by Duane Spurlock
Mountains Of Madness: A Scientist's Odyssey In Antarctica by John Long (Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press, 2001).
Edgar Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym initially presents itself as a true account of an actual sea voyage, and H.P. Lovecraft attempts to ground “At the Mountains of Madness” in the real world with a seemingly realistic account of an expedition to the Transantarctic Mountains. Mountains of Madness, by John Long, flips the card by being an actual account of fossil-hunting fieldwork in those mountains. He takes Lovecraft’s book along, and the field team members take turns reading aloud from it while the terrifying polar winds howl and beat at their tent.
The jacket blurb -- very similar to the description I wrote in the preceding paragraph -- sounded intriguing, so I checked out this book from the library. Well, as often happens, the expectations generated by a blurb didn’t quite meet the reality of my reading experience. Long references Lovecraft’s AMM only a few times in the book’s 250 pages, and usually as a joke.
He recounts two fossil-hunting expeditions (in 1988 and 1992) in this volume. The style is pleasant and informal, almost conversational, but at times this becomes disinteresting. The book paints a good picture of what fieldwork in such an extreme location is like, including the rugged preparations and training a scientist must take before he’s even allowed onto the Antarctic continent. The lonely and danger are made clear, but that sometimes glib style occasionally undermines the weight of what Long is recounting.
Certainly there are interesting passages about preparing food in that sort of environment, and Long’s digressions about past explorers who had none of the technological marvels available to present-day researchers are very enlightening. The history of the Antarctic continent and the geographic conglomeration known as Gondwana were very interesting, and it’s fascinating to think of the coldest place on Earth once being home to a tropical jungle. On the other hand, it’s easy to bog down in his technical lexicon when Long begins droning on about fossils. But over all, he manages to balance the technical and the goofy into a suitable travel book for a popular audience.
Pulp fans looking for strong links to HPL and AMM will probably end up dissatisfied, but the conceit for the book is interesting and worth investigating.
Links:
Read Part One of this essay, "The Mountains of Madness: 1931," by clicking here.
Mountains Of Madness: A Scientist's Odyssey In Antarctica by John A. Long is available from Amazon.com. Click here.
The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft, edited by S.T. Joshi, is available from Amazon.com. Click here.
Learn more about the Transantarctic Mountains at the Antarctic Connection site...
...and at the Geosciences pages of the University of Arizona...
...and find out about their mysteries revealed, according to Science Daily.
In “Clues Found in Mystery of Antarctic Mountain Formation,” H.P. Lovecraft gets a mention in this LiveScience.com essay.
You can go there too, thanks to the Adventure Network. Watch out for the giant penguins!
Archives of The Southern Literary Messenger, including the issues in which Poe's novel appeared, are available at the University of Michigan.
Other articles of related interest at The Pulp Rack:
Edgar Allan Poe and the Road to Pulp Fiction
The Adventures of Captain Hatteras: Verne Lays the Foundation for Fictional Pulp Adventures to Foreign Lands
You’ll find other related articles at The Pulp Rack's "Jules Verne: Pre-Pulp Pioneer Extraordinaire" page.
Posted by ds at September 2, 2007 08:17 AM
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