This novella is a strange one. An expedition into the Antarctic chances upon upon a mountain range, 'unfathomed mountains of madness' higher than any previously known, where there is evidence of a civilisation between five hundred and a thousand million years old, populated by life forms that 'evolved and specialised not more than a thousand years ago' before the evolution of any life on earth as we know it. Creatures with heads shaped like starfish and bulbous necks and torsos who probably had more than the usual five senses were the dominant life form, and in the antique city 'there was a persistent, pervasive hint of stupendous secrecy and potential revelation. It was as if these stark, nightmare spires marked the pylons of a frightful gateway into forbidden spheres of dream, and complex gulfs of remote time, space, and ultra-dimensionality.' Among other things encountered by the hapless explorers are giant albino, eyeless penguins. If the depths of his imagination is any indication, any psychiatrist or psychologist would have had fun with Lovecraft.
Lovecraft's prose style is pretty well known and there are several trademarks. He is a purveyor of vague phrases ('distant bergs became the battlements of unimaginable cosmic castles': 'the words reaching the reader can never even suggest the awfulness of the sight itself'). On occasion the words are so overwrought, they seem devoid of meaning.He refers to 'the sheer appalling antiquity and lethal desolation of the place', which happens to be 'the blasphemous city of the mirage in stark objective and ineluctable reality.' Some of his phrases are almost risible. One does wonder what is actually contained, for example, in 'the frightful stone city of R'lyeh and all the cosmic octopi.' But often his phrases are beautiful: 'Distant mountains floated in the sky as enchanted cities, and often the whole white world would dissolve into a gold, silver and scarlet land of Dunsanian dreams .... [the earth and the sky had a tendency] to merge into one mystical opalescent void.'
He does spin a good yarn, too. In an era where we are certainly not conditioned to rely on the written word to stretch our imaginations - special effects in movies do it for us without us having to make much of an effort - it is sometimes hard to be too scared or stimulated by someone who uses generic words so much ('hideous' and 'appalling' get pretty good runs.) But he keeps things moving, and it is a relatively quick read. While the style might seem more appropriate for another age, the depths and breadths of one man's imagination are well worth experiencing.
7 out of 10
