Mount Analogue;: A novel of symbolically authentic non-Euclidean adventures in mountain climbing
Language: English
Pages: 156
ISBN: B0006AWH9Q
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In this novel/allegory the narrator/author sets sail in the yacht Impossible to search for Mount Analogue, the geographically located, albeit hidden, peak that reaches inexorably toward heaven.
Daumal's symbolic mountain represents a way to truth that "cannot not exist," and his classic allegory of man's search for himself embraces the certainty that one can know and conquer one's own reality.
In this novel/allegory the narrator/author sets sail in the yacht Impossible to search for Mount Analogue, the geographically located, albeit hidden, peak that reaches inexorably toward heaven. Daumal's symbolic mountain represents a way to truth that "cannot not exist," and his classic allegory of man's search for himself embraces the certainty that one can know and conquer one's own reality.
Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion
had written as follows: Sir: I have read your article on Mount Analogue. Until now I had believed myself the only person convinced of its existence. Today there are two of us, tomorrow there will be ten, perhaps more, and we can attempt the expedition. We must meet without delay. Telephone me as soon as you can at one of the numbers below. I shall be expecting your call. Pierre Sogol 37 Passage des Patriarches Paris [Then followed five or six telephone numbers that I could call at different times
grotesque as dead things. W e realized that with the guides of Mount Analogue, we could no longer get away with just words. Sogol courageously took it upon himself to give a brief account of our voyage. The man receiving us was indeed a guide. All authority in this country is exercised by the mountain guides, who form a distinct class and outside their work as guides, assume in rota tion the essential administrative functions in the villages of the coast and the lower slopes. This man gave us
extremely hard stone, spherical and of variable size. It is a true crystal and— an extraordinary instance entirely unknown elsewhere on this planet— a curved crystal. In the French spoken in Port o' Monkeys, this stone is called perad am . Ivan Lapse is still puz zled by the formation and the root meaning of the word. It may mean, as he sees it, "harder than diamond," as is very much the case, or else "fath er of diamond." And some say that diamond is in reality the product of the disintegration
some difficult optical problems. The five others had gone off in various direc tions. My wife was shopping for provision, escorted by Hans and Karl, who, on the way, kept up an obscure dialectical dis cussion on cruel metaphysical and paramathematical ques tions. They were bickering principally over the curvature of time and of numbers: Might there be an absolute limit to any count of real singular objects, after which one would either return abruptly to unity (according to Hans) or reach
becomes ''Tyak, chee chee, tyak." Someone else may sing: "Stoom, dee dee, stoom" or "Gee . . . pouf. Gee . . . pouf." That's the only kind of mountain-climbing song I know. We were no longer in sight of the snow-covered summits but only of wooded slopes cut by limestone cliffs, and down vistas through the forest to the right, the torrent at the bottom of the valley. At the last turn in the path the ocean, whose horizon had continued to rise with us, had gone out of sight. I nibbled a piece of
