RANDOM HARVEST is one of the two James Hilton novels I re-read about every five years or so (the other is LOST HORIZON).

It's an engrossing tale of a man who loses his memory due to being shelled in the Great War, eventually finds happiness with a young actress, and then is knocked down on a Liverpool street. He regains consciousness and knows he's a member of a prominent and wealthy family. He begins to reconstruct his life again, knowing all the while that something - and someone - is missing. Eventually he takes over the reigns of the family business and restores it to success, and becomes a successful politician as well. Behind the scenes his enigmatic wife quietly sees to arrange dinner parties and gatherings for the people he must deal with. It seems she was his secretary after he returned to the family business...

If this sounds vaguely familiar, it's because RANDOM HARVEST became one of the screen's best-loved romantic films in 1942, starring Ronald Colman and Greer Garson (this was the year of Miss Garson's Oscar triumph in MRS. MINIVER, but she's equally good here).

RANDOM HARVEST is well worth seeking out - it was enormously popular and often turns up in used bookstores. It's a pity today's readers aren't as familiar with Hilton (other than LOST HORIZON) as he was a wonderful storyteller.

He was also quite clever - I recommend reading the novel before seeing the film, as it features a particular plot device which couldn't be duplicated in the film version, although it works very well on the page.

On the eve of World War 2, Charles Ranier, a somewhat reclusive Captain of English industry, strikes up a friendship with young Harrison, and takes him on as personal secretary. Harrison proves therapeutic, helping Ranier to reminisce and thereby fill in a memory gap from the time he was wounded by a shell blast in France during World War 1 until he recalled his pre-wound identity three years later. Mr. Hilton deals with shell-shock not in the sense of catatonic stares, but as a mystery that unravels in non-sequential flashbacks to the time period of Ranier’s memory gap. The story recovers Ranier’s memories with a Downton Abbey-esque flourish of portrayals of boorish rich, the family’s wise butler and stately mansion, later contrasted with Ranier’s amnesiac wanderings through the seedy side of low-brow theater life. An angel of mercy assists Ranier in evading recapture by the sanitarium as he experiences the drunken optimism of World War 1 Armistice Day, life in her bawdry, map-cap theater troupe, and indispensable aid from an eccentric parson. Ranier’s “dark days” of Bohemian wanderings are rendered with a deft tone as we are given a keen sense of his mental fragility and insecurities, while at the same time he exhibits a gentlemanly dignity that is very much at odds with his surroundings. In the end, Ranier’s mystery is solved with a memorable turn of events.

Was this review helpful? I am an avid world war based fiction reader and author. You can read more of my takes at https://brodiecurtis.com/curtis-takes/.

I had seen "Random Harvest" with Ronald Coleman & Greer Garson some years ago but remembered the film which some areas were a little confusing like Kitty's relationship to Charles but other than that an enjoyable classic movie. My reads are random as well as planned & "Random Harvest" was a random pick after looking at e books offers via an e mail. I was intrigued at reading yet another movie I had seen as a classic movie and to see the difference in the two. I loved this book & recommend the movie too! The author James Hilton was an English writer who also did Hollywood screen plays. He wrote "Lost Horizon" & "Goodbye Mr. Chips" both have movie versions which I plan on reading in the future. What I found so intriguing about "Random Harvest" published in 1941 were the thoughts of the characters about both WW1 & WW2 and to me reading something that is written in times of crisis with an uncertain future is profound. I have many quotes which I will put at the end of the review. But the story is a romantic in the main which the movie portrayed as well.

The book starts on Armistice Day, November 11, 1937 and is narrated by Mr. Harrison who is telling the story of Charles Rainer with flash backs that Charles relates to him limited as they are because he has suffered "Shell Shock" from his service in WW1. His memory comes back to him one rainy day in Liverpool but the previous 2 years are lost & his desire to know these years is immense. He comes back home to an ill rich father & his siblings who find his return unpleasant since they thought him dead. He lives his life but certain things he sees reminds him this some past that he can't remember. This book is divided into 5 sections which are long & have a different focus on the story. I found out in this book how deadly the Flu of 1918.

