At the Mountains of Madness
Ratings164
Average rating3.8
Undoubtedly the best of his writings: well-paced and entreating all sorts of speculations. Its only categorical flaw is his overuse of ‘decadence' to hammer in his theme of civilisational decline.
Currently my favorite book of all time. I don't read much at all but hopefully I can get myself back into it with the slight assistance of this app. I love phycological horror films like The Lighthouse and Eraserhead. I'd say this is an amazing intro to Lovecraftian horror for most. Unexplainable terror not meant to fully described but merely interpreted in your own way. It's so hard to tell in this and other phycological horrors when the narrator or main character is making something up in their mind or perceiving something truly insane. Lovecraftian horror fascinates me so much.
High 10/10
Great story, a bit slow, but the pay-off is rewarding. Characteristic of Lovecraft, highly atmospheric writing, but the visuals it paints in your mind are grand and eerie. The last few chapters is where it gets really interesting, and more exciting in the vein of adventure, rather than just descriptions and ramblings of geology and architecture. There are parts where Lovecraft deadass uses coordinates, all spelled with latitudes and longitudes, to describe a location. Talk about detailed.
I enjoy Lovecraft's style of horror and writing, and while I understand this story centers around the POV of a single scientist/researcher, so his inner thoughts and speech would come off as more academic than a typically character POV, but for me it was too much. The writing read like an academic journal entry or science textbook from my early college years. Entire paragraphs, and even a couple of chapters, that were putting me to sleep. It's unfortunate because I really enjoyed the mystery/suspense/horror of this story.
I'll still keep reading Lovecraft, but maybe I'll stick to his more popular work for now.
A bit of a dry read honestly, the narrators keeps stating that everything is horrifying and terrible. But the actual content of the story contains two or three instances of anything happening that could be considered frightening. The rest of the story is a study of what seems like a largely interesting ancient civilization - interspersed of course with the narrators statements of how terrifying it is. Fine to kill a few hours.
Oh fuck yes. Classic lit has been so hit or miss for me but man this is the real deal. I've also heard mixed things about H.P. Lovecraft, but he really didn't disappoint.
Respected it rather than liked it.
This is a case of very cool mythos and great concept but later authors have written the same type of stories better. It left me even more impressed by Dracula and Frankenstein, which managed to be great books in their own right even as the blazed a trail.
A lot more geology than you'd expect in a horror novel and HP Lovecraft is not gifted with the writing ability to make descriptions of sediment layers interesting.
The payoff is top notch, loved the description of the shoggoth and the terror the protagonists experienced as they fled the city, really well done but it was too little too late.
Almost but not quite made up for the turgid middle.
The writing incredible. The repetition frustrating. The foundations of future horror - very evident. Lovecraft is masterful.
It started to lose me towards the end but I did enjoy the book. I will admit I was excepting a bit more horror and like an epic monster reveal at the end but it didn't happen like that. It was a very slow unraveling of the life and death of a society of creatures that the scientists are trying to understand. Overall I liked it.
It's six stars or four, I don't know. It was just the last page, and I realized how bad I wanted them to kiss, suck, lick the dead creatures of nightmares, and they were all covered by cherry waves and aurora borealis, scarlet like scars. I would like an even more swallowing, almost erotic fusion. On the last page, I wanted to turn everything around and turn scientists into girls, who will bring a glossy black colour, an autopsy. I heard the kissing sounds of blind tall penguins and white monkeys. I was just dreaming, what is needed for the peak of madness? My cells can't feed. This desire from deep place where the liquid pearl of the writing human mind leaked, clung and filled the very edge of cutout. And it has changed and inflamed me so much, and I want more, to go, beyond the golden edge of cup
Had to read (listen to the audiobook) twice before this made any sort of sense to me. Ridiculously technical and descriptive and there was no dialogue. Did not enjoy it whatsoever.
I liked this. It kinda dragged on in some parts because you have to basically study archeology to understand it all. But it was really interesting and scary over all.
Read along with the audiobook. I recommend doing so! It really creates the right atmosphere.
Absolutely terrifying. Fantastic read. Had the hairs all over my body rising as my latent monkey brain tried to get me to stop reading.
I don't think it's quite as “good”, but it's interesting, more Jules Verne/Jack London/H. Rider Haggard style story. Don't get me wrong, it has the Lovecraft slimy horror stamp :-D I just find the giant blind albino penguins ridiculous :-D
At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft
My reaction to H.P. Lovecraft's “At the Mountains of Madness” is surprising: I liked it.
There are reasons why I shouldn't have liked it. It violates the basic rule of modern writing: show, don't tell. The story is a long information dump as the narrator is able to decipher the prehistory of humanity and repeated invasion of the world by various alien races, including the Old Ones and their slave entities, the shogoths.
