About a red headed gal with a penchant for gardening and utopia and an intelligence officer at the end of WWII in search of a lost city. Starting off interesting. This has been compared to Lost Horizon. We'll see how comparable it is.

Endex Review: I can understand comparisons to Lost Horizon but there are some marked differences. Lost Horizon was about the loss of peace in the world but the Shangrila there held rich treasures of culture (lost muscial compisitions) as well as the treasure of Giengus Kahn. It was a civilized hidden kingdom. Not so in Garden to the Eastward. Rather, the treasure of was of a lost view of peace and the beginning of civilization, once peaceful. This was hidden away in Kurdistan amoung simple tribal people and threatened by Russian invaders troubling the tribal waters to allow them a chance to take control.

Sadly, one of my least favorite books by a favored author. Very slow moving overall. The two main characters marry via common law (just annouce to each other they are married, which is legal in my state but rarely done). Not really sure when this happens, they just start referring to each other as husband and wife. I put this book down several times and read other things in the middle of reading through.

There is a seldom spoken of lost generation in the 60s from America. Whole generations are seldom lost. There are alwasy remnants. They traveled to Asia seeking something. A good time, the meaning of life, eastern philosophy, perhaps drugs. Thousands of American young people disappeared into the east. Many never to return or be heard from.

Spoiler alert: The two main characters do the same at the end. Their Eden is lost to the Russians. Not much of an Eden compared to the one in Lost Horizon. It was a small village on a plateu, conquored, and mostly destroyed by the Russians. Their Eden was each other and the simple life they had found living with the Kurds. Before calls to tune in and drop out were ringing to yound poeple in the 60s they slipped away from civilization in hopes of restoring the peacful life they had with the Kurds.
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