicates renunciation of worldly, through India and in neighbourhood, including Tibet.
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That is in harmony with the quietness of character usually ascribed to Tibetan and other Himaalayan people and cultures; Hilton, however, doesn't veil his racism:-
" ... The Tibetans were reliable enough, but they seemed happier when the path widened and became slightly downhill. Then they began to sing amongst themselves, lilting barbaric tunes that Conway could imagine orchestrated by Massenet for some Tibetan ballet. ... "
""I lived in China for some years.""
" ... He foresaw a time when men, exultant in the technique of homicide, would rage so hotly over the world that every precious thing would be in danger, every book and picture and harmony, every treasure garnered through two millenniums, the small, the delicate, the defenseless—all would be lost like the lost books of Livy, or wrecked as the English wrecked the Summer Palace in Pekin.""
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"Presently the ground leveled, and they stepped out of the mist into clear, sunny air. Ahead, and only a short distance away, lay the lamasery of Shangri–La.
"To Conway, seeing it first, it might have been a vision fluttering out of that solitary rhythm in which lack of oxygen had encompassed all his faculties. It was, indeed, a strange and half–incredible sight. A group of colored pavilions clung to the mountainside with none of the grim deliberation of a Rhineland castle, but rather with the chance delicacy of flower petals impaled upon a crag. It was superb and exquisite. An austere emotion carried the eye upward from milk–blue roofs to the gray rock bastion above, tremendous as the Wetterhorn above Grindelwald. Beyond that, in a dazzling pyramid, soared the snow slopes of Karakal. ... "
"Hardly less an enticement was the downward prospect, for the mountain wall continued to drop, nearly perpendicularly, into a cleft that could only have been the result of some cataclysm in the far past. The floor of the valley, hazily distant, welcomed the eye with greenness; sheltered from winds, and surveyed rather than dominated by the lamasery, it looked to Conway a delightfully favored place, though if it were inhabited its community must be completely isolated by the lofty and sheerly unscalable ranges on the further side. ... "
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" ... "Of course," she said with a gesture of magnanimity, "I believe in the true religion, but I'm broad–minded enough to admit that other people, foreigners, I mean, are quite often sincere in their views. And naturally in a monastery I wouldn't expect to be agreed with."
"Her concession evoked a formal bow from Chang. "But why not, madam?" he replied in his precise and flavored English. "Must we hold that because one religion is true, all others are bound to be false?""
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" ... There was hardly any stir of wind, in contrast to the upland gales that had raged the night before; the whole valley, he perceived, was a landlocked harbor, with Karakal brooding over it, lighthouse– fashion. The smile grew as he considered it, for there was actually light on the summit, an ice–blue gleam that matched the splendor it reflected. ... "Karakal, in the valley patois, means Blue Moon," said the Chinese."
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Perhaps that was true of the author, too, along with visiting India, as well, and hence the disdain for a colony and high regard for the unconquered land and it's people? West does value the rude and disdain the not so hostile, matching the degree of hostility, perhaps!
""Probably you are familiar, my dear Conway, with the general outline of Tibetan history. I am informed by Chang that you have made ample use of our library here, and I doubt not that you have studied the scanty but exceedingly interesting annals of these regions. You will be aware, anyhow, that Nestorian Christianity was widespread throughout Asia during the Middle Ages, and that its memory lingered long after its actual decay. ... "
Notice the completely ignoring Tibetan - or for that matter any region's - history before it's touched by West! Tibet not only existed long before but was ancient when moñgols migrated to settle, and prior to that it was part of India and her culture. But trust West to pretend it was not touched by humanity until someone of West stepped!
" ... That was, of course, a work of immense difficulty, and one which nothing but his pride and steadfastness could have overcome. Pride, I say, because it was undoubtedly a dominant motive at the beginning—the pride in his own Faith that made him decide that if Gautama could inspire men to build a temple on the ledge of Shangri–La, Rome was capable of no less."
Disdain for Gautam Buddha, because he was from India and her culture, a Prince who gave it all up to realise his Divine self? Disdain, because he was not of West?
" ... At the age of ninety– eight he began to study the Buddhist writings that had been left at Shangri–La by its previous occupants, and his intention was then to devote the rest of his life to the composition of a book attacking Buddhism from the standpoint of orthodoxy."
" ... His mind remained so extraordinarily clear that he even embarked upon a study of certain mystic practices that the Indians call yoga, and which are based upon various special methods of breathing. ... "
The disdain, perhaps due to ignorance here, continues, summing up Yoga - which literally is Union, meaning that of Self and Soul with Divine - to "methods of breathing"???!!!
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Caught as he is in chains binding his feet with what is falsely termed faith by abrahmic institutions but is in reality is something imposed with terror as the alternative, it's obvious how Hilton turns his back to the freedom of open skies, immense heights and clear light that India offers in Himaalayan high and ocean deep spiritual treasures, and instead sticks to a barred cave he makes of mind, with libraries and preservation of knowledge in a remote region as the ultimate of achievements possible.
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Much of treasures of India were looted or wrecked by various invaders and colonial rulers for over a millennium and half, which Hilton neglects to even acknowledge, just as he doesn't mention havoc wreaked in South across Atlantic by conquistadores and their priests either.
Hilton created a dream, Shangri-La, because he saw the horrors brought on the world in and by Europe, and needed a saviour dream; but he failed to see the living reality that was, is, has been, India; an ancient treasury of knowledge, ancient civilisation still living and growing, with Divine hidden in plain sight, visible to anyone willing.
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Hilton exposes his own limitations, albeit not consciously.
" ... When the High Lama asked him whether Shangri–La was not unique in his experience, and if the Western world could offer anything in the least like it, he answered with a smile: "Well, yes—to be quite frank, it reminds me very slightly of Oxford, where I used to lecture. The scenery there is not so good, but the subjects of study are often just as impractical, and though even the oldest of the dons is not quite so old, they appear to age in a somewhat similar way.""
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Chapter 11 could be understood in terms of mind and vital overpowering the soul, despite the psychic having come to fore, until the physical self's consequent suffering is witnessed by mind which journeys to find soul.
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1975 -
Mass Market Paperback
Published 1961 by Pocket Books
(first published 1933)
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April 30, 2021 - May 19, 2021.
Kindle Edition, 142 pages
Purchased January 24, 2021
Publication date January 21, 2021
ASIN: B08TRMP5JY
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