Title: At the Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Terror Author: H.P. Lovecraft First published: 1939/1943/1964 (original stories) & 1971 (this edition) Dates read: 08. 06. – 02. 07. 2023 Category: first-time read, horror, own book, classics, 20 Books of Summer 2023 Rating: 3.5/5 The book in five words or less: polar horror with unexpected intertextuality
My thoughts:
I’ve been reading quite a bit of Lovecraft over the last couple of years, and At the Mountains of Madness has been on my list almost since the beginning – the reason, of course, being that it is part of the polar horror canon that I’ve slowly been making my way through since 2019.
Now that I’ve finally read the novella, I can say that it was worth my time and a solid example of the polar horror genre, although I wouldn’t say that it’s a new favourite. There are, however, a lot of stylistic devices that I’ve come to expect and love: An Antarctic setting full of harsh, empty, and uninhabitable landscapes, a haunting, foreboding atmosphere full of hints of dark things to come, and characters whose excitement about scientific discovery quickly turns into horror when they realize they’ve stumbled into something much larger and older than they. I also liked how Lovecraft uses contemporary science and technological devices to establish the veracity of the – very fictional – tale he’s telling (the detail about fossils and geology is impressive), and how deep his world-building goes (literally and figuratively). That said, I’m still not fully sold on Lovecraft’s particular brand of cosmic horror, possibly because his entities are too specific for my taste, and because I haven’t dived deep enough into the whole Cthulhu mythos for the namedropping and hints to work on me. Nevertheless, reading At the Mountains of Madness did feel educational and often amusing, mostly because of Lovecraft’s nods to Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.
(There’s also a whole essay in this about Lovecraft’s concept of civilization and decline and decay, but I’ll spare you that one; this isn’t a literature seminar, after all. 😉)
My edition of this polar horror classic also contains The Shunned House, The Dreams in the Witch-House and The Statement of Randolph Carter, and out of the four, At the Mountains of Madness was definitely my favourite. I found both The Shunned House and The Statement of Randolph Carter solid horror stories about old and dangerous entities coming back to haunt the living, but The Dreams in the Witch-House was a bit too drawn out and vague for my taste.
Read if you like: cosmic horror, fossils, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym or Jules Verne’s Le sphinxe des glaces, caves and caverns, science fiction expeditions
Contrary to all my expectations, April to June was a super strong quarter for me. The reason why I thought it wouldn’t be was that I had two articles due at the end of April and May respectively, and some galley revisions to boot. Usually, that takes up all my brain space to the point where all I do in the evenings is play Startdew Valley. But, and here’s the but, I also spent a lot of time on public transport this quarter, partly because I had appointments to get to, and partly because I started a part-time job as an English tutor, and that added up to a lot of reading time.
On top of all that, I low-key took part in the Magical Readathon again (despite my earlier vows not to do so), which also gave me a bit of a boost when it came to prioritizing reading. This April, however, I opted out of most of the socializing and especially the Discord community, which I think helped with not feeling so overwhelmed and, at times, annoyed. And in June the first month of Cathy’s (476 Books) 20 Books of Summer rolled around, which was exactly the kind of motivation I needed to get back to reviewing books more regularly.
Overall, I’ve had a very good three months in terms of both quality and quantity. Unlike my first quarter of 2023 and much of 2022, I’m actually quite happy with the fiction books I’ve read, and I’m also still reading a lot of non-fiction of consistently high quality (or, if you like, catering to my specific tastes).
Books:
Robert Macfarlane – The Old Ways ★★★★☆.5
Structurally, I found The Old Ways slightly less stringent than Underland and Mountains of the Mind, but I just love Macfarlane’s writing style, his willingness to be amazed and surprised, and his lyrical use and appreciation of language. I have yet to read one of Robert Macfarlane’s books that didn’t make me incredibly happy when reading it while satisfying my linguistic and intellectual curiosity in equal measure, and I’m glad that I started April with this book.
