A place of extreme beauty – filled with best ever snow laden mountains; far away from the rush of the world; where materialism has yet not made its impact and is still untouched by modernization, or I better say where people live simple, content and gratifying life; where there is no track of time, days and nights people do what they really want to do; and also add to list, the fact that people there live extremely long (which can easily go beyond 200 years) as well as healthy life (the atmosphere is so healthy that person who reach there at the age of 30 can hope to have same physical looks and mental frame till the age of 60).
Good news is - such a place really exists; and the bad news is – it only exists in the pages of “Lost Horizon”, and the place is SHANGRI-LA.
SOMETHING ABOUT THE STORY : Written by James Hilton, Lost Horizon tells the tale of four people(Conway, the British Consul; Mallinson, his vice-consul; Barnard, an American and Miss Brinklow, a missionary) who in 1931, during the British Raj in India, where kidnapped in a plane and flown over the mountains of Tibet. Plane crashes somewhere in Tibet and the pilot dies too. Four strangers – without any knowledge of their whereabouts and without any food or shelter to sustain on – are lead to a monastery called “Shangri-La” by one of its Lama, Chang (through a chance meeting which later turns out to be planned one) . Shangri-La based in the valley of hidden Karakul (Blue Moon) Mountains, more than 28, 000 feet high.. turns out to be place of enchantment.
In Shangri-La they have to wait for the porters who can take them back to the world they belong. But the time they have to spend there, changes there view about the place, and each of them finds a reason, though varying, to stay there forever except Mallinson. Through a meeting with High Lama, Conway comes to know of the history of the place; prospect of the longevity; vision behind the creation of valley; the reason of their being there and the proviso they were to adhere to(never the leave the place).“There will come a time when you will age like others, though far more slowly and into a conditioning infinitely nobler; at eighty you may still climb a mountain with a young man’s gait. All we have done and sometimes do is to slack the tempo of this brief interval that is called life. But make no mistake, the end awaits us all.”
Conway now has to convince Mallinson – who stay determined on his decision to leave the place at first chance – and Mallinson on the other hand has to convince Conway to leave with him. In parallel to it all runs the strange love story of Conway and Mallinson with Lo-Tsen, a Chinese woman.
Whether Conway leaves behind the place where he had finally found his peace of mind, love and a reason to live his life, or does he succeeds in influencing Mallinson to stay there with him – is what forms the climax of the story.
3 things that really made an impact on me are:
The way the prologue and Epilogue are used to form the base of the story. Which tells how Rutherford and Woodford (the narrator of the story which forms 11 chapters of the book) (school time friends of Conway) comes to know of the Conway’s tale of Shangri-La. Every attempt is made through prologue and Epilogue to make the story look real, as if Conway had really been to Shangri-La and now his friends are looking forward to follow his example and reach Shangri-La to find him and to experience the blue Mountains their selves.
The way the character of Hugh Conway is developed. In the prologue itself, one gets to know of so much of him that one can easily imagine him, both in terms of physical attributes and his way of dealings. Conway forms one of those characters which stay with the reader for a long time like Atticus of “To kill the Mocking Bird”. “What most observer failed to perceive in him was quite baffling simple – a love for quietness, contemplation, and being alone.”
The way Shangri-La is visualized through words. It makes such an impact on the reader that one really feels that such a place really exists. The valley, its inhabitants, the Blue Mountains, the Lamasery and the High Lama all seem so real. I would have loved to go to Shangri-la and stay there forever, but, if it only existed in real. “It was to the head of the valley that his eyes were led irresistibly, for there, soaring in the gap, and magnificent in the full shimmer of moonlight, appeared what he took to be the loveliest mountain on earth. It was an almost perfect cone of snow, simple in outline as if a child had drawn it. It was so radiant, so serenely poised that he wondered for a moment if it were real at all.”
LAST WORDS : Having spent so many days - in the company of Conway and others - among the blue mountains of Shangri-La I have already fell under its spell. And the only thing that can confiscate this spell is a visit to the valley of Kashmir (only place, I think, may have inspired Hilton to Shangri-La). That was my experience, would love to know your thoughts about the Book, Shangri-la, Blue Mountains and a wonderful character called Conway. Read it and get enchanted by the magical spell of Shangri-La.
Conway “I suppose you are certain, then, no human affection can outlast 5 years absence.”
Chang, “It can, undoubtedly, but only as a fragrance whose melancholy we may enjoy.”
P.S - Some More Extracts from the Book and some interesting Facts about the Book can be found in the 1st and 2nd comment of the Review Respectively.
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Take Care and Keep Writing and Smiling
Vikky Gural
PYAR HUMEIN PHIR MILAAEGA....