In 1933, Lost Horizon was published, became the best-seller right
away and won the British Hawthornden Prize for Literature. The
following year, Hollywood invested $2.5 million and turned it
into a film. Its theme song, The beautiful Shangri-La, soon became
popular throughout the world. Later on, the name ‘Shangri-La’
was monopolized by the Hong Kong entrepreneur Mr. Robert Kuok,
who used it as the trademark of a hotel chain and set up the
Shangri-La Group. Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts subsequently made
a worldwide top brand and the largest deluxe hotel group in Asia.
This confirms the great significance and implication of Lost
Horizon in humanities from another perspective: it became the
Western equivalent of《桃花园记》(这个可能有专门的英文译名,
不知道是什么). Its significance lies in its influence in Western
cultural values, not least the installation of the concept of
heavenly paradise. Quoting the comment on Lost Horizon from the
Dictionary of British Litterateur (《不列颠文学家辞典》似乎不是
很有名的字典,找不到原名是什么): “its achievement is the creation
of an English word for ‘earthly heaven’, ie. ‘Shangri-La’.”
Today, the mythical land of Shangri-La stands as a synonym for
‘paradise’ and ‘utopia’.
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