Do I think Daniel Schreiber’s books – including this one – are objectively flawless to a point where they deserve unquestionable five stars? Not necessarily. Are they – also including this one – some of the most personally relatable writing I’ve read in a long time? You bet. And if a book feels equal parts intellectually stimulating and like a warm hug, it gets five stars from me. (Schreiber is also very bad for my to be read list because he’s noticeably fond of some of my favourite writers, which makes me trust his other reading choices in turn.)
I’ve never read Tove Jansson’s Moomin books (though I was aware of her in the vague way we Europeans are usually aware of other countries’ famous writers), and I bought this short story collection on a whim from my favourite local feminist bookshop. Turns out I struck gold. Jansson’s style is precise and often subtly ironic, and as a bonus several of the stories were unexpectedly (and explicitly) queer.
Michelle McNamara – I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (audio, Scribd) ★★★☆☆
I think this book ended up on my TBR way back in the days when I was more interested in true crime than I am now, and since I’ve finally figured out a way to focus on podcasts and audiobooks (the secret is called public transport), I decided it was high time to get to this. I will say that I’ll Be Gone in the Dark is a very thorough, detailed account of the search for the Golden State Killer, but it’s also a very fragmented one. This is partly due to the nature of the book – the author died before she got to finish it – but also stems from McNamara’s narrative choices and her tendency to juxtapose past events and locations with those of the present. I’m not sure if it was just because I listened to the book on audio, but I found these jumps a bit hard to follow at times. That said, I liked the bits where I learned about the author almost more than what I learned about the case, and I do appreciate that the author consistently foregrounds the victims.
Tori Dunlap – The Financial Feminist (audio, Scribd) ★★★☆☆
I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it contains a couple of good tips, how-tos and motivational content for women and other non-cis/male people who want to take their finances into their own hands. On the other hand, it isn’t substantially more informative or thorough than the author’s podcast by the same name, nor nearly as intersectional as the author seems to think (and that’s ignoring that large parts are useless for anyone living outside the US. Credit score whomst.)
Tennesse Williams – Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (library) ★★★☆☆.5
Every once in a while, I read a book that everyone and their mom read in school and that I missed out on because I didn’t go to school in an English-speaking country. Nine times out of ten, I’m surprised by how much better than its reputation the book ends up being. This is just such a book. I was unexpectedly fond of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, not least of all because the play is full of horrible people suffering exquisitly, with a second act that feels like an inquisition tribunal. I’m sure I’d enjoy watching it on a stage even more; and I can see myself rereading this play even though I didn’t fall head over heels in love with it.
Natasha Brown – Assembly (library) ★★☆☆☆.5
Not sure if I’m just tired of this kind of book or if there’s something actually not working with it, but I wasn’t nearly as impressed as everyone else. I liked Assembly enough to finish it but was very far from loving it. I think I have the same issues with Assembly as I do with Jenny Offill and my recent foray into Rachel Cusk’s work: I found the subject matter timely, poignant, and well-observed, but the style altogether too detached and vague. It’s not the fact that the novel is fragmentary per se (I still like that as a stylistic device), it’s that each fragment has too little substance and emotional depth, and that all of them put together don’t actually make anything even vaguely resembling a story. What is more, there are no people in this story; there are people-shaped blobs with no depth or personality.
Joan Didion – The Year of Magical Thinking ★★★★☆
My second Didion after Blue Nights, which I read in 2019. Originally, I wanted to read some of her essays, but my local bookshop only had this book available when I browsed there in person. I didn’t regret buying it, thouhg, because I flew through it. Turns out, it was just the right mix of memoir and culture/literature-inspired reflection on grief. I enjoyed The Year of Magical Thinking a lot despite its heavy topic, and I really appreciate Didion’s clear-cut, precise language.
Kim de l’Horizon – Blutbuch ★★★★☆.5
I’ve been meaning to read this book even before it won the German Book Prize in 2022. It’s a very queer and linguistically experimental debut by a non-binary Swiss author that consciously tries to deconstruct and de-gender the German language in a way that I found extremely fascinating. Thematically, Blutbuch is a book about identity, family, and the lost, female parts of one’s heritage. Highly recommend if you can read German.
