Customer Reviews

Good-Bye, Mr. Chips

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

When we were kids, our grandparents used to take us to Radio City Music Hall for the movie and Christmas Pageant every year. The year I was 12, the movie was a remake of Lost Horizon--my most graphic memory from that night is my horror when the woman suddenly aged after leaving Shangri-La. As it turns out, that version of the movie is pretty dreadful, while Frank Capra's 1937 original is widely considered to be a classic. At any rate, I liked the film enough to read the book and also Hilton's other classic, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, and I loved them both. Recently, our library got a restored edition of the Capra film and we enjoyed it thoroughly. So I went back & reread the books.

I assume most folks know at least the rough outlines of the stories. In Lost Horizon, Hugh Conway, a British diplomat, is skyjacked and he & his traveling companions end up in the Himalayas. Eventually they are lead to the hidden Valley of the Blue Moon and the city of Shangri-La, where folks do not age and the powers that be are collecting all of the world's knowledge and greatest artworks, so that it will be safe from the turbulent political storms of the outside world. Eventually, the high lama reveals to the diplomat that he has been chosen to take over leadership of Shangri-La and after an abortive attempt to leave (at the insistence of one of his fellow travelers), Conway returns to assume his destined place in Shangri-La.

Good-bye, Mr. Chips, on the other hand, is about an eccentric but lovable British schoolmaster, Arthur Chipping (Mr. Chips). Seemingly destined to be a bachelor for life, he meets and marries a young woman who loosens him up quite a bit, before dying in childbirth. Chips is left alone, except that is for the succeeding generations of boys who pass through Brookfield School. After decades at the school, he retires, telling the assembled alumni, "I have thousands of faces in my mind. ... I remember you as you are. That's the point. In my mind you never grow old at all", only to be called back during WWI, at which point he becomes acting headmaster. One of his duties is to read the list of the school's war dead; for everyone else they are just names, but for Chips, each name has a face attached. After the War he reretires, after 42 years teaching Roman History and Latin at Brookfield.

On the surface, these two stories couldn't be more different, but reading them now I realize how similar they actually are. Shangri-La is an oasis of civilzation in a world that was after all between two World Wars. It is a place where the great achievements of our culture will be preserved, even if war consumes the rest of the World, which for much of this Century seemed like a possibility. Mr. Chips, meanwhile, is the living embodiment of institutional memory. The classes of boys, the teachers and headmasters, even the subjects and teaching methods, come and go, but Chips has remained throughout. He "still had those ideas of dignity and generosity that a frantic world was forgetting." He embodies the pre-War world and its values. In his book Mr. Bligh's Bad Language, Greg Dening says that: "Institutions require memory. A memory creates precedent and order." In the very midst of an epoch that was witnessing an unfettered attack on all of the West's institutions and values, Hilton created Shangri-La and Mr. Chips; both represent the conservative ideal--providing a bridge of memory to all that is beautiful and good and decent in our past, lest, in our zeal to create a perfect world, we forget the qualities and accomplishments which bequeathed us the pretty good world in which we live.

These books are unabashedly sentimental and I'm sure some would even find them mawkish. But I love them and I appreciate the subtley non-political way in which they make the most important of political points: even as we move forward we must always preserve those things and ideas of value in our past.

Mr. Chips GRADE: A+

Lost Horizon GRADE: A

Those who dont like this book may as well stop living in this world - the beauty of the world os not for them. This novel-or rather a novellette- breathes softness and romance in every word. Hilton's books are all most precious to me - they convey the feelings of either a world that is lost forever or perhaps a world that never existed but should. The craft of Hilton is apparent in the way he weaves the tale through flashbacks- the switches between the past and the present are so beautifully handled as to make them rarely apparent. The characters of Mr.Chips and Katherine are to my mind, one of the most delightful in fiction. Darcy and Elizabeth leap to mind - but this couple was not too far behind. I just wish it had been a much bigger novel- but small is beautiful they say. DOnt ever miss this one- or "Random Harvest". They are a couple of the best ever reads u will get.

It's a rare thing that the movie is better than its source material, but I think (at least for American audiences) that this is true for this novelette.

