Goodbye, Mr. Chips

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 story is understated yet full of heart. I love the original black and white Robert Donat (sp?) movie of this -- I saw it as a boy and was unusually touched by it; it has stuck vividly in my mind these last 30 years. I recently saw the much newer Peter O'Toole version, which was also good -- but the original movie was sublime and altogether more sophisticated. The author apparently wrote the story quickly and easily basing it to some degree on his own father. It was clearly written from the heart, the prose is simple and direct yet sensitive and thoroughly charming. A delight to read.The story contrasts the quiet, simplicity and order of an old English public school in the decades around the turn of the centuary (~1900). It touches on the Great War with typical British understatement. It describes the life of a school master until his death in old age...a lovely, but necessarily sad story. Quite beautiful.Another book, longer and a little more challenging from the same period and with a similar feel is "Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man" by Sigfried Sasson. Do not be put off by the title.

I marveled at this book, which passed my tests with flying colors. Mr. Chips was a delightful and subtle balance of a lovable, caring teacher and a mildly pathetic person...so real...so true to life. It's the story of an unfulfilled man who falls into his place in the world and grows to accept it as best he can, and becomes loved by others in the process. I found myself increasingly awed by the writer's style as the book proceeded. There was an extreme comfort in his flow, like he knew exactly what he wanted to say and how to say it. He was brief yet descriptive, sometimes so perfectly and marvelously descriptive that it really brought me hook, line and sinker into the world of his story - rare in a book, and especially in one so gentle and tender. It was no surprise for me to find he wrote the book in four days - this book was no hard labor of creation...this book flowed from his essence. I don't think a book can get much better than this. This is what writing is all about. I wish libraries were full of books of this quality.

James Hilton's work sometimes shows its age from the vantage point of sixty five years later. In the case of Lost Horizon, the story becomes a set piece, lost in its 1930s era assumptions. Random Harvest is rarely read, as its voice also seems better suited to BBC makeover dramas than poignant reading. Hilton's simple, sentimental story about an English school teacher, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, remains as unabashedly accessible as it must have been when it was written.The story recaps the professional life of a devoted teacher. But Mr. Chipping is not the "to the ramparts" crusader we see in our current movies of the week. Unlike Hard Times or the sloganeering of our current political debates, Goodbye, Mr. Chips is not a call for wholesale reform of an educational system. Instead, Hilton uses the Chipping character as a metaphor for the value of education in giving the student that most elusive of the commodities of civilization, a sense of proportion. The novel's style is magazine fiction in the best sense of the phrase. The story is propelled jauntily along, through flashbacks and ironic anecdote. Although the author's approach may be said to be sentimental, the construction of the plot and the direct yet subtle way in which the themes are driven home are quite appealing. Hilton wrote at the time that "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" was written in a single burst, with little need for revision (a work of "inspiration"). The book does indeed read as though the author understood the potential in his story from the opening paragraph onward.Mr. Chips' schoolbound world is not a "real world" in many ways, and yet the novel retains a sense of warmth and reality that many schoolboy days books cannot sustain. Hilton squeezes into a brief novella gentle wit, a mild love story, and shrewd observations about the importance of a sense of permanence. In some ways, Mr. Chipping is a metaphor for the survival of English middle-class life in the wake of the first world war. We might also view Hilton's creation of Mr. Chipping in the late 1930s as an attempt to preserve the English middle-class sense of proportion and the rightness of things for a generation under the shadow of the impending war against fascism. Whether we take Goodbye, Mr. Chips as an extended metaphor, or merely as a crackling good read, we are drawn again and again to its quiet, direct story and simple message. In a time when we are rediscovering the virtues of simplicity, perhaps it is time we rediscovered the value of educators who pass our values through the generations. This English novel retains its relevance to contemporary people worldwide. Hilton's simplest novel may well be considered his best one. I highly recommend this slim volume.

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.