I’ve been meaning to read Stephen King ever since I started getting more interested in the horror genre about four years ago (has it been that long already?), and now I finally took the plunge. My library didn’t have any of the more well-known classics in the original and I really wasn’t in the mood for a translation, so I picked Revival at random from the remaining titles that were marked ‘horror’ instead of ‘thriller’ (according to which criteria? Who knows.). I liked this well enough to continue my King journey, and I will say that I found it a surprisingly fast read, too. Plus, some of my fave horror tropes made an appearance, which is always something I appreciate.
Jade Miles – Fair Living (orig. Futuresteading, library) ★★★☆☆
I’ve been leafing through a lot of gardening and sustainability books lately (mostly while planning and tending to my balcony garden), but I read this one cover to cover. It’s a work of art, but really more of a coffee-table book than an actual how-to manual. Mills does share interesting tidbits about seeds, garden planning, and farming and interesting recipes (that I haven’t tried yet), but a lot of the wisdom she has to impart isn’t really adapted to the reality of anyone who isn’t living an actual farm.
My edition of this polar horror classic also contains The Shunned House, The Dreams in the Witch-House and The Statement of Randolph Carter. Out of the four, At the Mountains of Madness was definitely my favourite, and a solid installment of the polar horror genre. I wouldn’t say it’s a new favourite, but reading it did feel educational and often amusing, mostly because of Lovecraft’s nods to Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.
Short stories, poems, etc.:
H.P. Lovecraft – Herbert West: Reanimator ★★★☆☆
I have this low-key, ongoing project where I slowly read my way through H.P. Lovecraft’s works. I don’t expect to love every single one (I’d be surprised if I did, really), but Lovecraft’s influence on horror (and, to a lesser extend, fantasy) is so pervasive that I still consider this a worthwhile endeavour. This one was weird; not because I found the subject matter horrifying per se (that raising the dead is ill-advised is a bit of a staple in horror fiction these days), but because the format (several shorter stories in the form of newspaper articles and personal accounts) didn’t work for me that well.
On the blog:
I’ve finally gotten back into reviewing books! (See the links above; more reviews forthcoming in the next couple of weeks.)
For those interested in what I plan to read for the 20 Books of Summer readathon, my very tentative TBR can be found here.
Life and other shenanigans:
I spent a lot of time on academic writing this quarter and am really, really looking forward to my upcoming holiday in early July.
I’ve also been watching quite a bit of horror in series and movies form, and have been thinking about devoting a separate post to that eventually.
I got an e-bike last year, and since it’s one that finally fits my size (I’m super short), I’ve discovered that I do actually like biking.
Oh, and my balcony garden is in full swing! I’ve already harvested lettuce (twice) and Swiss chard and the courgettes and tomatoes are coming along nicely.
Here’s to an equally productive and inspiring quarter 3! Let me know your thoughts?
I wrote most of this post almost three weeks ago, before we moved. I considered rewriting the bits that are clearly out of date now (I’ve unpacked most of my books, for one thing) but decided against it. Not only does it feel disingenuous, it will also mean delaying getting this post out even more than the combined force of perfectionism and moving house has already done.
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Another month has gone by and I’m due another wrapup – especially since April was another fairly quiet time on the blog. It was by far my best reading month to date, which is part of the reason why writing fell by the wayside. The other reason is that April was also the month where we started packing and preparing for our move for real. Almost all of my books are now in boxes – I’ve only kept a selection of my TBR books within easy reach – and the next two weeks will be incredibly busy I’m afraid. I’d hoped to prepare a couple of reviews in advance, but so far I’ve just not managed to get on top of my backlog.
