1. Major Themes The Renaissance man (or individual)
The contemplative vs. the active life
The psychological composition of the group (as opposed to a microcosm)
Competing definitions of civilization and the opposition of civilization and culture

2. Distinguish Utopia Eutopia Dystopia
Why is Shangri-La difficult to place, that is, after reflecting on its content?
This question demands that we consider audience.

3. Title What does the title refer to?
We are concerned with how to read the word horizon.
What range of uses does this word have—literal and figurative?
Do you find positive, negative, or neutral connotations to this word?

4. Hermeneutic Horizon
In hermeneutics, a branch of philosophy concerned with interpretation, the idea of the horizon is also a horizon of meaning.
This figurative expression concerns the limits of sense, of understanding, or of historical vision (and a self-consciousness of our own placement in history).
This way of thinking might have something to do with the title’s meaning as well, which suggests that it has a broader social appeal than 1933.

5. Content 1. What is the High Lama like?
2. What history does the High Lama recounts?
3. What restriction musts the High Lama put upon Conway and the other visitors?
4. What is his purpose in collecting these people—and why these people especially?
5. What is the source of Conway’s reservations about staying at Shangri-La?
6. What purpose does the High Lama give to this lengthened existence?
7. What does Chang explain about the process of becoming a lama?

6. Content 8. What happens to lamas who leave the valley?
9. Who are some of the members of the community met by Conway?
10. Why does the High Lama continue to meet with Conway?
11. What do Barnard and Brinklow decide to do? What are their reasons?
12. What is the culmination of Conway’s last interview with the High Lama?
13. What are the circumstances of their departure from Shangri-La?
14. What conclusions or lack of conclusions does the epilogue provide?

7. Perrault/Conway
How do the High Lama and Conway parallel each other, both in life history and demeanor?
What is the intention of this parallel?
If leadership passes from Perrault to Conway, how should we read this?
Remember, this position is the global guardianship of civilization.

8. Comparison/Contrast
Make an imaginative list of similarities and differences between Perrault and Conway.
Which are greater—similarities or differences?

9. Similarities Men Highly educated Generally polymaths
First-hand experience of war and hedonism
Northern Europeans
Accomplished linguists
Benevolent, perhaps tending to patriarchal types though tolerant within limits
Contemplative with the ability to be active

10. Differences Formative socialization (time)
Religious or secular affiliation
What can we add to both lists?

11. Race and Hierarchy
In chapter eight we encounter a discussion of race—this idea is “explained” but remains strange.
What is the purpose of this part?
Are the races “hierarchicized” in some way?
passage: 81

12. Shangri-La Time
Thinking in terms of large spans of time potentially trivialize human endeavor (for example, thinking in terms of geological time such as millions of years).
Is this point reversed in Hilton, though on a more modest scale? How is time thematized? Note that the word is commonly capitalized, especially when Chang is talking about it with Conway.
passages: 83, et al.

13. Passion
In Zadig, a philosophical novel by Voltaire, one character remarks that “the passions are the winds that fill men’s sails.” How is passion probably used in this passage?
How is passion treated in this book? Conway remarks more than once that the War drained passion from him, and he intimates that this draining was a culture-wide phenomena.

14. Passion and Scholarship
Is it possible to be a scholar and/or to be dedicated to a principle without passion?
How can one take a dispassionate view of preserving culture?
Is this point a criticism of the Shangri-La project?

15. What to preserve?
Perrault gives his rationale for the activities of the lamas at Shangri-La—an effort of preservation against the threats against civilization made by the world. This idea, of course, raises some problems from the start.
How is it decided what should be preserved?
passage: 84-85

16. Thinking Question The world will explode in one year.
You have been asked to collect five things to be sent on the rocket ship being built by the R.O.C. to the moon with its passengers (the fifty richest Taiwanese citizens), where they will set up a new government in order to preserve Chinese civilization.
What five things? (you are not a thing)

17. Assumptions
Why is it assumed that once the strong kill each other off the survivors will not repeat this cycle of destruction?
Why should the order expressed by the lamasery and its “state” be held the best one to survive—one which is autocratic and divided by class and race?
Are we supposed to worry about such things as readers, or is the book aimed at a certain audience? Are you a member of that audience?

