New horizons

 

 

This captivating story you are about to read was written in 1933 by an English novelist who wrote of an idyllic settlement high in the mountains of Tibet.

Today, even amongst those who have never heard of Lost Horizon, the words 'Shangri-La' stand as a synonym for paradise.

In 1971, a deluxe hotel was founded in the thriving city of Singapore in Southeast Asia. In choosing the name Shangri-La, there was a desire to set a standard, to create an identity that would eventually produce a group of hotels unique in the world.

As the group expanded, it has sought to retain all the ideals of its mythical namesake. Serenity, harmony and natural beauty, all characteristics of the Shangri-La group. This enchanting book will give you a glimpse of this world. A world once imagined, a dream that has become a reality.

We hope you enjoy it."

 

My first stay at a Shangri-La hotel was in Singapore in 1975, a mere four years after it had first opened its doors. There, and in subsequent stays in the Shangri-La in Hong Kong and Paris, I was always greeted by this book on the bedside table, with its flyleaf bearing the above inscription.

 

 

Of course, I had already read James Hilton's "Lost Horizon", but who wouldn't want to read it again in such an agreeable setting, which is what I hope will also happen with the books I collected for my friend's "Robyn's Nest Lakeside Resort". Only the inscription will be different:

 

Dear Guest, We hope you will find in this small selection a book that interests you. Feel free to take it with you to the pool, or down to the lake, or to your cottage. Keep it for the duration of your stay. Should you not have finished reading it by the time you leave, feel free to take it with you. Simply let the staff know when you check out, so that we can restock our little library for the benefit of all our future guests. If you have suggestions on what books to add, please tell us. Enjoy your stay with us and Happy Reading! Your team at Robyn's Nest Lakeside Resort 110 Lakewood Drive, Merimbula NSW 2548 enquiries@robynsnest.com.au www.robynsnest.com.au

 

They are both fiction and non-fiction books, ensuring that the guests at Robyn's Nest's will have become the most widely-read guests by the time they leave - if they ever do because there are some five hundred books.

Did I include a copy of James Hilton's "Lost Horizon"? Let me check!

 

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Ich radle um die Welt

 

 

Das Abenteuer "Rund um unsere Welt per Fahrrad" war damals vor über dreißig Jahren so einmalig, daß die großen Rundfunkanstalten jahrelang im Schulfunk darüber berichteten. Meine Bücher "Ich radle um die Welt" wurden von Millionen Deutschen gelesen. Das war einmal."

So schrieb Heinz Helfgen noch kurz vor seinem Tod am 28. Oktober 1990 in dem Vorwort zu der Neuausgabe seines Buches in 1988. Als Junge hatte ich seine zweibändige Erstausgaben "Ich radle um die Welt: Von Düsseldorf bis Burma" und "Ich radle um die Welt: Burma, Indochina, Japan, USA, Grüne Hölle" verschlungen. Beide Bände und die einbändige Neuausgabe stehen heute noch auf dem Regal in meiner Bibliothek.

 

 

Der erste Band begann mit den Worten, "Mein Entschluß. mit dem Fahrrad unseren geliebten alten Erdball zu umrunden, kam sehr plötzlich. Ich sagte mir: 'Du lebst nur einmal, und es geschieht so viel in der Welt. Du liest kleine Zeitungsnotizen as fremden Ländern - und niemals darfst du selbst dabeisein, wenn irgend etwas los ist!' Wieso darfst du's eigentlich nicht? dachte ich. Darfst du's wirklich nicht?"

Nach fast siebzig Jahren kann ich jetzt nur noch ahnen ob seine ersten Worte dazu beitrugen daß ich später nach Australien auswanderte. Das Reisen war mir schon im Blut gewesen nachdem ich als damaliger Volksschüler und in der Fahrtenkluft der "Fahrender Gesellen" per Anhalter schon fast jedes Land im westlichen Europa besucht hatte.

Vielleicht passten die ersten Worte in der Neuausgabe mehr zu meiner Situation: "War es der Mut der Verzweiflung oder ein unbändiges Selbstvertrauen? Ich weiß es nicht und habe es nie gewußt. Tollkühn war es jedenfalls ..." Heinz Helfgen fuhr los mit 3,80 DM und 15 Kilo Gepäck. Ich hatte mehr Gepäck aber weniger Geld denn alles was ich hatte nachdem ich meine geliebte Briefmarkensammlung verhökert hatte, zahlte ich der australischen Regierung für meine Schiffsreise.

Seine letzten Worte waren: "Aber das Wunder war geschehen. Nach zweieinviertel Jahren Weltumradlung winkte die Heimat ..." Und sie winkte auch mir, denn nach zwei Jahren fuhr ich kurzentschlossen wieder nachhause. Aber das Zuhause daß für mich schon vor meiner Abreise kein Zuhause gewesen war, hatte sich auch nicht verändert.

Meine neue Heimat winkte und fünfzehn Monate später war ich wieder in Australien. Und vierzig Jahre später kaufte ich mir die zweibändige Erstaufgabe und Neuausgabe der Bücher des Heinz Helfgens wieder.

 

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Der grosse Sprachumbau

 

 

The renaissance of left-wing politics also brings with it a new form of its language. After the disaster of global Marxism in 1989, the left successfully reinvented itself with identity politics, without encountering significant resistance.