I do try to make other things easier for myself, though. For the second month in a row, I’ll be reading from a mostly pre-set selection of books. In May, the reason is entirely practical: I have three longer books and an essay collection that I still want to finish, and picking out a handful of other titles is enough to carry me through the month in case I don’t get round to unpacking all my boxes.
In April, the reason for my fairly strict selection of books was, of course, that it was time fort the Magical Readathon yet again. I’ve briefly explained the Magical Readathon in September 2021 when the first installment of G. BookRoast’s revamped challenge took place. This month, the goal was to fill a number of prompts that corresponded with up to fourteen different magical subjects in order to make our fictional characters pass their first semester at the magical Orilium Academy. I’ve come up with a character who is part botanist and part polar explorer and whose career choice is (Faewild) Cartographer, for which they are required to pass seven subjects*:
It feels like I’ve been waiting for the paperback edition of this book for ages, and I’m happy to say that now that I’ve read it, it did not disappoint. I’ve found that I enjoy essayistic personal reflections and memoirs immensely, and Levy’s Living Autobiography (specifically: The Cost of Living) were among the first books of the genre that I read. Real Estate covered a lot of thoughts on home-making, life-making, and creativity that I could relate to in my own current in-between state.
Carol Ann Duffy – The World’s Wife ★★☆☆.5 (Elemental Studies)
Unfortunately, this poetry collection wasn’t quite for me. On a technical level, Duffy’s use of rhythm and rhyme is interesting, but content-wise the poems were a bit repetitive. Turns out ‘but make it women!’ isn’t quite enough to catch my attention, especially since a lot of the poems came across as weirdly gender-essentialist.
John Gardner – Grendel ★★★★☆ (Shapeshifting)
This was a reread for me; I last read this book in about 2010 and only had vague memories of it. I remember that I did like it, and, rereading it, I also remembered why. This is a highly unique story, way more inventive and philosophical than many other retellings I’ve read. I highly recommend this book, especially if you like Old English literature and the creature from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
H.P. Lovecraft – The Shadow over Innsmouth ★★★★☆ (Demonology)
Technically, this is ‘just’ a short story, but I’m recording it as a proper book nonetheless. I’ve been meaning to read this classic of horror fiction for ages and the Magical Readathon gave me the necessary incentive to finally do it. I’m not sure I actually like the story’s narrator – or the inhabitants of Innsmouth – all that much, but dissecting the story for the way that Lovecraft creates a haunting, deeply unsettling atmosphere turns up rather fascinating results. And, can I just say that the ending is extremely satisfying?
Sylvain Tesson – Kurzer Bericht von der Unermesslichkeit der Welt ★★☆☆☆.5
A bit of a mixed bag of travel writing. The cathedrals chapter was fascinating, but a lot of the other chapters were a bit disconnected and too fragmentary with huge jumps of thought. Plus, Tesson came across as a rather unpleasant, opinionated storyteller who, oddly enough, doesn’t like meeting people during his travels. (What’s up with that?)
Natasha Pulley – The Watchmaker of Filligree Street ★★★★☆.5 (Inscription)
My ‘intimidating read’ of the month, not because this book is complex or long, but because it is rather beloved, not least of all by my sister. I’m happy to report that I did indeed enjoy this low key magical, atmospheric steampunk adventure, even though I sometimes struggled with some of the characters and their motivations. (Grace. I’m talking about Grace.)
Jenny Offill – Department of Speculation ★★★☆☆ (Alchemy)
Probably what you call a ‘meh’ reading experience? This book is sad and occasionally funny and beautiful, but it feels way too artificially crafted. Not sure why that didn’t work for me this time when it does in so much other literary fiction; maybe Jenny Offill’s overall tone just doesn’t work for me (I also found Weather a bit underwhelming).
I also read two more short stories/novellas for a quest and an additional subject:
H.P. Lovecraft – The Dunwich Horror ★★★☆☆☆ (Quest)
Not quite as interesting as A Shadow over Innsmouth, but still quite satisfying. Not sure I’ll reread this one except to extract a couple of motives for some writing project or other, although I do appreciate the fact that the real heroes of this story are a bunch of librarians and academics.
