Random Harvest is told in first person from the perspective of a man named Harrison. He meets Charles Rainier who is suffering from memory loss, but has flashes of familiarity with places or experiences from time to time on a train and they strike up a conversation. We learn that Rainier is currently a successful businessman and speaker, and in the first part of the book he confides his malady to Harrison. In part 2, Rainer goes on to relate to Harrison about his recent life since the time he remembers waking up on a park seat in Liverpool. Later in the novel we learn about Rainier’s life before that time. Hilton keeps us waiting until the very last sentence in the book, however, to reveal an unexpected detail. Well written and entertaining.Random Harvest is told in first person from the perspective of a man named Harrison. He meets Charles Rainier who is suffering from memory loss, but has flashes of familiarity with places or experiences from time to time on a train and they strike up a conversation. We learn that Rainier is currently a successful businessman and speaker, and in the first part of the book he confides his malady to Harrison. In part 2, Rainer goes on to relate to Harrison about his recent life since the time he remembers waking up on a park seat in Liverpool. Later in the novel we learn about Rainier’s life before that time. Hilton keeps us waiting until the very last sentence in the book, however, to reveal an unexpected detail. Well written and entertaining.

I don't write reviews by telling you what the book is about but I will comment about how much I liked it. I am a 71 year old man who has spent the last five or six years reading at least one book a week. I have been rambling through a lot of books that I should have read 50 or more years ago. Random Harvest is one of those. I just finished reading Lost Horizon for the second time in the last 14 months and decide I should try another book by James Hilton. It was a great choice. It is a beautifully written love story that had me wondering where it was going and how it would work out. Was I ever surprised. At my age it happens a lot easier than in the past but I have to say I had tears in my eyes when I finished. One of my favorite books of the year.

There's something about James Hilton's novels that generates in me a powerful emotional connection to both the characters and the "idea" explored in the work--in this case, the vertigo, confusion, and desire to re-gain a lost past felt by Britons as they entered the darkest days of WWII. Hilton's work can be passionate without being overly-sentimental, can explore the past without relying on easy nostalgia, can remain hopeful without resorting to unrealistic expectations, and can instill a hope for future unity without seeming preachy or nationalistic. Plus, the guy is an expert in plot structure.

I had already seen the movie Random Harvest, so I knew the main details of the plot and twist ending. (Indeed, the ending of that movie is among my favorites in classic Hollywood cinema.) Even so, I found myself surprised by the details and (important) subplots in Hilton's novel that were not emphasized on the big screen--specifically the events with the parson, who obviously represents the rapidly fading eccentric old England.

I much prefer Hilton's plot structure to that of the film, if only because the ending emphasizes the twist, whereas the film audience already has knowledge of the situation. (I'm being vague to avoid spoilers.)

I can also understand why this was one of the best-selling novels of the war period. How many readers in 1940 would have felt like they were emerging from a twenty-year sleepwalk? I think Hilton is unfairly labelled a "popular writer," as if he is merely pop-philosophizing for entertainment. I think it's a testament to his skills as a novelist that his works could be thought-provoking, resonate emotionally with readers, AND be adapted into so many classic films.

I think this book is much better than "Good-bye Mr. Chips." Much more interesting and readable, to me. I enjoyed the story and the characters very much. Who wouldn't be intrigued by Charles Ranier? A fun book. (The movie is great, too. Greer Garson. I don't know if you should read the book first or see the movie first. They're a little different, but the movie might help you understand the book? I loved them both.)

I thought the movie was better. The narrative was a little wandering and hard to follow. Overall I enjoyed it, but it lagged at parts.

An unabashedly romantic book, that can be read many times. The construction of the story (moving back and forth between the two separate lives of the hero) is jarring at first, but supremely effective.

If you don't know the plot (and haven't seen the wonderful film with Greer Garson and Ronald Colman), the last page holds a special thrill for you.

This is a book for people who love The Time Traveler's Wife and books like it.

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Random Harvest, by James Hilton.
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Random Harvest remains, somehow, the quintessential romantic tale, of a love that isn't limited to youth and attraction and looks but is deeply human and of soul, enduring and tenacious for years. It remains the quintessential story of memory loss due to shock, and too, it's the quintessential Hilton novel, despite his many other excellent works.

