At The Mountains of Madness
Sep. 5th, 2025 04:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI have played both Arkham Horror and Call of Cthulhu, so I'm quite familiar with aspects of Lovecraftian horror - but I'd never read any actual Lovecraft fiction until now.
And - unfortunately, I really struggled with At The Mountains of Madness.
It's written from the viewpoint of a geologist who has gone on an expedition to Antarctica and is now writing what is supposed to be a report to dissuade anyone else from ever going there again. But the way it's put together makes very little sense, as he goes into huge amounts of detail about all the early aspects of the expedition, which he keeps saying are already on record because they provided comprehensive reports at the time, which were broadcast in both newspapers and on the radio.
Then, when he reaches the point at which things start going awry, he keeps saying how important it is that he gives the information clearly and in such a way as to be persuasive - but then, again, goes into massive amounts of detail about aspects that have little relevance to his message and deliberately skims over the details of the horror, because he says he can't bring himself to write them down...
Now, I understand that the whole point is that the eldritch horror of Lovecraft is indescribable and sends people mad - but it does mean that I found the large majority of this novella intensely boring.
It did manage to convey a certain sense of the horror in the end, but I didn't feel it worked overall - and I found the writing style extremely dense and quite difficult to follow.
And - unfortunately, I really struggled with At The Mountains of Madness.
It's written from the viewpoint of a geologist who has gone on an expedition to Antarctica and is now writing what is supposed to be a report to dissuade anyone else from ever going there again. But the way it's put together makes very little sense, as he goes into huge amounts of detail about all the early aspects of the expedition, which he keeps saying are already on record because they provided comprehensive reports at the time, which were broadcast in both newspapers and on the radio.
Then, when he reaches the point at which things start going awry, he keeps saying how important it is that he gives the information clearly and in such a way as to be persuasive - but then, again, goes into massive amounts of detail about aspects that have little relevance to his message and deliberately skims over the details of the horror, because he says he can't bring himself to write them down...
Now, I understand that the whole point is that the eldritch horror of Lovecraft is indescribable and sends people mad - but it does mean that I found the large majority of this novella intensely boring.
It did manage to convey a certain sense of the horror in the end, but I didn't feel it worked overall - and I found the writing style extremely dense and quite difficult to follow.