 

 

Perceived injustices are updated, corresponding terms invented and quickly established. Thus, old left-wing clichés receive a fresh linguistic coat of paint. While there have long been books on "right-wing" vocabulary, there has been no analysis of left-wing language until now. The linguist and journalist Matthias Heine fills this gap with the present book. He explains what the left says – and what it really means.

Left-wing framing everywhere. New victim groups are created with terms like "global South," "trans children," "postcolonialism," "marginalized," or "structure." With the adjective "critical," universities are transformed into ideology factories. And "toxic" or "Islamophobia" are meant to describe political opponents as mentally ill. "Controversial," of course, always refers to others.

Von der Bannung von "Negerküssen" hatte ich gehört und auch dass man "Zigeunerschnitzel" nicht mehr essen darf, aber "Schwarzarbeit"? Die ist doch jetzt ganz korrekt benannt denn das machen doch die Schwarzen. Also, Rom brennt lichterloh und die Akademiker diskutieren weiter.

"Vorwärts, Kameraden, wir müssen zurück!"

 

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Through the flyscreen darkly

 

 

As I contemplate the early morning unfold through the flyscreen darkly from the bedroom window, I think of all those friends I have already left behind. They never had the chance to see this new world we now live in which, despite its many faults, has brought us many good things as well as the benefit of hindsight.

My best friend never saw a video or CD player, had only heard of fax machines and computers, and his only entertainment was a scratchy little transistor radio that he kept on top of the fridge in the kitchen. That and The Daily Telegraph were his only connection with the world.

Through my work alone, I had been more exposed to this new world of interconnectivity, and yet even I sometimes still marvel at how I went from the slide rule and a book of logarithms to a computer in my back-pocket, all in one lifetime. And now we are facing artificial intelligence as if our natural stupidity wasn't already giving us enough trouble.

 

 

At moments like these I seek the sanctuary of my cosy library which is still as I left it late last night, with the books by Geoffrey Blainey still under 'B' and just before Alain de Botton and Albert Camus and Joseph Conrad. In the 'G' section, Graham Greene has one whole shelf to himself, and more than half a shelf is reserved for Hermann Hesse, while W. Somerset Maugham's books take up more than two shelves.

 

 

Why can't life be as orderly and the same way I left it the night before? I guess, that's what my library is for: to give me the illusion that I am still in full control of my life even though it is madly spinning out of control.

 

 

Of course, I have separate sections for philosophy, business and economics, sailing and seamanship, and even a small collection of German books to keep me in touch with books I used to read before English became first my adopted and then my favourite language.

 

 

Apart from my childhood heroes Heinz Helfgen and Heinrich Harrer and books by Erich Kästner, I grew up with Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass and Erich Maria Remarque, to which I later added Hermann Hesse and Hans Fallada and Joseph Roth, and they are all still on my book shelves.

 

 

Travel books and books on languages and linguistics have their own home in the "Red House", and there's also a collection of books inside "Melbourne" to save me the decision of what book to take with me.

 

 

Don't tell Padma that I let you into my inner sanctum as even she isn't allowed in here. She'll WhatsApp me when breakfast is ready, and I may go across to the house to have it with her or bring it back here to eat surrounded by my friends, these hundreds if not thousands of books.

 

 

I have even been known to forget what time it is and to fall asleep in the library because, as they say, book lovers never go to bed alone.

 

 

Wait, I've just received a WhatsApp message. Breakfast must be ready!

 

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Howards End is on the Landing

 

 

It began like this. I went to the shelves on the landing to look for a book I knew was there. It was not. But plenty of others were and among them I noticed at least a dozen I realised I had never read.

I pursued the elusive book through several rooms and did not find it on any of them, but each time I did find at least a dozen, perhaps two dozen, perhaps two hundred, that I had never read.

And then I picked out a book I had read but had forgotten I owned. And another and another. After that came the books I had read, knew I owned and realised that I wanted to read again."

 

 

This 'Starting Point' from Susan Hill's "Howards End is on the Landing" reminded me of what happened when I started to put together that eclectic pile of books for my friend's guests library - click here.

As I got into it deeper and deeper - I now have piled up more than five hundred books to be rehomed to Merimbula soon - the same happened to me as had happened to Susan Hill: "I wanted to reposssess my books, to explore what I had accumulated over a lifetime of reading, and to map this house of many volumes. There are enough here to divert, instruct, entertain, amaze, amuse, edify, improve, enrich me for far longer than a year and every one of them desrves to be taken down and dusted off, opened and read. A book which is left on a shelf is a dead thing but it is also a chrysalis, an inanimate object packed with the potential to burst into new life. Wandering through the house that day looking for one elusive book, my eyes were opened to how much of that life was stored here, neglected or ignore."

 

 

Actually, I came across "Howards End is on the Landing" via its sequel "Jacob’s Room is Full of Books", which I picked up at the Mogo Bookshop for eight dollars for no better reason than that the new owner is from Cape Town, and we talked about Cape Town and South Africa and South African writers, at the end of which I couldn't leave empty-handed.

 

Has he a different dressing gown and bow tie for each of his book?

 

Unless you have read Virginia Woolf's "Jacob's Room", the book's title "Jacob’s Room is Full of Books" doesn't make much sense - in fact, it makes no sense even if you have read Virginia Woolf's book. As for the rest, let the man in his dapper dressing gown and bow tie tell you more.

 

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