Reading it yet again after another gap of over two decades, it's strange to realise it begins differently from what one remembers, albeit with dark clouds of war gathering, in November 1937.
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" “I’ve been in these rooms before-often. Fellow with the disarming name of Pal had them in my time-‘native of Asia or Africa not of European parentage,’ as the University regulations so tactfully specify. High-caste Hindoo. Mathematician-genius in his own line-wonder what he’s doing now?-probably distilling salt out of sea-water or lying down in front of trains or some other blind-alley behaviour. Used to say he felt algebra emotionally-told me once he couldn’t read through the Binomial Theorem without tears coming into his eyes -the whole concept, he said, was so shatteringly beautiful…"

Apart from colonial racism, there is an extra effort there to literally wipe out India as a nation, a culture ancient and surviving, and all her treasure, and then simultaneously ridiculing it. The description of the mathematical genius might fit others from India, apart from the famous Ramanujan, but surely Hinduism is identified with India, survives not much outside India, and Hilton wasn't so ignorant he thought Africa was close to India?

" ... and one evening Pal and I-sounds sentimental, doesn’t it, Pal and I?-lined up in a queue that stretched half-way round Trinity Great Court to hear a lecture by a fellow named Eddington about some new German fellow named Einstein who had a theory about light bending in the middle-that brought the house down, of course-roars of laughter-just as you heard tonight only more so-good clean undergraduate fun at its best. And behind us on the wall the portrait of Catholic Mary scowled down on this modern audience that scoffed at science no less than at religion. Heretics indeed-and laughing heretics! But my pal Pal didn’t laugh-he was transfixed with a sort of ecstasy about the whole thing."

So he ought to have understood the superior quality of consciousness of Pal, who was his friend, and possibly tried being less of a racist colonial.
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"I’m talking about the QUALITY of the man, not his opportunities."

Says a retired Cambridge professor about Charles Rainier, the male figure central to the story, to Harrison, his secretary, who is the protagonist and is caring about Rainier as several others about him are, too.

This 'quality of the man' is a theme running through most of Hilton stories, whether so mentioned or not, labeled or not, and it reaches its highest peak in Lost Horizon where Conway reaches a high peak of experience and more, but it's felt through his most other works, from an obvious Goodbye, Mr. Chips, to a much less obvious So Well Remembered or Time After Time.

It's not that the men or their qualities, characters, or histories are similar. The best one can describe it a spiritual character not related to religions or observances thereof, but a quest within that may not manifest in life.

In this work it runs parallel to the quest of Rainier for the missing part of his life. And Random Harvest remains the quintessential romantic story because, for once, the man isn't alone spiritually; the consort, felt as a fleeting elusive shadow, is constantly beside him, so to speak, revealed only much later, but known all along.
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A theme recurring through Hilton's works, apart from the town name Browdley that is mentioned in this work too, is that of cotton mills of Lancashire, again encountered here:-

" ... my great-great-grandfather made his pile out of the first steam-driven cotton mills in Lancashire. You may imagine Stourton, therefore, peopled with the ghosts of Negroes and little children.”"

One has to wonder if, that tidbit, it's Hilton's own history. For that matter, notice the names of Rainier homes - Kenmore and Stourton - wonder if that's personal history too, for Hilton. He sets Stourton close to West Berkshire, perhaps in or near Hampshire, but not anywhere near the industrial Stourton in Leeds, the only one of that name in maps; and Kenmore is set a bus ride away from central London, similarly, far from the small village in Perthshire.
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Another familar bit, if one has read Knight Without Armour, where the story is included:-

"“Tell me about the story.”

"“Oh, it was nothing much-just a rather feeble yarn about a Russian soldier returning from the front after the Revolution.”

"“What happened to him?”

"“Nothing exciting. He just roamed about the country trying to find where he lived.”

"“Had he-had he lost his memory?”

"“No, he was just a simple fellow-couldn’t read and write-all he could give was the name of the village and a description of it that might equally have applied to ten thousand other Russian villages. The government officials wouldn’t bother with him, because he couldn’t fill out the proper forms, so he just had to go on wandering vaguely about trying to find the place.”

"“And did he-eventually?”

"“He was run over by a train and carried to a neighbouring village where he died without knowing that it actually was the one he’d been looking for… of course you might have guessed that.”

"“Having read Gogol and Chekhov, I think I might.”

"“I know, it was just an imitation. I haven’t any real originality-only a technique. I suppose Rainier realized that. So I’d better stick to the catalogues.”"

