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Hilton, James

(Leigh, Lancashire 1900-1954 Long Beach, Calif.) : Schriftsteller

Subjects

Index of Names : Occident / Literature : Occident : Great Britain

Chronology Entries (1)

# Year Text Linked Data
1 1933 Hilton, James. Lost horizon [ID D32168].
Zusammenfassung
Hugh Conway, a veteran member of the British diplomatic service, finds inner peace, love, and a sense of purpose in Shangri-La, whose inhabitants enjoy unheard-of longevity. Among the book's themes is an allusion to the possibility of another cataclysmic world war brewing. It is said to have been inspired at least in part by accounts of travels in Tibetan borderlands, published in National Geographic by the explorer and botanist Joseph Rock. The remote communities he visited, such as Muli, show many similarities to the fictional Shangri-La. One such town, Zhongdian, has now officially renamed itself Shangri La (Chinese: Xianggelila) because of its claim to be the inspiration for the novel. The book explicitly notes that, having made war on the ground, man would now fill the skies with death, and all precious things were in danger of being lost, like the lost histories of Rome ("Lost books of Livy"). It was hoped that, overlooked by the violent, Shangri-la would preserve them and reveal them later to a receptive world exhausted by war. That was the real purpose of the lamasery; study, inner peace, and long life were a side benefit to living there. Conway is a veteran of the trench warfare of WWI, with the emotional state frequently cited after that war—a sense of emotional exhaustion or accelerated emotional aging. This harmonises with the existing residents of the lamasery and he is strongly attracted to life at Shangri-La. The origin of the eleven numbered chapters of the novel is explained in a prologue and epilogue, whose narrator is a neurologist. This neurologist and a novelist friend, Rutherford, are given dinner at Tempelhof, Berlin, by their old school-friend Wyland, a secretary at the British embassy. A chance remark by a passing airman brings up the topic of Hugh Conway, a British consul in Afghanistan, who disappeared under odd circumstances. Later in the evening, Rutherford reveals to the narrator that, after the disappearance, he discovered Conway in a French mission hospital in Chung-Kiang (probably Chongqing), China, suffering from amnesia. Conway recovered his memory and told Rutherford his story, then slipped away again. Rutherford wrote down Conway's story; he gives the manuscript to the neurologist, and that manuscript becomes the heart of the novel. In May 1931, during the British Raj in India, the 80 white residents of Baskul are being evacuated to (Peshawar), owing to a revolution. In the aeroplane of the Maharajah of Chandrapore are Conway, the British consul, age 37 Mallinson, his young vice-consul; an American, Barnard; and a British missionary, Miss Brinklow. The plane is hijacked and flown instead over the mountains to Tibet. After a crash landing, the pilot dies, but not before telling the four (in Chinese, which Conway knows) to seek shelter at the nearby lamasery of Shangri-La. The location is unclear, but Conway believes the plane has "progressed far beyond the western range of the Himalayas towards the less known heights of the Kuen-Lun". The four are taken there by a party directed by Chang, a postulant at the lamasery who speaks English. The lamasery has modern conveniences, like central heating bathtubs from Akron, Ohio; a large library; a grand piano; a harpsichord; and food from the fertile valley below. Towering above is Karakal, literally translated "Blue Moon," a mountain more than 28,000 feet high. Mallinson is keen to hire porters and leave, but Chang politely puts him off. The others eventually decide they are content to stay; Miss Brinklow, to teach the people a sense of sin; Barnard, because he is really Chalmers Bryant (wanted by the police for stock fraud), and because he is keen to develop the gold-mines in the valley; and Conway, because the contemplative scholarly life suits him. A seemingly young Manchu woman, Lo-Tsen, is another postulant at the lamasery. She does not speak English, but plays the harpsichord. Mallinson falls in love with her, as does Conway, though more languidly. Conway is given an audience with the High Lama, an unheard-of honor. He learns that the lamasery was constructed in its present form by a Catholic monk named Perrault from Luxembourg, in the early eighteenth century. The lamasery has since then been joined by others who have found their way into the valley. Once they have done so, their aging slows; if they then leave the valley, they age quickly and die. Conway guesses correctly that the High Lama is Perrault, now 300 years old. In a later audience, the High Lama reveals that he is finally dying, and that he wants Conway to lead the lamasery. Meanwhile, Mallinson has arranged to leave the valley with porters and Lo-Tsen. They are waiting for him 5 kilometers outside the valley, but he cannot traverse the dangerous route by himself, so he convinces Conway to go along. This ends Rutherford's manuscript. The last time Rutherford saw Conway, it appeared he was preparing to make his way back to Shangri-La. Rutherford completes his account by telling the neurologist that he attempted to track Conway and verify some of his claims of Shangri-La. He found the Chung-Kiang doctor who had treated Conway. The doctor said Conway had been brought in by a Chinese woman who was ill and died soon after. She was old, the doctor had told Rutherford, "Most old of anyone I have ever seen", implying that it was Lo-Tsen, aged drastically by her departure from Shangri-La.

Sekundärliteratur
Tomoko Masuzawa : Hilton's Shangri-La is an unmappable, secret location where the native Tibetan population figures very little except as the lowest and the most menially employed sector of the society. If Shangri-La is utopian and possesses a measure of perfection, it is as an ideal colonial regime, where a small number of Europeans and aging Chinese bureaucrats dominate, peaceably but incontrovertibly, and rule over the happily simple multitude of native inhabitants who die relatively young, knowing nothing about the world beyond their own idyllic valley.