This is a simple story of the life of an English boarding school teacher, a reminiscence from the vantage point of old age, where the accomplishments and disappointments of his life can be properly seen in their entirety. Starting as a young teacher whose main problem is maintaining discipline in the classroom, who still has at least a few ambitions of becoming headmaster at a possibly more prestigious school, Arthur Chipping is portrayed as an average person with perhaps a proclivity to being dogmatic and unyielding in his opinions and methods of teaching. As he grows older, the ambitions recede, replaced by an acceptance of his place within the system, but his rigidity in outlook becomes more pronounced till he marries. His wife's influence does much to make Arthur not only more accepting of other viewpoints, but a kinder, more compassionate man, whose fairness and length of service does much to endear him to his students. Further events in his life eventually lead to his becoming something of an institution, a fixture as much a part of the school as the walls.

The character of Arthur is obviously well defined and is easy to empathize with. However, for American audiences that are not very familiar with the English school system, there is a vagueness about the school, how it is run and the profound influence it has on its students, a lack of background information and clear portraits of the students that really needs to be there to properly understand Arthur's story. This is where the various movie versions of this story surpass this book, as this background can be easily shown in that medium, whereas the book assumes the reader already knows this type of information. Even with this failing, however, both the respect that Mr. Chipping eventually earns and the overriding theme of the constancy of the institution shaping the lives of its students into proper English gentlemen can be easily seen and appreciated.

This book is quite short, but within its confines it manages to define both its major character and a system of learning very well. For those who attended similar institutions, its ending may very well produce some tears and a feeling of `that was my teacher'. Others not familiar with this type of school may find their time better spent watching the movie.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

Good-Bye Mr. Chips was James Hilton's most successful novel. Pushing for a deadline, he wrote the novella in long hand in less than four days. Most first drafts are altered for clarity; however what you read today is essentially the original manuscript. Surprisingly, when the story appeared in the November 1933 issue of the British Weekly, its reception from the English readership was cool at best. It was only after Hilton mustered the courage to send the manuscript to the United States, appearing in the April edition of the Atlantic, that the novella's popularity hit the heights that writers dream about - it has been a classic ever since.

What is it that makes this sentimental story of a schoolteacher so appealing for so many people? Well, I believe, if we're lucky, some of us have had the good fortune in our early school lives to have had Mr. Chips as a teacher. School -teachers can have a profound influence on our lives, changing our destinies, instilling a single thought or lesson in our young minds that shaped our perceptions of the world. Mr. Chips was a schoolteacher and nothing else, a modest individual who knew his place in the world and performed his job to the best of his ability for over sixty years. He taught generation after generation of young men, a constant in the lives of many. This, I believe, is one of the secrets of teaching: assuming a stable position, being dependable and a constant for students, because more often than not, their personal lives are chaotic and forever changing. Mr. Chips also deeply cared about his students, and observed their progress through life even after their departure from the school. This is a great teacher.

Critics back in the thirties when the novella was first published called it "the most profoundly moving story that has passed this way in several years." The story has become a classic because it will be just as relevant one hundred years from now.

It is so easy for sentimentality to slide into mawkishness, however, Good-Bye Mr. Chips is not overly sentimental, but touches the heart in just the right manner, inciting our own experiences of individuals met who had a deep affect on our lives.

There have been many film adaptations of this novella, all very good in their own ways, but I suggest if you haven't read the original to do so, as it truly is a timeless classic.

This book had me in tears. Mr. Chips is a human being, and he acts and feels like one. One can argue that he is old-fashioned, the settings have dated, and all that. But good stories and great characters are not easy to find. This is the kind of story that makes me think, and realize how wonderful is to be part of humankind. Richard Llewellyn's "How Green Was My Valley" and Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" are other examples of the same kind - masterpieces of our century (which, coincidentally, have been turned into great movies, all of them).
I recommend "Mr. Chips" for anyone looking for a short time inside a human heart, strong and weak, decent and insecure, hopeless and full of dedication for what it believes.
I will keep "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" in my library always.

Short but sweet, this virtue is a rarity.

It is a treat to observe how the author has described Mr Chips in such a subtle manner while telling a story that the reader does not notice it, unless he or she consciously pays attention to Hilton's masterful characterisation.

The best part about the length of this book is that one can read and reread it many times to fully appreciate its underlying quality.

Good-bye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton is a portrait of an aging man who has mostly good memories about life as a teacher. In a very simple way, the author creates a warm picture of Chips as a man who loved his wife, loved his job and loved his students. All good things must eventually come to an end. When Chips isn't needed in his job any longer because of his age, he focuses on remembering the good times. Mr. Chips is the kind of person who makes the most of situations and has no regrets.

