At the Mountains of Madness
'At the Mountains of Madness' starts out much like any other Lovecraft, with too many protestations of truth-speaking and uttering the unutterable, but what sets it apart from other Lovecraft tales is its incredible scope. Millennia of history are decoded from stone walls and to an extent the reader is carried along on nothing more than those revelations. The actual horrors of monsters, of gruesome acts and what left the narrator's colleague gibbering are as a matter of course left unsaid.
For pure grit and world-building Lovecraft gets full marks. The turgid and monotonous drone of the narrator's prose, however, drags 'Mountains' down. Balance, Mr. Lovecraft, balance. I've been making my way through Lovecraft's works for some months now. The ups and downs of even those curated selections is enough for me to never attempt anything comprehensive.
Whenever our author rose above the chattering and smoke screens of his verbose narrators Lovecraft was innovative. I was more than willing to suspend any and all disbelief the moment the recital of the 'Elder Things' history began. I love a chronicle. Antarctica was at the time, and still is, a fascinating place for research. Dreaming of what could be under that ice and going for an entire space-borne civilization whose mishandling of their own half-forgotten technology brought about their downfall? It took vision and guts to do that instead of some raggedy sasquatch/laser cannon alien yarn, which would have netted Lovecraft a lot more money and success.
I appreciate the effort. Lovecraft worked against the greatest inertia imaginable - the boorish expectations of the readership and the strict formulae of pulp editors. He wasn't well-rewarded during his lifetime but because of the promise of stories like this his growing reputation is justified.
