A Walk About the Rocks

Part I

You are here.

Why, he has a bit of a funny face, doesn't he? Don't forget your hat or coat; it's a bit chilly at 4:09. Go get your cane-turned-walking stick, as the path can be rough going.

Sirens blare at the front of your consciousness until they are overtaken by the white-noise of other vehicles, the parted breeze, and the onset of dead-time. Grand Avenue is everywhere and nowhere. You are not even really on Irving or State.

Turn right and shamble up the steps, spy the dirt-mount at the foot of Silver Taurus, and stare into the path ahead. Take a moment to smell the dying sunlight.
Can you see those rocks, just to the right of the tree? Look closely, as they can easily get away from you--take it from me. If the fire in the center draws you near, go there for a time, but tread lightly. You will pass this way again, but not before taking others. Try to remember a day when you decided not to go there. Now you have a friend, so the going will be easier than before.

Your shamble shuffles the earth about, crunching October cheat-grass beneath your feet. It is unavoidable. The thud of your staff balances the whirring breeze against your ear-hair. Spy your friend's grumble as he contemplates the oblivion-ground.

Go left, toward the fire. See how it has gone out. See how your friend stands at the precipice? It reminds me of a place he stood once, not long ago and long ago. You can't see the drop, but can't you see it? Your friend, enveloped in the trick-flame, sees it, and contemplates.

Don't be fooled by the waves; let them crash between your ears and up your nostrils. Pull away, slowly, and let remain a dried, salty husk. The earth is there, but you can't smell it really. Go to the precipice. That's where we are.


There's the blood-red bush we could have easily mistaken for such a mighty glow earlier. It has receded, assailed on all ends by the lichen-covered rocks. Like the sun, it fades for a time. Before you can continue, you must shrink yourself. That is a massive wood, those rocks are mountains. Can't you see yourself, and your friend, at the base? Are you climbing, or heading back down? You are climbing.


Go back into the shade, the sun is coming down anyway. The clustered formations remind me of a time, long ago, when my father took my brother and I back into nameless places. We bounced in the back of his pickup, grasping for whatever we could just to stay in. None of us were afraid. Do you see that cleft at the right? We are speeding along the edge of it--long ago--but moving still. Jed is no help though. Damn dog.

Your friend grumbles and rustles about.

Yeah, it's time to get over to those rocks. Turn right after you ascend--don't forget to become normal sized again. The light is stabbing them.

The sound of your slide explodes the quasi-silence, the industrial din characteristic of machine places. You can hear the flame and the phosphorus rustle in disagreement over who is more beautiful.

Can you sense that there is more to this than meets the screen? Break out of that, and compose yourself. I highly recommend A minor.

Hear what I mean?


A door slams in the distance. Are you an invader to this place? You passed through no gate, and bear no intention of arms, though you have them. Your mind hears a dog barking, but its only a memory.

I remember riding my bike up a slope like this one. I was far more athletic in my youth. A good thing too, for the Rottweiler ran very fast. Hopefully so are as well--do you want to get bitten?


Thirty, forty, two-hundred paces to the west. Hug the rock wall so that you do not fall. Around the corner, to your right, you will see this path. The shards of broken glass hide from you. The beer can scurries back into a crevasse, where you will later poke it with your cane. Something should catch your nose. Turn left.







Friend: Think about what would happen if these rocks came down.

You hear yourself respond. I wonder what you say.

Friend: I don't know where that road goes. Looks like its just behind people's yards.

Don't go down there. That place is not yet for you. Look behind you instead.


Aloof, the conical stone seems to stand apart from its other rocky brethren. It's tip seems to jut desperately away from the earth, bathing what it can in sunlight.

Let me away. Erosion will take me anyway. Let me away.

What would you say to this thorn, this rogue, this potentate? Bow down before it, for it doesn't speak to you. Crawl under its feet. The dust you kick up rockets into your nose-tubes, and creates a burbia half-way down. Do get up, I feel as if I should not send you to these places.

Friend: Do not.
Do.









Go from here, West! Stand on the brink of the rock's ending. There is nothing left--only everything after it. You see houses stretch for miles along, and that road you spotted below before runs up now, but alone. There are no trees, no fire, no phosphorus, no rocks.

Friend: This is where the good rocks end.

Look down. Go back, go up, and then look down.



The dirt-river comes this way, it seems. Bits of grass with patchy hair creep up, but only with reticence. You have been below, and you are above, still expecting to hear the door slam and the dog bark, your cover has been blown. No cover is needed, but you should go down there anyway. Have you been there before? Is being there from below the same as being there from above, even though you stand in the same place. Go. You saw that beer can scurry away. Find it.

Turn left, and look east. Stare at the focal point of the light; look closely as you possibly can. See nothing, but everything else.


Did you focus on the small center, or the rather large and obtrusive luminescent triangle in the upper right? The beer can is behind you, cowering in a cave. You already poked it. Blue and white pollution mark the territory of other border steppers, those who are march-rievers. They did not come from the fens. If you make yourself small again, be wary. The portal at the end of that tunnel leads to places where you have already been.

