Customer Reviews

At the Mountains of Madness: The Definitive Edition (Modern Library Classics)

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This Modern Library Classic edition of H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" is marketed as "the definitive edition", presented "in fully restored form". However, while it is a nice, good quality trade paperback, the only thing that sets this edition apart from that found in the S. T. Joshi edited "The Thing on the Doorstep" is a rather excellent introduction by China Mieville, and a non-fiction piece by Lovecraft himself, "Supernatural Horror in Literature". I am admittedly no Lovecraft scholar, but I was hard-pressed to find any difference between this and the Joshi text, and there were certainly no significant differences in the plot.

That said, this is a nice book to have, and should be particularly considered by those who are looking to introduce themselves to Lovecraft. "At the Mountains of Madness" is perhaps the quintessential Lovecraft story as it draws masterfully on themes developed in his earlier writings. Detailing the discovery of unimaginably old artifacts by an Antarctic exploration, the story revels in Lovecraft's primary concept of horror, namely, the cosmic insignificance and fragility of man. As the narrator and his assistant descend into the stygian depths of an unspeakably ancient city, the tension derives not from anything traditionally evil, but rather utterly indifferent to humanity's well being.

Moreover, the elements of dislocation, of man being knocked of his perch at the apex of evolution work, if anything, even better than they did in the 1930's. In an age when we are the precipice of understanding some of the most profound mysteries of life, "At the Mountains of Madness" places all of humanity squarely in the boondocks of cosmic significance. At the same time, "At the Mountains of Madness" plays on the human love of exploration, and in this regard can probably be better appreciated today than in Lovecraft's time, when African and Antarctic explorations were uncovering things never before seen by western man (or man at all in the case of the poles). In a world that is pretty much mapped and paved over, the reader can't help but revel in the strange newness of the discoveries found herein.

This edition also benefits from the introduction by China Mieville (the undeniable star in fantasy and weird fiction today), although it should be read after the story by new readers. His insights into Lovecraft's era, influences and radical creativity (as well as appalling racism) offer tremendous insight into "At the Mountains of Madness" specifically, and Lovecraft's work in general. In fact, from the standpoint of literary analysis, if not personal history, Mieville's introduction surpasses those of Joshi in the Penguin published collections.

Finally, there is the Lovecraft essay which concludes the volume. It's an interesting review of supernatural horror, and Lovecraft's commentary thereon. It's fairly readable for a scholarly piece, and offers some interesting insight into his work, but it will still be of limited interest to the general reader.

Ultimately, this is a nice edition, which features an excellent introduction. Publisher's notes indicating how this version differs from previously published editions are definitely missed, and in some ways detract from the reading for those who are familiar with the work as keeping an out for differences is genuinely distracting. I would be hard-pressed to call this a must buy for anyone who already owns a published edition of "At the Mountains of Madness", but those new to Lovecraft would be well served by starting with this standalone version of his best story.

Jake Mohlman

One of the most amazing things I have ever read, made even more intriguing because I could not get it out of my mind that this book was written in 1936. It begins as a paleontological study set in Antarctica. Lovecraft writes almost as if this is a scientific documentary. It is convincing enough that within the first 20 pages I was researching what little was known about Antarctica in the 1930s and I was questioning what was known about paleontology at the time. The next 20 pages I was researching fictional citations of the Cthulhu Mythos and the Necronomicon. This book is ground breaking on so many levels.

`At the Mountains of Madness' is nonstop fascinating discovery. Every single page is a thrill and every single page builds, like a documentary, knowledge of this alien world on a mostly unknown continent - at the time of the writing - on our very planet.

This Modern Library Classics edition contains an introduction by China Mieville. I hope nobody tries to read the introduction before reading 'At the Mountains of Madness', but what a pairing is this story and Mielville's introduction. Mielville marvels at Lovecraft's art then takes Lovecraft, the man, apart. I love that these two pieces were put together. I closed the book at 1:30AM after reading the introduction and was sleepless for 2 hours despicably inspired. It is sickening and amazing to be human in all its variety. Beautiful.

