Lost Horizon

Shangri-La is essentially a utopia, following in the tradition of works like Erewhon by Samuel Butler, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, and Utopia by Thomas More. Each of these novels satirizes existing social structures, habits, and assumptions by describing a supposedly perfect or ideal fictional society. Hilton’s vision of utopia is reliant, as many are, on isolation from the outside world. This isolation allows for the development of values that may be at odds with those of the outside world, and the first task of any utopian fiction is to elucidate those values. In Shangri-La, the central value is moderation. When Chang describes the religious practices of the Karakal valley, including those professed by the lamasery itself, he says, “We rule with moderate strictness, and in return we are satisfied with moderate obedience” (65). Hilton’s utopia is focused not on governance or policy but on happiness, which Chang says exists in “considerable degree” in the valley. By necessity, however, no one is allowed to leave Shangri-La, recalling works like Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas, in which utopia is seen as both a paradise and a prison.

Shangri-La’s physical location amid a forbidding mountain range aids in maintaining its isolation from the rest of the world, but as a safeguard, the community insists that no one who enters may leave.