Bibliography (13)

# Year Bibliographical Data Type / Abbreviation Linked Data
1 1933 Hilton, James. Lost horizon. (London : Macmillan, 1933). See : Appendices.
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0500141h.html. 		Publication / Hilt1
2 1941 [Hilton, James]. Wan shi shi biao. Xi'erdeng yuan zhu ; Lin Junqian yi. (Shanghai : Chun ming shu dian, 1941). Übersetzung von Hilton, James. Good-by, Mr. Chips. (London : Hodder & Stoughton, 1934).
萬世師表 		Publication / Hilt7
3 1956 [Hilton, James]. Xun. Xi'erdun zhuan ; Wu Luqin yi. (Taibei : Ming hua, 1956). Übersetzung von Hilton, James. Lost horizon. (London : Macmillan, 1933).
尋 		Publication / Hilt10
4 1981 [Hilton, James]. Yuan meng chong wen. Zhanmusi Xi'erdun zhu ; Lin Zhengyi yi. (Taibei : Yi qun, 1981). (Ming zhu yi cui ; 13). Übersetzung von Hilton, James. Random harvest. (London : Macmillan, 1941).
鴛夢重溫 		Publication / Hilt12
5 1982 [Hilton, James]. Chi qi zhi zhi. Zhou Yeqian yi. (Changhsha : Hunan ren min chu ban she, 1982). Übersetzung von Hilton, James. Nothing so strange. (Boston : Little, Brown, 1947).
离奇之至 		Publication / Hilt3
6 1983 [Hilton, James]. Hui fu le ji yi di ren. Zhanmusi Xi'erdun zhu ; Peng Enhua, Liu Xiaoyao yi. (Guangzhou : Hua cheng chu ban she, 1983). Übersetzung von Hilton, James. Random harvest. (London : Macmillan, 1941).
恢復了记意的人 		Publication / Hilt4
7 1983 [Hilton, James]. Zhong yong zhi jia. Zhanmushi Xi'erdun deng bian ju ; Shen Shan yi. (Beijing : Zhongguo dian ying chu ban chu ban she, 1983). (Wai guo dian ying ju ben cong kan ; 28). Übersetzung von Struther, Jan. Mrs. Miniver. [Drehbuch von James Hilton].
忠勇之家
[Enthält] : [Nichols, Dudley]. Wu tu wu min. Dadeli Nike'ersi bian ju ; Yuan Jun yi. Übersetzung von Nichols, Dudley. This land is mine. (New York, N.Y. : F. Ungar, 1970). [Drehbuch]. 		Publication / Hilt14
8 1984 [Hilton, James]. Yuan meng chong wen. Zhanmusi Xi'erdun zhu ; Tu Zhen yi. (Nanjing : Jiangsu ren min chu ban she, 1984). Übersetzung von Hilton, James. Random harvest. (London : Macmillan, 1941).
怨梦重温 		Publication / Hilt11
9 1984 [Hilton, James]. Zai hui Qipusi xian sheng. Zhanmusi Xi'erdun zhu ; Wan Chuan'gui, Yu Gangyong zhu jian. (Shanghai : Shanghai yi wen chu ban she, 1984). (Ying yu xiang zhu du wu). Übersetzung von Hilton, James. Good-by, Mr. Chips. (London : Hodder & Stoughton, 1934).
再会, 契普斯先生 		Publication / Hilt13
10 1999 [Hilton, James]. Shi qu de di ping xian. Zhanmusi Xi'erdun zhu ; Zhongdian Xian ren min zheng fu wai shi ban gong shi yi. (Kunming : Yunnan ren min chu ban she, 1999). (Zhongguo Xianggelila cong shu). Übersetzung von Hilton, James. Lost horizon. (London : Macmillan, 1933).
失去的地平线 		Publication / Hilt5
11 1999 [Hilton, James]. Xiao shi de di ping xian : xun zhao li xiang guo Xianggelila de shen qi zhi lu. Zhanmusi Xi'erdun zhu ; Luo Chen bian yi. (Xian : Shaanxi shi fan da xue chu ban she, 1999). (Fa xian Xizang shu xi. Guan yu Xizang de ming zhu). Übersetzung von Hilton, James. Lost horizon. (London : Macmillan, 1933).
消失的地平线 : 寻找理想囯香格里拉的神奇之旅 		Publication / Hilt8
12 2000 [Hilton, James]. Shi qu de di ping xian. Zhanmusi Xi'erdun zhu ; Chen Cangduo yi. (Taibei : Xin yu, 2000). Übersetzung von Hilton, James. Lost horizon. (London : Macmillan, 1933).
失去的地平線 		Publication / Hilt6
13 2000 [Hilton, James]. Xiao shi de di ping xian. Zhanmusi Xi'erdun zhu ; He Weijian yi. (Shenzhen : Hai tian chu ban she, 2000). Übersetzung von Hilton, James. Lost horizon. (London : Macmillan, 1933).
消失的地平线 		Publication / Hilt9

Secondary Literature (2)

# Year Bibliographical Data Type / Abbreviation Linked Data
1 1999 Masuzawa, Tomoko. From empire to utopia: the effacement of colonial markings in Lost Horizon [by James Hilton]. In : Positions ; vol. 7, no 2 (1999). Publication / Hilt2
  • Cited by: Asien-Orient-Institut Universität Zürich (AOI, Organisation)
  • Person: Masuzawa, Tomoko
2 2000 Tang, Shijie. Meng huan gao yuan. Zhanmusi Xi'erdun yu Xianggelila. (Kunming : Yunnan jiao yu chu ban she, 2000). (Shu xiang ge Zong wai wen hua ming ren yu Yunnan xi lie). [Abhandlung über James Hilton].
梦幻高原 : 詹姆斯希尔頓与香格里拉 		Publication / Hilt15