Nonetheless, I think I liked the story because it was a call back to the “Golden Age of Science Fiction,” i.e., the 1930s, which were also long on exposition and big ideas. In my youth, I had read a volume of such writing collected by Isaac Asimov, for whom this period was his Golden Age. So, this was something familiar.
The story involves a scientific expedition from Miskatonic University to Antarctica. The expedition intends to test a new kind of drilling rig in order to explore the geological history. A portion of the expedition leaves the narrator at one camp to discover the highest mountains in the world in the center of the continent, strange mummified corpses, and indications of ancient city on mountain tops. The narrator arrives at the camp to find strange happenings and then travels to the lost city to learn about the eldritch pre-history of the world.
There is a lot to criticize here. if you expect a fast-paced action-adventure story. This story is not fast-paced in the slightest. A lot of time is spent getting the expedition to the adventure. A lot of time is spent on dwelling on the scenery and the details of the drilling rig. Then, when the adventure begins, Lovecraft has his narrator spend pages narrating the history of the Old Ones in minute details from statues left behind by them. Frankly, the amount of detail that this character extracts from the statuary is unbelievable. For example, we learn that a fungi/crab creature from Pluto threatened the Old Ones' control of the Earth, which is learned from statuary without a helpful pamphlet or audio-commentary.
What sells the story, though, is the scope of the story, involving deep time and space invaders, which necessitates and excuses the info-dump.
Another departure from modern story-telling is that the narrator really doesn't matter. This story is novella length and we learn that he is a professor of geology who organized the expedition. We don't learn much else about him. Lovecraft doesn't spend a lot of time investing him with quirks or a backstory to make us care for him. But we kind of do care for him and his fellow explorer because they are humans in a strange - weird - situation and we somehow can imagine ourselves in that situation.
So, again, I liked it, although it is dated, but that's part of the charm.
Lovecraft has some cool ideas, and even some pretty good prose, but I think he really falls flat in putting that together into a story.
2.5 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews
Summary
Exploring Antarctica, an expedition chances on ancient biological remains. When the discovering team stops responding, a rescue party discovers a vast, empty city.
Review
I've never been a Lovecraft devotee; the fandom has always seemed a bit cultish, and I'm not a fan of horror to begin with. Still, I thought that after all this time, I should a) see what drives it all, and b) get some context for all those references I miss. With this book, I seem only to have accomplished the latter.
At the Mountains of Madness is fine, but I didn't find it particularly memorable. It was reminiscent of any number of Burroughs and Merritt books, but didn't have the inventive, brash adventure of the one, nor the more compelling prose of the other. I feel somewhat edified - I know something now about Shoggoths, Elder Things, and Cthulhu - but no more drawn to those mysteries than I was before. If I found a Lovecraft book in a lonely cabin, I'd read it, but not if there were also an unread Merritt. Amusing, but not special.
Lovecraft at his best, so far ahead of its time. Wish someone would make this into a film.
3.75 stars. Starts wonderfully strong. Ends okay. One big, disbelief-straining infodump loses a star.
I'd been meaning to read Lovecraft for a while, since I love all the Lovecraft fanart I see on the internet (e.g. this!), and I was in the mood for something weird and about monsters.
This short novel is reminiscent of 19th century horror stuff like Dracula and Frankenstein. The pacing feels a little slow at times, the infodumps are very infodumpy, and the general voice is just super 19th century dude.
Which is fine. I enjoyed the slow build-up to the eventual reveal, and I enjoyed how the TRUE HORRORS (!!)!!)!) which the protagonist keeps alluding to but never actually, totally materialize (I guess it's “read the sequel for more”).
Brief plot: Protagonist Man (didn't get his name), a professor of geology from some New England college, goes on a science expedition with his scientist bro friends (and some grad students and interns, heh) to the Antarctic. They drill some holes. They find some weird striations. When they investigate stuff more, they find, well, CTHULHU. Well, sort of. Cool stuff. Then bad things happen. Then, AFTER the bad stuff, the Professor and his friend decide to go explore those “mountains of madness” and see what's on the other side. I will admit that I did LOL a little at WHAT WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE: I don't think it's spoilery to say they do, at one point, find penguins and marvel at domestic stuff like window hinges. I'm sorry, but it was kinda funny to have them be like, “the horror! the horror! but what good window hinges”. Also, “what good art, that is good, wow”. Hahahaha. Also, okay, how did they literally deduce the entire history of the planet from some (apparently quite good but still just) murals? I know the late 19th century was when folks were pumped about archaeology, but I thought it took them more than a minute to understand the hieroglyphs and the pyramids?! RIGHT?
THE HORROR
All set up, but no pay off. Lovecraft describes a fantastic scenario where scientists discover an ancient and advanced civilization in Antarctica, but nothing ever got me invested in the actions of the characters, so it never gave me chills when they were in danger.