Return of the Rogue Readers discussion

Whoops! I forgot the discussion was supposed to begin yesterday. Better late than never. Let the discussion of this insane tale of nameless horrors begin!

This book was kinda tough for me to get through lol I had to look up some of the words and reread pages a few times. I liked it though I think lol. I think it's kinda funny reading this book now because we can just go on google earth and see whatever we want to see and there arent any ancient cities out there hahaha

Amy, don't fret. I had to look up a couple words too. I'm about 80% of the way through the book and ill have it finished by this evening, but I read your post and wanted to reply. I thought something similar while reading this book, about how satellite pictures would show us something like that if the story took place in the modern day. I was curious if any crazy places had been discovered, so I did a little research. Turns out, one had! People on Google Earth discovered a rainforest that had never been discovered before. Inside were 10 new species of animals not found anywhere else on the planet. You can read about it here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/na...

I enjoyed reading this book. I found the story to be unique and engaging, and the storytelling style was refreshing. I think too many novels saturate the experience with violence, sex, unbelievable behavior. At the Mountains of Madness did none of that. It was violent at times and a few moments made me feel a bit squeamish, but it felt balanced to me. I'll be reading more of H.P. Lovecraft, I think. Does anyone have any suggestions?

That's fascinating, Jordan. I hadn't heard of this previously undiscovered jungle.

Amy, I had to look up a word too, so you aren't alone there. Did you enjoy the book?

As usual, I listened to an audiobook. This time around I found a recording made by a very dedicated fan, William Hart. I enjoyed this book, overall, even though the gruesome and terrifying parts pale in comparison to some of the other horror I've read. However, I have come to see that's part of the charm. When Ryan chose this book was pleased because Lovecraft has been on my list, but I didn't really know what to expect. Over the years some of my friends have spoken highly about the Lovecraft mythos, and I see the elements in popular culture often.

I think it's important to have perspective on older books. At the Mountains of Madness was written in 1931. As Amy pointed out, the story would have been a lot less dramatic if they had access to modern technology. They could have simply spotted the city with a satellite, used modern planes to safely fly right there and land, and had a virtually unlimited supply of light via a combination of solar/wind/gas generators. Good thing for us it took place nearly a century ago.

Beyond the technological limitations of the time, readers who would have found this story when it was new lived in a world where this kind of fiction was just getting started. According to some guy who cited Locus Magazine, between 100-500 horror/sci-fi/etc books are published each year. In 1931, when Lovecraft was writing this book, only 80 total fiction books were published. That includes every genre of fiction, not just horror.

To the people of the 1930's this was some serious shit. I recently learned the works of Lovecraft, and this story specifically, started the whole Ancient Aliens fandom that has taken over the History Channel.

Jordan, I don't read much of the horror genre. Maybe that is why this book came off as so descriptive and gripping to me. I do agree with your interpretation of why this would have been so moving for readers in the 1930's. I imagine being a young boy reading this in a horror or science fiction magazine and I can definitely see why it would be creepy. That is to say, I imagine myself as a boy reading it from the comfort of the 90's and 2000's. Readers in the early part of the last century must have had quite a shock.

Ryan I liked it good choice! Everybody has heard of cthulhu but I never knew where he came from so this was fun to read. Do all of his stories take place in the same place? Like, do they all happen in the same universe?

As a long time Lovecraft fan, this was surprisingly my first time with this tale. I enjoyed it thoroughly, especially the use of atmosphere of "things behind the veil" that Lovecraft is so known for. To answer a question by Amy, the majority of Lovecraft does take place in the same universe, with mentions of the Necronomicon and Muskatonic University being present in many of his other stories, as well as a portion of them being related to the Cthulhu mythos. Like so many of those others, what worked for me in this novella was that connectedness to other writings as well as the subtlety of horror where characters know shit is getting real, and are often able to be just ahead of it, creating that sense of terror.

This story was a larger scope for the majority of Lovecraft's writing, with only two additional stories being considered novella length. That being said, there wasn't much filler presented in the story, as it is presented as a warning to future expeditions so any redundancies I was able to forgive with this in mind. I did rather enjoy the twist of horror that it was the shoggoths rather than the Old Ones that were the focus of the horror, though of course the Old Ones held their place of importance.

To Ryan, as a reader of this author, I definitely have some recommendations for you for further reading. "The Call of Cthulhu," "Shadow over Innsmouth," "Dunwich Horror," "Pickman's Model," and "The Colour Out of Space" are all ones that come to mind as some of my favorites.

Garret, there is one thing I don't quite understand about Lovecraft's work: Why is everything so horrible and insane? When I think about an ancient civilization colonizing the earth millions or billions of years ago I am filled with a sense of wonder and excitement. I want to meet them and learn about them. I want to see their technology, try their ancient alien video games and inter-dimensional beer.

Thank you for the suggestions, Garret. Is "The Call of Cthulhu" the origin story of the Cthulhu creatures mentioned in this book? I agree with you about the subtlety of this horror. I admit I have limited experience with this genre, but it seems that so much of modern horror is merely blood-and-guts style torture that's more shocking than horrifying. Would you recommend any other authors with a style similar to this book?

