Well, I know who you are. You're someone awfully nice

[sovay]

So on the one hand Random Harvest (1942) is a three-hanky romance of the oldest school, with lovers thrown together and severed and at last reunited by twists of fate and psychology, ending in embraces and joyous tears, and on the other hand it's a poignant and intelligent literalization of the fragmentation of identity by war, of trying to fit back together all the pieces of shell-shock and peacetime and the persistent sense of being "ghost-ridden," haunted by things one can neither remember nor forget—affecting not only soldiers, but their lovers, who are themselves neither static nor indestructible. All of this is subtext, never once raised or alluded to, except that the story begins on Armistice Day and ends in retracing that fateful night. No wonder it's a classic. I have to read the novel and see what was James Hilton and what was created onscreen.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed the book of Lost Horizon; I'd say there's a high chance the book of Random Harvest will be good. Glad to hear the movie was such a treat!

[sovay]

I really enjoyed the book of Lost Horizon; I'd say there's a high chance the book of Random Harvest will be good.

I should both see and re-read Lost Horizon; I have a video cassette somewhere around the house, and I think there's a paperback downstairs. I don't think it was the first movie I saw Ronald Colman in, but I haven't seen it more recently than high school.

Glad to hear the movie was such a treat!

I recommend it!

[blubeagle.livejournal.com]

I forgot to mention to you that I've read the book as well. I actually like it better than the movie (for far too many reasons).

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I hasten to say that I haven't read Lost Horizon myself since I was a young and uncritical teen, so....