What is Mandalay about?

What is Mandalay about?

The passage below is from The Library: A Fragile History by Andrew Pettegree.

The twentieth century, it soon became clear, would be different. From the first days of radio and then cinema these were real competitors, not just for much-valued leisure time, but also for possession of the imaginative world once shaped primarily by print. This, rather than the fascination for new technology that characterised Europe and North America throughout this century, was

probably the most potent challenge to the supremacy of the book and thus to the long-term viability of the library. Treasured library books could populate the waking mind, and dreams, with distant worlds and adventures. But with radio you could hear the voices, and at the movies you could see King Kong’s massive bulk. These were multimedia experiences. The addition of a skilful soundtrack

trained the regular radio listener or moviegoer to a whole range of emotional responses; a vastly more appealing audioscape than the noise of squabbling siblings jolting you back from Mandalay when curled up for evening reading.

I have a question about underlined Mandalay in the last sentence.

To me it seems a protagonist from a novel ‘you’ are reading about, but ‘you’ are jolted out of Mandalay in whatever novel you’re reading because of the noise of squabbling siblings.

Am I right?

Thanks in advance.