Excerpts-"Most of us were both--tired of the war and everything connected with it, eager to push ahead into something new. We soon stopped hating the Germans, and just as soon we began to laugh at the idea of anyone caring enough about the horrid past to ask us that famous question on the recruiting posters--'What did you do in The Great War?' But even the most cynical of us couldn't see ahead to a time when the only logical answer to that question would be another--'Which Great War?'When a placard that proclaimed "Collapse of England" regarding a cricket match - quotes are in French & German."Just think of it--'Debacle de la France' or 'Untergang Deutschlands' . . . Impossible . . . but here it means nothing because we don't believe it could ever happen--and that's not wishful thinking---it's neither wishing nor thinking, but a kind of inbreathed illusion . . ."

"On the contrary, I feel rather inclined to treat my mind as one does a clock when it won't go--give it a shake-up and see what happens . . ."

"For the public would not yet look squarely into that evil face (publishers were still refusing "war books") and few also were those who feared the spectre might return."

" 'You're probably right. But think of all the things that are better left undone.''The day will come when men may be killed for laughing.''And that will also be the day when men laugh at killing' "About Chamberlain's & Hitler signing Munich Pact"That negation was performed, if performed is the word; talking, listening, and drinking the merged into a sigh of exhausted relief, and only a few Cassandra voices, among whom was Rainer's, murmured that no miracle had really happened at all. But national hysteria urged that it had, and that one must not say otherwise, even if it hadn't."

"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 any sense, . . ."

"But wait till they've experienced the supplanters--if we are supplanted. A time may cons when cowed and brutalized world may look back on the period of English domination as the golden ages of history . . . ."

"It's sickening now of the deadliest of modern diseases--popular approval without private faith; it will die because it demanded a crusade and we gave it a press campaign, because it's worth our passion and we deluge it with votes of confidence and acts of indifference."

Old the radio- Matinee Theater- January 7, 1945

https://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com...

James Hilton expands on the basic plot of Rebecca West's WWI novella in his novel Random Harvest. Charles Rainer, severely wounded and concussed in 1917, awakens on a park bench in Liverpool in a pouring rain. He discovers that several years have passed since his injury and has no memory of what has happened during that time.

The novel, recounted in part by a man he meets on a train whom becomes his personal secretary, and by Carles himself, follows the former soldier as he struggles to reintegrate with his family. The missing time period leaves him unsettled and seems unrecoverable as the years pass. Pressured by events, he becomes involved in the family business, eventually marries - but has no children - enters politics, and becomes wealthy and a moderately recognized person in society. As the Second World War approaches, Charles feels more ill-at-ease with the gap in his memory and small details begin to reemerge until in a theater he views a comedy from the First War that unlocks his memory. What he recalls may turn his entire life upside down.

Though his style is early to mid-20th century, there is little doubt about James Hilton's skill as a writer and his eye as an observer of English society, particularly during the period between the wars. The novel is full of wry observations, of pointed criticisms, and some fulsome praises. Charles is the primary character and as such his development is front and center. The plot is drawn out and the significance of the missing time period cleverly masked until it is revealed.

I love James Hilton. Lost Horizon…Goodbye Mr Chips.. and now Random Harvest.

I can only describe his writing as ethereal.

When reading his works, I am transported to a different place. I am placed upon the cusp of this world and another unseen world. And the beauty of this unseen world is right there…so close I can almost touch it.

This quote from the book:

“We missed our ways years ago and found a wide, comfortable road, fine for sleepwalkers, but it had the major drawback of wandering just anywhere, at random.”

And:

“I think one can make up for lost time, but one can’t salvage it. That’s why his quest is so hopeless.”

His writing shakes me as I sleepwalk down my wide, comfortable road. There is something more out there….right there….I can almost grasp it.

What a magnificent book with a GREAT story!

