Dr. Joe’s Book of the Month – James Hilton’s “Lost Horizon”

BLOG #40, SERIES #6
WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JO
DR. JOE’S BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB #45
JAMES HILTON’S LOST HORIZON
October 7, 2015

Since the advent of this novel in 1933, Shangri-La, the setting for this utopian novel, has come to mean a place of peace and contentment to people all around the world.

James Hilton (1900 – 1954) was, like most of his contemporaries, deeply impacted by what contemporaries called “The Great War” (World War I). A war so horrific, many wondered if it would doom civilization. Hilton, born in England, wrote several books exploring aspects of the war. This one, however, set in 1931, conceptualized a mythical utopia set high in one of the remotest parts of the Himalayas. Here, if the world self-destructed, civilized life could be given a chance for a rebirth in Shangri-La, where the High Lama has discovered the secret of extending life beyond even 200 years.

The vehicle bringing five passengers (four British, one American) is a high altitude plane that somehow made it to the mountains of the Blue Moon.

It is a riveting romance that has fascinated readers and movie-goers ever since it was printed. Its original publisher: William Morrow & Co., Inc. It was widely reprinted in hardback by Grosset & Dunlap and in trade paper by Pocket Books.

Questions readers will ask themselves are these: How much of this book could be true? What lessons about life can be learned by reading it? Is it a true happier-ever-after utopia—or might it have elements of a dystopia in it?

When you purchase your own copy, be sure it is unabridged. It’s not a very long book anyway.

M O V I E S

(1983Twyman Catalogue)

Two movies have been made from this book:

1937 – B&W – 138 minutes –
Frank Capra (Producer and Director)
Robert Riskin (Writer)
Dimitri Tiompkin (Musical Score)
Actors: Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, Sam Jaffe, H. B. Warner, Thomas Mitchell, Edward Everett Horton, Isabelle Jewell, Margo – Academy Awards (2).
Nominated for 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor.

It is a rare movie masterpiece that touches the heart of all who experience its dream—that some little plot of earth exists to which one can retreat, safe from the ravages of time and the world—one’s own little Shangri-La.

(1980 Clem Williams Film Catalogue)

1973 – Color – 150 min. – Columbia

Charles Jarrott (Director)
Ross Hunter (Producer)
Larry Kramer (Screenwriter)
Burt Bacharach (Music)
Hal David (Lyrics)
Actors: Peter Finch, Liv Ullmann, Sally Kellerman, Charles Boyer, George Kennedy, Michael York, Olivia Hussey, Sir John Gielgud

LET IT SNOW!

BLOG #4, SERIES #6
WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE
LET IT SNOW!
January 28, 2015

What magic resides in those four letters! Especially since snow appears to be withdrawing from our world. As the global temperature grows hotter and hotter, we see such phenomena as the proverbial “snows of Kilamanjaro” in Africa drying up; even the Iditarod’s thousand-mile sled-dog race was forced to race much of the way on dirt because of so little snow last year; the polar bears in the North struggling to survive as arctic ice-packs melt earlier each year; opening up the long ice-locked Northwest Passage to ships; this melting placing at risk Narwhals–now Killer
Whales can corner them and kill them because there is no longer enough ice to shelter them; even the Himalayas are losing their life-giving snow.

Notice how this week, the entire Northeast all but shut down because an epic blizzard was roaring in. New York City completely shut down (including planes, trains, autos–except for emergency vehicles). 7,000 flights were cancelled. Funny it was to see Matt Lauer and his team walking to work, and he lying down in the middle of Fifth Avenue doing a snow angel in the snow. But instead of two to three feet, the city received only 6.2 inches! All the news people were psyched up for great visuals as their people reported in standing waist-deep in snow; instead, they had to do interviews from so little snow it didn’t even cover their shoe-tops. Of course it was deeper further north.

In Maryland, just the threat of a storm causes school districts to shut down for “snow days” that may or may not be snowy. Here in Colorado’s Front Range, any possibility that there might be a few flakes falling later on in the week is cause for jubilation among weather-forecasters desperate for ratings surges: every so many minutes they tell their listeners that “later on,” they’ll tell them how much snow will fall. Rarely are they right–but listeners like us listen anyway. Especially the kids who love snow days.

As for us, we revel in the sight of falling snow. At night, we’ll sit by the fireplace staring into the flames, offset by staring outside at the floodlight-illumined falling snow. I even enjoy shoveling it–as long as it’s not so deep it all but buries us!

And many people either live here or travel here in order to participate in the annual snowfalls. Interstate 70 out of Denver routinely grinds to a near halt as thousands of skiers head to the mountains.

And what would Christmas stories be without snow? Amazing how many incorporate that element as part of the story-line.

Out our northern windows, we can see the mountains (crowned by Long’s and Meeker peaks) of the Rocky Mountain National Park some eighty miles away. What an incredible difference between late-summer’s brown and winter’s pristine white! Takes one’s breath away just to  at it.

So let’s all treasure snow while we still have it, revel in it whenever we have the chance.

Thank God for snow!