The prime flaw of most genre fiction is that its prose execution never matches the vitality of the conceptual core. And so it is with Lovecraft's fiction, and in particular with this novella, which first saw the light of day in a chopped up version in the sf pulp magazine Astounding. The images and ideas lie there with seductive power: ice blowing through the Antarctic abyss, ominous mountains towering above, a derelict and seemingly abandoned city of unbelievable age, and bewildered men wandering through this maze with emotions that flicker among disgust, fascination, and dread. But it never quite works as it should, given Lovecraft's penchant for repetition, tortuous locution, and narrative hemming and hawing. Early on, the reader has a good guess as to how matters really sit, and in the meantime must bear with the author's endless recounting of yet another chamber with still more bas-reliefs that somehow allow the characters to draw ever more incredibly detailed conclusions about the history of the alien Old Ones, even to the point of deciding that their starry heads bore socialist ideals. And yet there is no denying the compelling nature of HPL's imagination. If only he had been more attuned to the modernist prose of his own century rather than the measured, somewhat musty forms of previous ones. Worth reading, but as others may have noted, from the Library of America collection, which is the best one volume assembly of Lovecraftian works, if one is going to stop at owning just one book by the old gentleman.

H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was a sickly child who early suffered from night terrors--a dream state in which the dreamer cannot awaken himself from a bad dream. Many scholars believe these night terrors gradually motivated him to write, and that he drew from them in the creation of his stories, many of which were published in well-known magazines of the day. But like his predecessor Edgar Allan Poe, Lovecraft found it impossible to support himself as a writer, and he gradually slipped into ever-deepening poverty. He died of a combination of cancer, Bright's disease, and (shockingly) malnutrition, unable to purchase food and unwilling to resort to charity.

AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS is one of Lovecraft's longer pieces, running approximately one hundred pages. It is the story of an expedition to the anarctic by a group of scientists who hope to take new core samples of ice and earth. In the process, a member of the group finds an odd fossil that leads him to push his party far from the home base. His discoveries continue, fascinating discoveries, strange and disturbing discoveries--and then the radio goes silent. At this point, narrator and geologist Dr. William Dyer and a graduate student named Danforth rush to the new encampment only to find absolute chaos and carnage, possibly caused by one of the men going unexpectedly mad, but also possibly caused by something the men unearthed in their exploration. As Dyer and Danforth continue to explore, they discover the ruins of a great city and, from carvings in the city, piece together a history of ancient alien invasion. They are unprepared for the possibility that any of these ancient aliens might still be alive and remarkably lethal, or that something even worse might exist on the other side of the mountain range.

Lovecraft was not what you might call a "natural born writer." His works are wordy and his construction painful. There is seldom much plot or character development, and it is rare to find much in the way of dialogue in any of his stories. He gives you page after page of narrative description. All the same, when at his best, Lovecraft could quickly lead you through a series of seemingly unrelated and increasingly uneasy images--and then, when you reach the final page, suddenly sucker punch you in a way that makes your blood run cold, as any reader of the infamous "Pickman's Model" can tell you. Trouble is, the format works extremely well in very short work but very poorly in long ones, with AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS a case in point. It is a famous work, but when Lovecraft is stretched to this length he becomes incredibly repetitive and often predictable. You can easily skip the first dozen pages and then read only every third paragraph until you get about two-thirds of the way into the work. When you reach the end you are so exhausted by Lovecraft's uphill style that the final punch is less likely to terrorize than cause a sigh of relief that the thing is finished and over.

If you are interested in Lovecraft, you would do much, much better to begin with his shorter works and push the handful of longer ones, perhaps best described by the word "novellas," to the back of the list. And that includes AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS. I give this particular edition points for an excellent introduction and for its inclusion of Lovecraft's own essay on "weird fiction," a piece that is almost as long as the story itself. Even so, this one is pretty much for established fans only.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." - H. P. Lovecraft.