4* Lost Horizon (1933)
3* So Well Remembered (1945)
5* The Passionate Year (1924)
4* Terry (1927)
4* Catherine Herself (1920)
4* Good-Bye, Mr. Chips (1934)
4* The Meadows of the moon (1927)
4* Morning Journey (1951)
5* Random Harvest (1941)
TR We Are Not Alone (1937)
TR Time and Time Again (1953)
TR Nothing So Strange (1947)

A mystery, a romance, a history of England between the wars. An utterly spellbinding story of lost identity and lost love.

I should confess I've always had a soft spot for the B&W movie, even though it is ridiculously melodramatic, or maybe because of that, but defintely because it starred the gloriously beautiful Greer Garson who could make a young boy roll up a sock and stuff it in his own mouth to prevent himself from crying with joy every time she appears on screen.

The book is a beautifully structured story switching between first person and third, to tell the story of a WW1 shell shock victim who loses his memory (twice) and struggles to care about a world full of people who understand even less than he does. The way his life, and losses, are revealed is masterful and the author captures emotion in the most unsentimental yet effective ways. I guarantee the last page twist will make you bite back the tears.

Just the most wonderful, unexpected story. Lovely to discover this 52 years into my life.

Charles Rainier has a rising political career, a beautiful and charming wife, a fine country home, and a successful business, but he is missing something - about 2 years of his life. He was wounded during World War I and received a head injury. From the time of his injury in a trench in Germany to over 2 years later when he 'came to himself' on a park bench in England, he can't remember a thing. This is the story of his life, his romances, and his ultimately successful attempt to figure out who he is.

I really enjoyed this book. It's set during the rise of Hitler and the coming war sort of hovers over all the action. It sounds like it would be sort of sappy or something, but instead I just kept wanting to read more. I put it in the 'love' category because I heard it called a love story. It is, but you don't get the payoff to the love story until the very end of the book, so the rest of the time, it just reads like the story of man torn between his family obligations and his own desires. So good.

I saw the movie a decade or so ago. The movie's better.

This book joins Remains of the Day and Howard's End in that aspect. They have this absolutely devastating instance of human relationship that could and should be the focus of the novel. Instead, the author is like, y'all let's water down all this pathos with hundreds of pages of what should be an essay instead of a novel. (The movies, however, say, people don't care about the author's vanilla social commentaries, but they sure like seeing and empathizing tragic romantic situations. Hint: people care about other people and how they feel.)

There was zero need to get into the ups and downs of the British stock market in the 20s. Or how boring and British Charles' family is. Or flirting with his niece. Vast amounts of this book could have been removed for its betterment.

I understand that the juxtaposition between Charles with and without a past is important. That's the pathos, baby. But Part Two really could've just been, like, two pages, and the sentiment would've been adequately portrayed.

I like books that invite you to ponder deeply, to reflect on your perspective, to weigh hard choices against harder choices. This book isn't like that at all. I think it tries to be. But instead of painting a picture and letting the reader interpret, this book monologues and sermonizes and lectures. So freaking boring.

C- though for the premise.

After seeing the movie with Ronald Coleman and Greer Garson, I really wanted to read the book. I wasn't disappointed. The movie doesn't exactly follow the book, but I still enjoyed both. The differences gave slightly different perspectives on the same interesting problem. James Hilton also wrote Lost Horizon and Good-bye, Mr. Chips. Loved both these books, as well.

Random Harvest is yet another book I read on the recommendation of a columnist I now think was trying to drive me insane. Naturally I knew who James Hilton is, but I’d never read anything of his and am not going to read anything else. The book is best suited to readers more familiar than I with the [social] class system which controlled British values more than 80 years ago. Simply reading about what made a “gentleman” different from his fellow citizens doesn’t enable me to understand the fundamental effect this difference made in English lives, leaving much of the behavior in Random Harvest inexplicable* at best (out-and-out dumb in the eyes of the less charitable). So once again it’s proven that I’m unworthy of a previous millennium’s classics, and that you’re wasting your time reading my reviews of them.

*In my defense I will say that 80 years ago the marital affairs of British royalty was not the subject of tell-all tabloids, so it’s reasonable to think that if Random Harvest were written today about one of the desert wars’ veterans it would be a very different book. One that I could have understood the point of, hopefully.