An unnamed geologist leads a team of researchers deep into Antarctica, to search for interesting and new plant specimens. Instead, they find something much more, the remains of a civilization… which does not appear to be human. They follow the remains and carved stones into a lost city, where they find an even more terrifying discovery.
How does an entire novel of telling, not showing, with absolutely no dialogue, maintain suspense and terror? I’m still not sure, but Lovecraft does. The story itself is relatively simple one. The methodically descriptive tone reinforced the academic nature of the piece, as the protagonist is a professor himself. In addition, the formal verbosity of the language lulls the reader into what seems a safe and distant place, all the while dropping hints of horror that build and build in a slow escalation towards a fulfilling crescendo. The suspense was terrible, and I’m glad it lasted.
“I could not help feeling that they were evil things– mountains of madness whose farther slopes looked out over some accursed ultimate abyss. That seething , half-luminous cloud-background held ineffable suggestions of a vague, ethereal beyondness far more than terrestrially spatial; and gave appalling reminders of the utter remoteness, separateness, desolation, and aeon-long death of this untrodden and unfathomed austral world.”Recommended for any interested in experiencing classic horror at its best!