Lost Horizon - James Hilton

[handslive]

The blurb on the front says, "The haunting novel of love in Shangri-La."  Which I guess proves that people writing blurbs didn't always read the books back 1972 either when this was reprinted.  Interesting book, especially given that it was first published in 1933.  There's a central vision here of mankind's doom that's based on the view that we will just keep escalating conflict and consumption until these two things destroy us.  There's also this marvelous little exchange:

"'Slacker,'" explained Conway, "is a slang word meaning a lazy fellow, a good-for-nothing. I wasn't, of course, using it seriously."

Chang bowed his thanks for the information. He took a keen interest in languages and liked to weigh a new word philosophically. "It is significant," he said after a pause, "that the English regard slackness as a vice. We, on the other hand, should vastly prefer it to tension. Is there not too much tension in the world at present, and might it not be better if more people were slackers?"

Comments

[buhrger]

might it not be better if more people were slackers?
i think so