OPINION

PAUL GREENBERG: Trouble in Shangri-La

Perfection isn’t all it’s cracked up to be

From its first sentence setting the idyllic scene, James Hilton's classic novel about a paradise on earth, Lost Horizon, hints at what's wrong with all such utopias since Plato wrote his Republic to show what an ideal society should be: It's static. It never changes. There's no room for the rebel, the bomb-thrower with ideas to ignite. In short, there's no room for reality.

From the book's first sentence, dissatisfaction begins to creep into this utopia: "Cigars had burned low, and we were beginning to sample the disillusionment that usually afflicts old school friends who have met again as men and found themselves with less in common than they had believed they had." The three men who were having the conversation--a writer, a diplomat and a physician--began to talk about a fourth who wasn't there: the most brilliant and promising of the bunch, a man named Conway whom all agreed had never fulfilled his youthful promise. They soon began to speculate about why, to no clear end. As a dear friend once explained why she'd stopped going to her high-school reunions, "After the first half-hour, there's nothing left to say."

But there was plenty to say about the absent Conway, who'd climbed mountains with undaunted skill and courage and had led men in combat during what was then known as the Great War with equal audacity and success. But now all agreed that this man, once the very embodiment of a changeless past in their eyes, had changed. Yes, he'd come through the Great War (men hadn't started numbering world wars back then) without a scratch, his chest decorated with medals. But then he'd gone on to the most lackluster of diplomatic careers. Only during the occasional emergency did the old Conway emerge to take charge again. And then he disappeared. For he'd been one of four passengers aboard a small passenger plane that had been commandeered by some unidentified person, and neither the pilot nor any of his passengers had ever been seen again. It was a mystery, and how we all love a mystery.

But one of the old friends, the physician who narrates the story, said he'd run across a sick and rail-thin Conway wasting away in a Chungking hospital. But he'd slowly recovered with his memory miraculously restored. The rest of the story is told by the incredibly faultless if not immortal Conway himself. Questions about him remain, but the answers to them are peeled back one by one. The rest of the cast of characters aboard that lost aircraft is just as fascinating--including a young man who resembles the Conway of years ago, a humorless missionary named Miss Brinklow, and a boorish American named Barnard whose only talent seems to be for making bad jokes.

When the plane crashes near a lamisary hidden away in a snow-covered valley between high mountains, more questions than answers emerge. For example, how did the people who live in this strangely peaceful place called Shangri-La manage to gather such a vast and impressive library of the world's classics, and why does no one ever seem to die here?

There is even a love interest introduced when Conway meets the exquisite Lo-Tsen, the very dream of grace, beauty and perfection. "For years," the author muses, "[Conway's] passions had been like a nerve that the world jarred on; now at last the aching was soothed, and he could yield himself to love that was neither a torment nor a bore. As he passed by the lotus-pool at night he sometimes pictured her in his arms, but the sense of time washed over the vision, calming him to an infinite and tender reluctance."

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle should have been so lucky. Instead they were interested in cheap thrills like the search for truth and justice even when beauty beckoned all around.

Into each Eden a serpent must come hissing, in this case it's the decidedly unattractive Miss Brinklow--evangelist, troublemaker and all-around pain in every orifice. Conway teases her at one point, saying: "If I were a missionary, I'd choose this rather than quite a lot of other places." The stilted dialogue continues as Miss Brinklow returns Conway's serve and the match is on:

"In that case," she says, "there should be no merit to it, obviously. There's no point in doing a thing because you like doing it. Look at these people here!"

"They all seem very happy."

"Exactly," Miss Brinklow answers "with a touch of fierceness."

The High Lama hopes for a happy ending to all this bickering. He would like to think that, behind its high walls, his people will be safe from any coming apocalypse if only they can conserve "the frail elegancies of a dying age . . . seeking such wisdom as men will need when their passions are all spent." For after the world-shaking apocalypse, "when the strong have devoured each other, the Christian ethic may at last be fulfilled, and the meek shall inherit the earth."

Maybe, maybe not, for this cartoonish version of Christianity is itself a dubious proposition, as shallow as it is ill-informed. Much like all versions of Shangri-La.

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Paul Greenberg is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer and columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Editorial on 05/31/2017

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