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dan1066 's review for:
At the Mountains of Madness
by H.P. Lovecraft
Less than a fortnight later we left the last hint of polar land behind us, and thanked heaven that we were clear of a haunted, accursed realm where life and death, space and time, have made black and blasphemous alliances in the unknown epochs since matter first writhed and swam on the planet's scarce-cooked crust.
Certain things, we had agreed, were not for people to know and discuss lightly--and I would not speak of them now but for the need of heading off that Starkweather-Moore Expedition, and others, at any cost. It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth's dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.
At the Mountains of Madness is all about setting and atmosphere. Our narrator does not dwell on conversation or action. This is not a thriller, not a page-turner. It's all about the wind moaning through mountain flutes and horrible smells rising from dark pits.
Let's address the Cthulhu in the room: How can an entire polar expedition team be so well-versed in paranormal lore and mythology? Passing through some darkened ruins with a flashlight, the narrator and his sidekick Danforth are able to decipher alien hieroglyphics, providing rich descriptions of the chronology of the Elder Ones' time on Earth before mankind began. We have difficulty determining whether or not the Mayans were predicting the end of the world; here a geologist and a graduate assistant wander a few hours in some corridors and discern which murals represent the height of the civilization and which the decline while understanding the historical message of each. It's a stretch, as more than a few Goodreads reviewers here point out.
But consider this: The title is "At the Mountains of Madness." The narrator, rattling off all this information about wars between Elder Ones, Cthulhu cultures, and Abominable Snowmen, suffers from madness. His graduate assistant, Danforth, is insane; why should we trust the narrator is the voice of calm and reason? Face it, our narrator is not anchored in the real world. He insists everyone knows the lore he is referring to, lore substantiated on alien walls:
Dyer and Pabodie have read Necronomicon and seen Clark Ashton Smith's nightmare paintings based on text, and will understand when I speak of Elder Things supposed to have created all earth-life as jest or mistake.
Really? Dyer and Pabodie are well-versed in paranormal lore? Pabodie, by the way, is the engineer who designed the drill used by the polar exploration team. He may have a side-hobby poring over the Necronomicon, but I seriously wonder. Then the narrator, reading corridor signs, drops this one:
Another race--a land race of beings shaped like octopi and probably corresponding to the fabulous pre-human spawn of Cthulhu--soon began filtering down from cosmic infinity and precipitated a monstrous war which for a time drove the Old Ones wholly back to the sea--a colossal blow in view of the increasing land settlements.
I would love to see the mural that clearly conveys this information--but I don't think it exists. I think the narrator is insane. Since the expedition, he has delved into this lore and is now using it to brace his argument. Did something happen in those polar mountains? Of course--people and dogs died exploring these mountains. Is the narrator reliable? I don't think so.
Without the belief the narrator is unreliable, Lovecraft is a horrid writer rather than a horror writer. Nothing about this story is believable if we accept the narrator's story as unbiased fact. If, rather, we take this story as the ravings of someone driven to madness--and accept something extraordinary occurred to the narrator to drive him there--then the story makes a lot more sense and is more unsettling.
Certain things, we had agreed, were not for people to know and discuss lightly--and I would not speak of them now but for the need of heading off that Starkweather-Moore Expedition, and others, at any cost. It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth's dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.
At the Mountains of Madness is all about setting and atmosphere. Our narrator does not dwell on conversation or action. This is not a thriller, not a page-turner. It's all about the wind moaning through mountain flutes and horrible smells rising from dark pits.
Let's address the Cthulhu in the room: How can an entire polar expedition team be so well-versed in paranormal lore and mythology? Passing through some darkened ruins with a flashlight, the narrator and his sidekick Danforth are able to decipher alien hieroglyphics, providing rich descriptions of the chronology of the Elder Ones' time on Earth before mankind began. We have difficulty determining whether or not the Mayans were predicting the end of the world; here a geologist and a graduate assistant wander a few hours in some corridors and discern which murals represent the height of the civilization and which the decline while understanding the historical message of each. It's a stretch, as more than a few Goodreads reviewers here point out.
But consider this: The title is "At the Mountains of Madness." The narrator, rattling off all this information about wars between Elder Ones, Cthulhu cultures, and Abominable Snowmen, suffers from madness. His graduate assistant, Danforth, is insane; why should we trust the narrator is the voice of calm and reason? Face it, our narrator is not anchored in the real world. He insists everyone knows the lore he is referring to, lore substantiated on alien walls:
Dyer and Pabodie have read Necronomicon and seen Clark Ashton Smith's nightmare paintings based on text, and will understand when I speak of Elder Things supposed to have created all earth-life as jest or mistake.
Really? Dyer and Pabodie are well-versed in paranormal lore? Pabodie, by the way, is the engineer who designed the drill used by the polar exploration team. He may have a side-hobby poring over the Necronomicon, but I seriously wonder. Then the narrator, reading corridor signs, drops this one:
Another race--a land race of beings shaped like octopi and probably corresponding to the fabulous pre-human spawn of Cthulhu--soon began filtering down from cosmic infinity and precipitated a monstrous war which for a time drove the Old Ones wholly back to the sea--a colossal blow in view of the increasing land settlements.
I would love to see the mural that clearly conveys this information--but I don't think it exists. I think the narrator is insane. Since the expedition, he has delved into this lore and is now using it to brace his argument. Did something happen in those polar mountains? Of course--people and dogs died exploring these mountains. Is the narrator reliable? I don't think so.
Without the belief the narrator is unreliable, Lovecraft is a horrid writer rather than a horror writer. Nothing about this story is believable if we accept the narrator's story as unbiased fact. If, rather, we take this story as the ravings of someone driven to madness--and accept something extraordinary occurred to the narrator to drive him there--then the story makes a lot more sense and is more unsettling.