Book Review
Title: Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Author: James Hilton
Publisher: Bantam Books: New York
Date: February 1963 (orig. June 1934)
ASIN: B0BVKBH39Y
It’s been said a million times, but yes, the book is charming. Hilton is a great writer, full of subtlety and nuance while keeping the story moving forward at a pace. The book tells the story of a fictional teacher, Mr. Chipping, who taught at Brookfield school from 1870 to 1913; then brought back out of retirement during the Great War, and re-retired in 1918. He stays connected to the school, living across the street the rest of his life (1933).
In short, Chips is a dull teacher until he marries at age 48 in spring 1896. His personality changes dramatically, and he becomes the most loved teacher at the school. His wife tragically dies after only one year of marriage. The story tells anecdotes and episodes over the years that develop Chips’ amiable and sincere character.
In one episode, Chips is teaching a Latin class when the air raid alarm went off. Chips kept teaching, as the boys became slightly nervous. The bombs started falling nearby but Chips kept teaching. Then it was time for a student to translate the day’s quote out loud to the class, the quote being, “Genus hoc erat pugnae quo se Germani exercuerant.” The boy started translating as the bombs fell in the distance: “This was the kind of fight in which the Germans busied themselves.” (“It was something in Cæsar about the way the Germans fought” [91].) The whole class started laughing and laughing and no longer felt nervous.
One sub-theme is the sense of loss that comes from the fact of the past, which we keep losing, little by little. “What a host of little incidents, all deep-buried in the past—problems that had once been urgent, arguments that had once been keen, anecdotes that were funny only because one remembered the fun. Did any emotion really matter when the last trace of it had vanished from human memory; and if that were so, what a crowd of emotions clung to him as to their last home before annihilation!” (43).
One sentence stands out: “He was a legend” (92). It stands out because of Chips’ profound impact on thousands of boys over the years. But it also stands out because there will be no memory left of Chips the man, no memory of his voice or his actual personality (vis-à-vis his fictional world). All that is left is a mythology of the legend, which may be recalled quite inaccurately on the other side of the wall that is time passing.
Other than being a legend, what was Chips like? He liked teaching children, he liked reading classics in the original Greek and Latin, he liked reading history, he liked reading Sherlock Holmes and other detective stories, and he liked reading all of the above by a warm fireplace, with a cup of tea.
Yes, the book is charming. But it also investigates deeper sentiments of love and life, what makes it all worthwhile. I recommend the novel to all who love novels and history.