I'll take a stab at your question Jordan. In fact, I think you may have answered yourself in your previous message. Talk about bending the rules of space and time! I think the narrator described everything he experienced with words like "horrible" and "insane" because to him, that's exactly what it was. He was a scientist living in 1930's America. He didn't have regular access to movies or literature like this, and everything he experiences was so far beyond anything his mind had ever experienced that he lacked the vocabulary to explain it better. In a very short stretch of time he went from a man of science, someone who felt he had a firm grasp on the laws of nature and the history of the world, to facing the brutal reality that nearly everything he knew was wrong. On top of that, he was under direct threat of death!

Perhaps we have such a different perspective on this because we have grown up with such a rich variety of fictional content that no idea is truly novel, let alone horrifyingly alien, as these events must have felt to Dr. Dyer.

To Jordan: I think my answer goes somewhere along the lines of Ryan's statement about the character's point of view. Lovecraft wrote in an era where despite prolific writings in a short life, he was not necessarily honored until after his time because no one from that period knew what to make of his style and content. His life was spent living off of family and (I believe much older) wife, those people financing a career that was barely held together by submissions in pulp magazines like Weird Tales. The populace at that time didn't have that "advanced"of a twisted imagination of terror. Your question is why was his writing this way in the first place and my answer is an opinion that he happened to be the pioneer in this genre who was able to get away with it because he had nothing to lose. Someone had to create this style, or vision of horror, Lovecraft did it, but no one appreciated it until later because it was indeed a field of nightmares no one had stumbled upon before.

To Ryan: "The Call of Cthulhu" is the ultimate Cthulhu tale, but it is just one of the many he wrote that tied into that mythos. It's as good a place as any to start, and it will definitely heighten any of the others that you read afterward. As far as other authors within this scope, that's a tough one. My list of favorite horror authors include Lovecraft and Poe from days of yesteryear, and my modern favorites are Clive Barker, Stephen King, Robert McCammon, Richard Matheson, and even some of Dean Koontz's darker stuff. I would say all of them are masters at their particular brand of horror, and none of them necessarily put the horror before the story and I think that may be what you would like best about them.

Ryan: I should make an amend to that list of authors as there were some from that same general period that would fall into that list with Lovecraft: Authur Machen, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard (most people know him from Conan the Barbarian), and even William Hope Hodgson (we read one of his in this club a while back). Each of these authors write around the same era of the Weird Tales fame, though I have yet to read any Clark Ashton Smith, and have only read a smattering of the other authors. That being said, the horror that I have read by these authors falls within that same line of style.

Jordan, I also wanted to add this to you: we now live in a society where blood and guts are somewhat of a norm for horror where the splashing of gore substitutes how a character may feel in instances of film and television. In Lovecraft's time, that time of horror was not written of in great detail and I think Lovecraft wrote about insanity as he did because the mind was the place that horror could be enacted on so graphically without being as taboo and still get acceptance letters for publication. His horror was just as intense and visceral as the latest bloodbath horror film, but he chose the mind to take on the horrors rather than the body. In the 1930s, he would have been locked up writing about hacked limbs and exploding chests, but was only considered unsuccessful for his journeys through tortured minds.

Both of you make great points, but my mind was moving more in the direction of: If Dyer was a scientist, why did he cast such harsh judgement on everything? Why wouldn't he be excited to make these discoveries? Surely discovering the remains of an ancient civilization would cement his place in history as one of the great explorers.

Garret, I have not read much Poe, but I will make it a point to do so! I am familiar with his stories in a passing way, usually from pop cultural interpretations.

Jordan, I think he was excited at first, but he quickly realized he was in way over his head. He describes how they took excessive notes, drew diagrams, and took pictures. Since the book is written from Dyer's perspective as a warning to future explorers, it comes from the mind of a man who has been living back home in the safety of the USA for some time. He has probably been struggling with coming to terms with everything he saw and experienced, and I'd imagine he has received a lot of negative feedback from skeptics. He became aware of this new expedition and felt a moral obligation to try and stop it. He was a man of science who was thrust into the great unknown and had everything he *knew* proven wrong. What we read are the painful recollections of a man who had his world shattered and barely lived to tell the tale.

Wow you guys really got into this book lol! I was reading that they were gonna make a movie about this but now I guess its never happening.

So I have a question for Garret since he has read all of these books. What was the thing that the student saw at the end that made him go so crazy? I know it kept making that weird sound but I don't know what it was.

Amy, it is never revealed but I would guess it was either a shoggoth in its full form or potentially an Old One that was still alive directing the shoggoth. It's obviously up for debate as there is no real closure with it, but those would be my two best guesses, leaning heavier on the former.

For all: read a Lovecraft legend today that I didn't verify, but apparently Lovecraft lived on a steady diet of a single can of beans a day because he was so poor which resulted in his death from intestinal cancer. Rather morbid, of course, but interesting if true.