18. Dying as Metaphor
The idea of becoming old and dying by leaving the valley is interesting, and probably contains some kind of metaphorical meaning.
Possibly, this meaning should be sought in relation to the purpose that Perrault holds for this lamasery, and his predictions of the future.
How would read this rapid aging figuratively?
passage:

19. Mallinson as Threat
Mallinson is a threatening figure—considering how Barnard and Brinklow adapt (why do they do so?), what does Mallinson appear to represent (given that he cannot adapt)?
passage: 116

20. Reason to leave? What prompts Conway to agree to leave with Mallinson?
What is Lo-Tsen’s reason for making this trip, though she must be aware that she will die?
We might come up with a fanciful explanation given Mallinson’s character—what is this?

21. Conway as Hero
Conway is a different type of hero from, perhaps, virtually every other you might have encountered.
He is not tragic (though potentially so), Romantic (he is not divided along some clear boundary but rather multi-faceted), or popular (too intellectual). He is not an anti-hero, though he does oppose the heroic type embodied in the so-called man of action. In some ways he is a reluctant hero, but not reluctant in acting when needed, only reluctant to carry on with the act after thought has tempered action. He is not a hero for being a hero’s sake. How would you classify him? Does he remind you of any other character you have met in literature or film?

22. Women and Audience
Is this a novel for male readers (possibly boys)? In Lost Horizon we see but two female characters, both of whom are types: the sexless Miss Brinklow, who is little more than comic relief given her simplistic religious fanaticism, and the attractive Lo-Tsen, distant first of all because of her social rank but also never given speech. She is an abstraction at best, and her “romantic” attachment to Mallinson, given that she is his grandmother’s age, is nothing short of grotesque.

23. Women and Civilization
The gender question is pressing here for a couple of reasons—who is the true bearer of civilization?
How does this situation compare with Haggard’s treatment?

24. Closure Does this work have any sort of closure?
The somewhat overlong epilogue feels anticlimactic to me—if I were writing the novel, I would have shortened it considerably; nonetheless, the purpose seems to be to deepen the mystery rather than to solve it.

25. Individual-Group Topos
On the face of it, we might read this book’s ending as an avatar of the individual-group topos, though with a variation that is meaningful.
Explain this assertion.

26. Self-Other
In stories like “Eveline” we find a protagonist who must decide to pursue her own happiness (with Frank) or serve the interests of others (her father, but also, the wider institution of family responsibility). This division, I should add, is a little false since you could argue that really it is a choice between two institutions—marriage and filial piety—both of which subjugate the individual (especially women) to the shackles of patriarchal authority.
But leaving that to one side, how is this theme of self and other varied in Lost Horizon?

27. Capitalism, again
Shangri-La, a fictional place, has worked its way into English to denote a remote and happy utopia. Ironically, it has been adapted by certain hotels in East Asia (e.g. the phallic symbol across the street from our train station).
What is the effect of placing this name in service of capitalism?

28. Hilton’s Purpose
What might Hilton’s purpose have been in writing this novel?
In 1933, of course, we find a general feeling of pessimism in Europe and North America. What were the sources of this pessimism?
Why could the novel be construed as escapist?
Do you think that it is?

29. Relevance
Is it the fantasy of a certain type of reader (at a certain time)?
Or, does the novel appeal to us today?
Is Shangri-La a purely mental space or does it have some guiding power in the formation of a different society?
How might travel here function simply as a metaphor for something else, for a different type of movement?

30. Popular or Canonical?
This novel can be read as a piece of entertaining fantasy or as a work with pretences to serious ideas.
Where would you place Hilton?
Is his work an example of popular literature?
Argue for and/or against this position.

31. Movie Making
If you were making a movie of this novel, would you leave it the way you found it?
What might Hollywood do to this book to make it more “acceptable” to a wide audience?
Naturally, what Hollywood thinks us capable of finding interesting is not necessarily the same as what we do.

37. Tibet and the Imagination
How is Tibet constructed in this cartoon?
What allegory underlies the action?

38. For Next Time Read: Wells, The Time Machine, Chapters I-V
Actually, we need to decide on these last two weeks.