Does it end this way in Knight Without Armour, is difficult to recall, since one is overwhelmed by the main story therein, and too the background of Russian revolution, and, not the least, the landscape itself.
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" ... It rather surprised as well as pleased him to realize that he had been remembered so well; ... "

Therein the genesis of title of So Well Remembered?

" ... He wished he hadn’t told the Liverpool tailor to throw away his original torn and rain-sodden suit; it might have afforded some clue to the mystery. He pondered over it intermittently, but the effort merely tired him and brought nearer to the surface an always submerged sadness, that sense of bewildering, pain-drenched loss. ... "

"Sheldon wrote to him regularly, giving him news of Stourton, but there wasn’t much to relate: Mr. Rainier kept about the same; Sanderstead and Truslove were still quarrelling; while the family chafed more restively, finding Stourton rather dull to do nothing in, and wondering how long they must wait before they could decently decide to return to their respective homes. Not, of course, that they wanted the old man to die, but they clearly felt they shouldn’t have been sent for so soon; on top of which Charles’s return had somehow disturbed their equilibrium, for if there is one thing more mentally upsetting to a family than death, it must be (on account of its rarity) resurrection. All of which Charles either deduced from or read between the lines of Sheldon’s direct reportage of facts-such as that Truslove had had an unsatisfactory interview with Dr. Astley, that Chet’s wife was no longer on speaking terms with Bridget, that Chet had taken to spending most of his time practising shots in the billiard-room, that the local vicar had paid a discreet visit hoping to see Charles, and that the weather was still fine, but the barometer beginning to fall."

" ... He was aware that all the family viewed him with curiosity and some with suspicion, and that intimacy with any of them would probably lead to questions about himself that he could not answer."

"Suddenly he found himself on his feet and addressing them; it was almost as if he heard his own voice, spoken by another person. “I’m sure I thank you all very much, and you too, Truslove. The proposal you’ve outlined is extremely generous-TOO generous, in fact. I’m a person of simple tastes-I need very little to live comfortably on-in fact the small income I already have is ample. So I’m afraid I can’t accept your offer, though I do once again thank you for making it.”"

" ... He really hadn’t any definite inclination, either to have the money or not; but his lack of desire for it himself was certainly not balanced by any particular wish that they should be enriched."

"Charles kept up the refusal; the whole family then began to argue about it, with more vehement generosity now that they felt the issue was already decided; but they made the mistake of keeping it up too long, for Charles suddenly grew tired and exclaimed: “All right then, if you all insist, I’ll agree to take it.”

"Truslove beamed on what he imagined to be his own victory; Chet, after a second’s hesitation, came across the room and shook Charles by the hand. “Fine, old chap… Now we’re all set and Truslove can do the rest.” But the others could only stare in renewed astonishment as they forced deadly smiles into the supervening silence."
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"Many days during that strange, almost somnambulist winter of 1938-1939 ... “These are the last days,” he said to me once. “We are like people in a trance-even those of us who can see the danger ahead can do nothing to avert it-like the dream in which you drive a car towards a precipice and your foot is over the brake but you have no physical power to press down. We should be arming now, if we had sense,-arming day and night and seven days of the week,-for if the Munich pact had any value at all it was not as a promise of peace to come, but as a last-minute chance to prepare for the final struggle. And we are doing NOTHING-caught in the net of self-delusion and self-congratulation. We don’t realize the skill and magnitude of the conspiracy-the attempt to reverse, by lightning strokes, the whole civilized verdict of two thousand years.”"
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"“There’s only one thing more important,” he answered, “and that is, after you’ve done what you set out to do, to feel that it’s been worth doing.”"
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" ... it’s a bad play-a bad play. Why do they always choose it for school use? The pound of flesh-gruesome. The Jewish villain-disgustingly anti-Semitic. ... "
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Beginning of return of memory for Rainier is depicted very differently in the film. They've kept a couple of bits such as the fez related recognition without knowing that its a recognition, or the dialogue about enquiry for the hospital on the hill, but changed other surrounding ones, chiefly his staying on as a gardener until summer, or his connection with the play that triggers his memory. In the film it's been turned to their being in the same town accidentally that brings recognition before he realises it. Mainly it's changed in that his escape from the asylum is immediately followed by Paula taking him away, rather than the months of interim survival and getting better while she nurses him and subsequently visits.