Not every person has postive memories of their education. For those of us that do, the memories often stem from an aged veteran of the field. Perhaps his or her methods were not quite textbook and perhaps even against the textbook way of teaching. Still, that teacher managed to be effective. If they were not effective, the teacher probably would not have stayed in the profession. Mr. Chips fits this profile.

While the story can be sad because it takes readers through the spectrum of Chips's life, it is quite uplifting in the broad scope. It is the story of a life fulfulled. Chips spend much of his life teaching at one institution. Through tragedies and triumphs, he is a mainstay of Brookfield. Some of the tragedies are only implied, but author James Hilton gives readers enough knowledge to fill in the blanks. The sense of progress that Chips witnesses in his lifetime is also quite remarkable. Even the dynamics of the professions from a century ago mirror the pressure and even absurdities of the present.

As an educator, I found the story rather heart-warming. It caused me to think of how I might reflect on my career one day. At the same time, I thought of what a wonderful gift this book would make for a retiring teacher.

I found myself envying Mr. Chips his life. Though he lived in very tumultuous times, almost everything back then was simpler; there were less demands in one's day-to-day affairs. And one can actually enjoy and savor the rest of one's afternoon sipping tea while looking out over the window to the idyllic scene of kids bicycling along the street. The pace is not like today's hectic one, wherein just thinking of what one still has to do for the rest of the day is exhausting in itself.

The persona of Chips is also very likeable. More than a mentor, he exuded that aura of an `endearing' grandpa that has a bottomless reserve of anecdotes and jokes, which he never tires of churning out for anyone who cares to hear. Someone whom a student can pay a visit at home for the undemanding pleasure of a relaxing afternoon.

From personal experience, I haven't encountered any professor who invested that much effort in getting to know his/her students beyond the walls of the classroom, who delighted in being able to remember the student's names beyond the school grounds. Of course, it may simply be due the nature of the teacher-student dynamics back then.

And for that, I grew more envious. (Though, of course, females were regarded back then in a more unfavorable light...so...)

In any case, this short story of a life lived comfortably in the simplest of terms, with all its highs and lows, is truly touching. My favorite bit was his stoicism in proceeding with his Latin class while an air-raid was occurring above-ground, succeeding in subduing the fears of his students, and even making them laugh, by shifting their attention to the reference of Germanic campaigns in the chronicles of Caesar in Gaul.

And then there's the curious fact that I was surprised at how the ending nearly pushed me to tears.

An easy `reading' story by Hilton, and the message is just as modest. But the lesson is undoubtedly a timeless one: if you'll only get to live one life, live it by being humble, with a brimming font for laughter and contentment for the simplest of things. In the end, you will be the richer for it.

This is a book that will be loved by some, hated by others, and just thought tolerable by those who can appreciate the portrait of an old English teacher without relating it to anyone in our own lives.

Mr. Chips is an old man who sometimes wanders through the fog of old age, and we join him as he reminisces silently about his days at a learning institution called Brookfield. The narrative bounces back and forth through his memories and his current position, which is as a kind of wise old grandfather figure who lives across the road from Brookfield. We learn about his gradual transformation from young disciplinarian to kindly old charmer; the older he gets, the more he indulges those around him with his jokes and the more beloved he becomes.

The prose is pretty ornamental, with lots of descriptive adjectives and ornate notations about the passing of the seasons, or the years. The idea of a man who has become inextricably linked with an institution is an interesting one, and obviously Hilton struck a chord with some people, many of whom have sent him letters about the "real" Mr. Chips.

The book struck no such chord with me, personally, but I did enjoy the portrait of the kindly old man, and appreciated that the brevity of the tale allowed me to finish it in a single sitting.

My edition weighs in at a scant 115 pages, and about half that space is filled with drawings (by Sanford Kossin, which I did not much care for) and the white space at the beginning or end of the 18 chapters. The actual text is in fairly large words, so I think you're actually looking at the equivalent of about 40 pages of reading in a typical novel.

If there is a teacher in your memory who may have taught both your father and your son, this book will speak to you, and I would highly recommend it. Even if this isn't the case, you might pick it up just because your time investment will be so small.