Messenger: A Sequel to Lost Horizon: A Story of Shangri-La

by Frank DeMarco

Book by Frank DeMarco

240 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1994

About the author

FRANK DEMARCO is the author of five books, including the non-fiction Muddy Tracks and The Sphere and the Hologram, and the novel Babe in the Woods. A former journalist and newspaper editorial writer, Frank was co-founder and chief editor of Hampton Roads Publishing Company, the powerhouse regional responsible for such best-sellers as Neale Donald Walschs Conversations with God series. He conducts workshops on communicating with guidance and writes a monthly column for The Meta Arts, an online magazine. His past and current thinking may be found on his blog, I of My Own Knowledge, on Everyday explorations into our Extraordinary Potential."

Reviews

[Ray Foy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lost Horizon is a classic novel that deserves a decent sequel. Messenger attempts to be that sequel and in many ways does a good job. The author’s intent, though, goes beyond storytelling into expressing his political and spiritual views. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it does diminish the book’s potential.


WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT

Mr. DeMarco begins his sequel some thirty years after the events of Lost Horizon. In 1962, George Chiari, a USAF Captain, is flying his U2 spy plane over Tibet, photographing potential invasion routes of the Chinese into India. Inexplicably, his plane loses all power and crashes in the mountains near a strange thermal source. Intending to hike to the thermal, Chiari is captured by a couple of armed men and taken to Shangri-La. There, Chiari is greeted by Henry Barnard, the lone American among the British protagonists of James Hilton’s book. Barnard interrogates Chiari and eventually apprises him of his situation in Shangri-La. Later, Chiari meets the other “monks,” including Hugh Conway who becomes his friend and mentor. After one escape attempt, Chiari becomes a convert and then a mentor himself to another rescued (or captured) American pilot, Dennis Corbin. Finally, Chiari undertakes a mission meant to safeguard Shangri-La from the world, and the world from itself.


CONTINUING THE LH UNIVERSE AS A BOOK REVIEW

I think Messenger believably follows the situations and characters of the original Lost Horizon novel, for the most part. Mr. DeMarco is obviously a fan and knows the details of Shangri-La lore and Mr. Hilton’s book. He follows the ambiance of low-key action with the plot mostly driven by character revelations and developments. He also fills some of the original novel’s plot holes and fleshes out some of its fuzzy aspects. Most of this he handles well, and most of his extrapolations are reasonable. Some of his story decisions, however, are not ones that I would have made.

The biggest reason Mr. DeMarco can comment on Lost Horizon within Messenger, is because he includes Mr. Hilton’s novel in his own story’s universe. That is, the novel, Lost Horizon by James Hilton, is known by the characters in Messenger. I was dubious about this story device at first, but came to see the necessity of it, though I think it could have been handled better. It is actually easy to postulate the existence of Mr. Hilton’s novel in a sequel because Mr. Hilton presents LH as being a manuscript produced by a writer who interviewed the story’s protagonist, Conway. Even the surrounding “frame” story in LH lends itself to extrapolating the existence of Mr. Hilton and his book.

In adopting this convention of “breaking the fourth wall,” Mr. DeMarco is able to offer a lot of commentary on the LH novel. In doing so, he offers some explanations for some LH plot holes and implausibilities. The fueling stop by the hijacker, for instance, makes no sense. Mr. DeMarco offers a reasonable explanation. There’s also the description of Shangri-La being a bit bare (which I noted in my review of Lost Horizon) and the shallow reasoning behind Lo-tsen’s escape with Mallinson. Actually, why Conway was so easily swayed to join Mallinson is considered a hole by many readers. I think Mr. DeMarco handles these items pretty well, though I’m not so sure the one about Conway joining Mallinson is really so implausible. Still, Mr. DeMarco offers an interesting take on Mr. Hilton’s depiction of Conway’s attitude at the time and on “Mr. Conway’s” interpretation of his own behavior.

All this commentary on LH, though, does make Messenger read like a book review at some points.

Mr. DeMarco also presents the beliefs of the Shangri-La “monks” and it strikes me as being largely warmed-over Buddhism with a big dose of cold war anti-communism. This might be an easy extrapolation since Tibetan lamaseries are mostly Buddhist (maybe all of them are). But LH tells us that Father Perrault came to Shangri-La as a Christian missionary and was fervent about his mission work for many years. He mellowed over his long life, however, and drifted more to an indulgence of his love of the arts with a big toleration of Buddhism (and adoption of it to some extent). Actually, I’m pretty OK with Mr. DeMarco’s description of the monks’ beliefs, but he also included a heavy political sense that doesn’t strike me as ringing true. The monks (especially Conway) seem to be overly concerned with the nationhood of Tibet and with opposing communism. It’s not that these elements shouldn’t be there, but Shangri-La is about a lifeboat for all of humanity against all oppressive political systems and ideologies. Singling out communist China as the chief oppressor seems too narrow a focus.

A lot of Messenger also seems to be a defense of mysticism or spirituality. That’s fine with me as a concept, but it seems that, for instance, the only purpose of the character, Dennis Corbin, is to provide a foil for Chiari in an argument of mysticism against materialism. Several sections devoted to this argument read like nonfiction. For me, it hurts the storytelling.

The story told by Messenger is a mixed bag. In following the tale of a free-thinking “Renaissance man,” it complements the story of Lost Horizon. Presenting George Chiari as an American pilot is a good device and the sections describing his piloting and crash are well-done. As a character, though, he is not as interesting as Conway. He is not the “fish out of water” that Conway was in LH. I did, however, like Mr. DeMarco’s depiction of the original LH characters. He does especially well with the character of Henry Barnard and making him a major character is a good move. Though Roberta Brinklow is presented for only a few pages, Mr. DeMarco does get her character spot-on. He seems to have dropped her as a main character in favor of Sunnie Bolton, who strikes me as rather flat. Chang is also presented in brief sections, though his characterization does ring true.

My biggest criticism of Messenger is that its story goes nowhere, in my opinion. While doing a credible job in showing how Shangri-La fares under Conway and friends, Mr. DeMarco’s tale is otherwise too nebulous. In fact, Chiari states (Messenger is Chiari’s memoir) that he cannot reveal half of the mission entrusted to him by the Shangri-La monks. It is kind of implied, along with some other actions regarding how Shangri-La would defend itself against the encroaching world, but I ended the book feeling short-changed.


RECOMMENDED AS COMMENTARY BUT NOT STORYTELLING

I’m sure that Messenger is a labor of love. Fans of Lost Horizon will find it to be a credible treatment of Mr. Hilton’s characters, a filling of some plot holes, and the addressing of some weak points in the original novel. Mr. DeMarco’s extrapolations into the beliefs, politics, and daily routines of Shangri-La are well-done, even when he goes into places where I would not. Where Mr. DeMarco loses me is in his storytelling. What he offers is too weak and its conclusion does veer away, in my opinion, from Mr. Hilton’s themes.

I cannot give Messenger a high recommendation because its weaknesses are too severe. As a big Lost Horizon fan, I appreciate reconnecting with characters who are old friends, but I do not care for the cold war politics that infuse the book.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this is an interesting effort, I didn't think the author did justice to the original concept and story.

Plus it is a badly edited book. I kept running into sentences that clearly had the wrong word. Thanks to spell check, there are wrong words rather than misspellings.