_At the Mountains of Madness: The Definitive Edition_ republished by The Modern Library Classics contains three principle parts: a short introduction to H. P. Lovecraft and the story by China Mieville, the story "At the Mountains of Madness" by H. P. Lovecraft, and Lovecraft's essay "Supernatural Horror in Fiction". H. P. Lovecraft was an eccentric writer of weird fiction whose bizarre horror stories continue to both fascinate and repel. Lovecraft himself was a man of contradictions, an avowed materialist and atheist who wrote on superstition, the occult, and the supernatural, an aristocratic ultra-conservative who eventually embraced socialism, a racialist and elitist who found other races, miscegenation, and immigrants abhorrent, yet who married a Jew, and an ardent follower of the theories of Friedrich Nietzsche and Oswald Spengler regarding "the decline of the West". As China Mieville notes in his introduction, his tale "At the Mountains of Madness" reveals many of these elements.

"At the Mountains of Madness" first published in 1931 is the tale of several scientific explorers who are visiting Antarctica. Lovecraft long harbored a fascination with this southernmost continent, and this tale reveals his scientific knowledge regarding geology, climatology, and paleontology. While exploring Antarctica, the scientists discover the remains of vaguely amphibious creatures which cause them to conjure up memories of various occult texts including the dread _Necronomicon_ and weird tales penned by authors such as Clark Ashton Smith, Lovecraft's good friend. The _Necronomicon_ by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazared is entirely an invention of Lovecraft's which first appeared in his tale "The Hound". The explorers also encounter the ruins of a lost civilization, where they find the remains of "the Old Ones". As China Mieville explains in his preface, Lovecraft reveals the influence of Spengler here, whose _Decline of the West_ showed how civilizations entered a stage of decline. While there, they also encounter certain monstrous penguin creatures and a slave race of shoggoths. Lovecraft who feared the rise of the masses regarded the shoggoths, a race of slave-like creatures of "the Old Ones" as the ultimate abomination. Lovecraft's paranoia of other races was particularly intense and led to his creation of stories of nihilistic cosmic horror. While many find this paranoia repulsive, few will disagree that it provides his stories with an edge that makes them unique in all of literature. This tale was obviously influenced by Edgar Allen Poe, who Lovecraft very much admired, whose _The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym_ also featured a mythicized southern pole and provided the maddening sound heard by the explorers "Tekeli-li".

"Supernatural Horror in Literature" is Lovecraft's essay outlining the history of supernatural and weird fiction and showing the influences on his own fiction and thought. I am particularly grateful that this essay was included in this edition, because it provides a fascinating overview of the literature which served as the primary inspiration for Lovecraft's own fiction. In this essay, Lovecraft who was an avowed materialist begins by explaining how fear and superstition play an important role in the life and history of man. He notes the primitive cults and religions which incorporated supernatural elements in their beliefs. Lovecraft next turns his attention to "The Dawn of the Horror-Tale". Here, he explains the various sources of the horror tale in folklore and magic as well as medieval literature. Next, Lovecraft writes of the development of these elements into "The Early Gothic Novel". Here, he mentions the novels of such famous Gothic writers as Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe whose stories provided the basis for Gothic novels. Lovecraft also writes of the apex and the aftermath of Gothic fiction, as the form developed and finally collapsed upon itself. Next, Lovecraft turns to "Spectral Literature on the Continent", where he outlines some of the European ghost stories. Lovecraft devotes a separate section on the master Edgar Allen Poe, whose fiction played such an important role in the formation of Lovecraft's own. According to Lovecraft, Poe was the fist to realize that a more objective view of the characters provided the horror tale with greater appeal. Lovecraft next turns his attention to "The Weird Tradition in America", noting the influence of writers such as Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne. The influence of the puritans in America and the witch trials that occurred in the colonial days provides much inspiration for the writings of weird tales, and in particular for Lovecraft's own stories. Lovecraft next turns his attention to "The Weird Tradition in the British Isles", where he notes the influence of Celtic folklore and the Irish ghost story. Finally, Lovecraft turns his attention to "The Modern Masters", these are the writers who influenced him to the greatest extent. The writers that Lovecraft includes in this category are Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, and Montague Rhodes James. William Hope Hodgson was also to have a great influence on Lovecraft, which he notes in his section on the British writers. This essay provides a fascinating look at the source of much of Lovecraft's fiction, the tradition of supernatural horror.