So in the film he's helpless while she brings him to safety up north, while in the original work he's recovered except for his memory, and needs only respite from being hunted by authorities. And too, here his working with Paula's theatre group has a discovery about his persona involved in that being desirable for them.

" ... I think it was probably because they could all see you were such a gentleman.”"

And skipping this whole thing avoids the complications about his accidentally injuring a railway policeman, without having noticed it, but also then skips the discovery of the paradise village overlooked by the double summit with a pool in between, visible only when one comes to it, that plays a part in the story.

Yet another change from book to film, of course, is the place they married.

"“There’s an office nearly across the street, but for sheer quietness, why don’t you allow me to marry you in my own church? Hardly anyone ever comes to any of the services-it would be the most unnoticed marriage I could possibly imagine…”

"So they were married at St. Clement’s, Vale Street, London, N.W., and as they left the church after the ceremony newsboys were racing down the street offering extra editions-“Peace Treaty Signed at Versailles.” It was June 28, 1919. ... "

Instead, the film replaces the complexity of their married life, after their discovery of the paradise of Beachings Over, in London in frugal circumstances, with an idyllic small cottage with a cherry tree in front, somewhere in country where they've escaped immediately after armistice.
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"“I know that too. There’s something RIGHT about us-about our being together here. And Blampied wants us to stay.”

"“I’d like to stay too. I love that old ugly house.”

"“So do I. And d’you know, I don’t WANT to remember anything now-anything I’ve ever forgotten. It would be so-so unimportant. My life began with you, and my future goes on with you-there’s nothing else, Paula.”

"“Oh, what a lovely thing to tell me! And by the way, HE said he hoped you wouldn’t remember.”

"“Blampied?”

"“Yes. He’s devoted to you.”"

Poignant, knowing he's going next to Liverpool, where an accident brings forth his lost memory, losing memory of interim years and Paula and marriage, instead, for years.
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The end, far more poignant as it was written.
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James Hilton is a writer of a bygone era, but I find myself settling in and getting comfortable when reading his books. I truly enjoyed this and was completely taken in by the reasoning behind Charles' memory lapse. I think though that I figured out the ending a bit soon which made me impatient the last 50 or so pages.

The book lauds the natural character of a true gentleman, the heinousness and cruelty of war where individual soldiers are thrown away to accomplish broader goals, friendship and the triumph of love through a study of a man with a double loss of memory leaving him with two lives unknown to the other and a love that transcends them both, resolving in a stunningly wonderful ending. Along with the psychologically complicated love theme, the book is a condemnation of the random attitude of the British government toward the European crisis, neither decisive in their devastation of Germany nor in their support and friendship, the harvest of which will be another great war.

this is one i keep reading over and over again. an amnesia story -- who is NOT fascinated with amnesia? if i got amnesia, and was lost somewhere and unidentifiable, what kind of life would i make for myself? how close would it be to the one i lost? what influences a person's choices? who is the real ME? a wonderful story, set in england, between the two world wars, and also a love story.

ENGLISH: We are on the eve of World War II. The protagonist lost his memory after a bomb exploded near him during the First World War, but he recovered it three years later, up to the moment of the explosion, although he could not recall anything that had happened since. He is then haunted by partial memories whose origin he cannot pinpoint. The narrator, who becomes his secretary, tries to help him recover his memory.

Excellent novel, with a surprising ending. I liked it better than Goodbye Mr. Chips and Lost Horizon.

ESPAÑOL: Estamos en vísperas de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. El protagonista perdió la memoria después de estallarle encima una bomba durante la primera, pero la recuperó tres años después, hasta el momento de la explosión, aunque no recordaba nada de lo ocurrido desde entonces. Después se ve perseguido por recuerdos parciales cuyo origen no puede localizar. El narrador, que se convierte en su secretario, intenta ayudarle a recuperar la memoria.

Excelente novela, con un final sorprendente. Me ha gustado más que Goodbye Mr. Chips and Lost Horizon.

This book was one of my mother-in-law’s favorite books, and in the 1980s she gave me her copy of the book. Were she still alive I would love to talk with her about the book to discover what she loved so much about it. Random Harvest has become one of my favorite books as well. This time I listed to the audiobook version, which was very well done in 2014 by Carter Thompson, Kelly Hennessy, Rachel Hansen, and Mariah Proctor.