Ursula K. Le Guin – The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas ★★★☆☆.5 (Spells and Incantations)
A philosophical, thought-provoking short story – but perhaps a bit too much so, at least when read rather quickly. I didn’t fall in love with this the way I’d hoped, but I’ll probably reread it because its message deserves to be remembered.
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*The prompts and explanations can all be found in G.’s introduction video and the google drive folder linked there.
This post has sat half-written in my drafts folder for the last two weeks – mostly because I couldn’t think of anything clever to write as an introduction. I still can’t, at least not if it has to be more than ‘well, I finally seem to be out of my reading slump’.
So, without further ado, here’s what I read in January:
JRR Tolkien – The Return of the King (reread) ★★★★☆.5
For the last couple of years, like a clockwork, I’ve felt the urge to reread Lord of the Rings sometime around Christmas. Sometimes I start as early as November, sometimes – like in 2020 – I only manage it on Christmas Day. Usually, I start with Fellowship of the Ring but never get much further than that. (It is my favourite, though, so it’s not all bad.) In 2020, after reading Fellowship for Christmas 2019, I made a point of finally also rereading the other two installments. I picked up Return of the King late in the year and didn’t want to spoil the fun by pushing myself to finish it before New Years, so it took me until January 2021 to get to the Grey Havens. Do I mind? Not really. This is still one of my favorite book series in the world. (Even though, on the reread, this installment felt a bit rushed compared to Fellowship in particular.)
The Waves is a beautiful and sensual but very experimental novel about storytelling, individuality, friendship, memory, love, and, simply put, life. It was, however, also a book that required a lot of attention and effort, neither of which I have in abundance right now, which is probably why I didn’t fall head over heels in love with this like I did with To the Lighthouse last year. I’m sure I’m gonna reread this eventually, though, if only to pay more attention to how the individual narrative voices interweave and immitate waves rolling towards the shore.
Julia Quinn – An Offer From a Gentleman (ebook) ★☆☆☆☆.5
Please do not ask me why I read this because I really shouldn’t have. In my defense, I did watch Bridgerton over Christmas and Benedict (and Eloise) are probably my fave siblings, so… yeah. What can I say? To no one’s surprise I wasn’t a fan.
What did surprise me was that the general lack of historical accuracy wasn’t actually my biggest issue with this book. This Regency England may be very much filtered through a Victorian morals lense, but since I don’t really expect historical romance to score very well in the ‘historical’ department, I wasn’t all that bothered that this one didn’t, either. My problem was with some of the tropes – especially the whole ‘I’m gonna annoy you until you admit that you like me’ thing and the Problems That Only Exist Because People Won’t Talk to Each Other Like Adults –, the Cinderella plot that Quinn forgot about halfway through the novel (what happened to discovering Sophie’s identity through that Lost Object?), the instalove that resulted in an awful lack of meaningful and, more importantly, honest conversation, the pushiness of the male lead, the power imbalance between the main characters, and the frankly mediocre writing. Julia Quinn desperately needs to work on the size of her vocabulary, and if I never have to read the word ‘by-blow’ again it will be too soon. And please don’t get me started on that first sex scene because none of that was actually sexy.
Anyway, I’m gonna stick to the TV series, which also has issues galore but at least series!Benedict isn’t quite as much of an ass yet.
(Half a point as a bonus because it was a quick read and I actually finished it, and because I like the family dynamics.)
H.P. Lovecraft – The Music of Erich Zann (short story, ebook) ★★★★☆
More short stories for the book club! I’ve been meaning to read H.P. Lovecraft for ages and I’m aware of The Discourse surrounding his works, but this one turned out to be quite a solid horror story. Vaguely mad musicians who seem to have made a deal with an evil entity are one of my favourite horror story tropes.
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Let’s hope February will continue in this vein were reading is concerned, and hopefully with more – and more eloquent – blog posts, too.