At the Mountains of Madness.

I first read this story when I was twelve or thirteen. I can't remember where my body was when I read it; very possibly in a class with the book hidden under my desk. But my soul was in Antarctica. I was mesmerised by the minutiae of the preparations for the adventure - for that was how I saw it. All the little details, the lists of equipment fascinated me and made it more real. Then the journey into the unknown. The vast, empty wastes of snow and ice and sky, and then the mirage, and then the ancient city.

Here I am, trying to explain the magic and wonder I felt, when really I am just making a precis of what Lovecraft wrote himself. The enchantment of the abyss, into which Lovecraft compels us to look; and of course, the abyss looks back at us. Those horrors deep under the ice, and the hints of horrors deeper still, under unknown oceans where an ancient enemy still lurks. Does the narrator of the tale know what he was doing? Even as he sought to warn us of the horrors awaiting, he paints such a picture of wonder that he makes further expeditions inevitable. The scientists of the world could no more refrain from the adventure than we, the readers, can refrain from finishing the story.

I hope that I am not alone in hearing the cry of Tekeli-li as one of jubilation.

[Interested in revisiting Lovecraft's classic At the Mountains of Madness? Then why not give MorganScorpion's wonderful audio recordings a try? After the break, you will find the complete story as read by new Unfilmable.com contributor MorganScorpion!]

- At the Mountains of Madness (part 1)
- At the Mountains of Madness (part 2)
- At the Mountains of Madness (part 3)
- At the Mountains of Madness (parts 4 and 5)
- At the Mountains of Madness (parts 6 and 7)
- At the Mountains of Madness (parts 8 and 9)
- At the Mountains of Madness (part 10, 11 and 12)