Lovecraft's weird tales continue to fascinate and disturb the modern reader. This book provides an excellent edition of one of those tales as well as an important essay of his which reveals the influences on his stories.

I'd seen somewhere recently that his story "Mountains of Madness" was the base upon which the movie "The Thing" was created. John Carpenter's 1980's remake was the first hardcore horror movie I ever saw as a kid, and still lives in a dark, shadowy, and very cold place in my memories.

"Mountains of Madness" was written in the '30s. The early 20th century represented a golden age of exploration and discovery. Both poles were "captured"; jungle pyramids and ancient hideaways were discovered galore. Newspapers, newsreels and books were filled with adventure and the promise of something new that tended to be very old. It's in this context that Lovecraft's narrator visits Antarctica and makes a discovery of something of incomparably ancient. It tells the previously untold story of an Antarctic scientific mission gone horribly wrong and is crafted from the perspective of a scientist who was involved in the mission and who's desperate to warn off future efforts to investigate the strange goings-on.

A fascination and passion with exploration and discovery comes clearly through Lovecraft's writing. Lovecraft repeatedly refers to the "Cyclopean" sized objects in the Antarctic...a term used by Hiram Bingham in describing the first Inca-carved stone blocks he discovered in Peru. He even compares one of the ancient discoveries as looking like Machu Picchu.

The richly detailed story is thick with mood- and scene-setting. The story builds slowly and Lovecraft incorporates well-timed and teasing foreshadowing that frames a downright creepy story. More than once, I found myself jumping with shock at a startling noise when reading the story alone at night.

Lovecraft's myth-building is very realistic, and goes a long way to feed the terrifically detailed story which builds the characters well and includes deftly developed foreshadowing that intensifies the drama and tension while avoiding details that give too much away. This terrific story is creepy, moody and satisfyingly scary.

"At The Mountains Of Madness" is one of my favorite H.P. Lovecraft stories. I bought this edition to have a stand-alone edition and for the introduction. ATMOM is a classic Lovecraft cosmic horror set in mysterious and desolate 1930's Antarctica. I very much enjoy the elements of the time period, Antarctic expedition, scientific investigation, curiosity about the bizarre/horrific, a concern for mankind, appreciation of the unknown, adventure, and survival. Lovecraft's imagination was truly remarkable, especially when considering all of the technological advancements since his time. Particularly valuable about this edition is the Introduction by China Mieville (READ AFTER!) that explains some of the symbolism in the story, I would not have otherwise detected or appreciated. This version is 102 pages.

At the Mountains of Madness is a classic from the master of "cosmic horror." The tale likely inspired John Campbell to write "who Goes There?" which was filmed as The Thing From Another World, and later by John Carpenter as The Thing. Not that Campbell was derivative, he added a spectacular twist in that very sophisticated and scientific tale (the thing was basically a virus). Mountains is dated, a bit verbose by today's standards. Yet despite comparatively slower pacing, the work is entrancing and paints vivid pictures of lost worlds. It probably inspired a terrific horror movie, In the Mouth of Madness--which made more use of Lovecraft's characteristic cosmic horror, the Cthulhu.

Additionally, the "definitive" version includes the author's classic treatise on supernatural horror, an eye-opener and must read for any fan of the genre.

Lovecrafts' strengths ran to short stories and he rarely ventured into longer forms, but this novella is perhaps one of his best works. Inspired at least in part the Antarctic explorations taking place in the early '30's and by Poes' Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Lovecraft took the mythology of his previous works and showed instead the eon's ago origins of the gods and monsters of his earlier tales.

Highly recommended in any edition.

"At the Mountains of Madness" still proves an engaging, tense read over 70 years after its initial publication. The one issue some may have with the story is the lack of dialogue throughout its pages, but with vivid description and playing with the sense of the unknown and mysterious, the story provides a gripping, self-building story that is sure to please most who read it.