Friend: Come on up here.

Me: Naw, I am going to check out that road again.

You: [well, say something].

Friend: I agree. Let's go check out that road.

I can't tarry at the road for too long, it doesn't lead to anywhere I can go. Maybe since I have been up that hill many times, I do not want to go. However, not all roads lead to the same spots, even though they head the same direction. I look for expanses, for planes beyond boundaries. I can see homes on either side of where that road goes. What possibly could be interesting in between? Yet these places today step between; they are assailed by the asphalt miles around, but somehow remain. But those beer cans, paint, and glass...

I can't bear it anymore. Look down, and remember my memory.



I have to admit, things get a bit fuzzy from here. That short expanse of yard and those three teeth remind me of home, though shrunk. Cotton-wood and Poplar towers garrison the east and north marches, while Russian olives and willows are on the west. Magpies, starlings, robins, peacocks, dogs, killdeer, quail, and others perform in a concophony of background checks. I can feel the snail-plant and its cream-of-wheat innards disintegrating between my forefinger and thumb. It smells sickly sweet.

Those teeth are blunted now, the towers chopped off. I remember pulling some of them down--they were falling on us. At least the pines out back will last quite a bit longer.

Back to here--these won't fall for a while, but they will fall. Yellow, green, and orange bursts flow through. Can you see the fire burning in the corner?

We are near the end of the road, but not quite there yet. Something wells. Borrow the tendrils of my brain-monster to graps those memories, then eat them. It's renewable consumption, until it rots.

That's the spirit! Look, here!






We found this gate at 4:39. Somebody made it.



I would say go through, but it's only a picture after all.




Part II

"Nature is the vehicle of thought", so says Emerson. Essentially, the arch transcendentalist distills this sentiment by insisting that "we are assisted by natural objects in the expression of particular meanings." What Emerson successfully argues is the contextual nature of language, how it is both arbitrary and yet concrete in that our speech is shaped by physiological processes while meanings are derived from comparisons with other things. Any dictionary can illustrate this solipsistic understanding of language--meanings are based in other meanings, and Emerson assumes that those initial meanings are somehow rooted in natural objects.

Cardiff riffs on Emerson's postulation, pointing out that "voice is language of its own." For both authors, context is everything. In Cardiff's walks, we hear a voice that conveys intimacy and quietude--she speaks as if she is very close to us, even within our heads she suggests. She is creating an environment that we assume in her art, and context molds her speech--Language based on natural objects and speech that inspires the cognitive environment while it is inspired by nature. Cardiff maintains that aspects of voice make up the landscape.

The most difficult aspect of Emerson's argument to reconcile with Cardiff's notions of sound is his privilaging of visuals:

The eye is the best of artists. By the mutual action of its structure and of the laws of light, perspective is produced, which integrates every mass of objects, of what character soever, into a well-colored and shaped globe, so that where the particular objects are mean and unaffecting, the landscape which they compose is round and symmentrical. And as the eye is the best composer, so light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make beautiful.
(Nature 13)

However, Cardiff rightly points out that sound-effects "carry their source of time and place with them", therefore affecting the overall perspective. Wheras Emerson maintains that perspective is created through light, Cardiff emphasizes that sense which cannot perceive light. My own walk privilages light, almost to the point that it obscures perspective. Additionally, Emerson does not seem to allow much for smell in tandem with sound; he even goes to far as to suggest that "Even the corpse has its own beauty." Corpses are not so beautiful when smell is considered--an essential aspect of perspective. Moreover, soundscapes often paint vivid pictures: the mind's eye compensates for the lack of visual. This is not to say that Emerson ignores the imagination. He maintains that beauty is intergrally linked with intellect. However, his argument is still bathed in light, as he maintains that light is beauty, and beauty is virtue, even priviliging visuals in the scope of imaginative powers.

Initial Adventures At the Mountains of Madness

Here is my initial research attempt, unabridged and unedited (it sounds so cool when movie ads say it). Forgive my splotchy quotations, captilized madness, and incomplete sentences--often I find myself going back and forth, finishing my thoughts after I start new ones. To give you a better idea as to the trajectory of this thing, I would like to eventually incorporate Frankenstein and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket to assist in explaining the the idea of the Antarctic's sense of place, especially in regards to the horrific. Hillary Roberts has kindly provided helpful commentary below my madness. Many thanks!

The Question(s):
1. How is the Antarctic both a physical space and a conceptual framework that amplifies and symbolizes forbidden knowledge?
2. What literary debt does Lovecraft owe to Gothic Romanticism via Poe and Shelley in addressing issues of forbidden knowledge and the arrogance of science?


The Text:

H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness is a 20^th century Gothic tale set in the Antarctic, and employs its environmental setting not only as an “aeon dead world” (487) that amplifies the horror of protagonist William Dryer’s tale, but also operates as a character and point of agency that responds to invasion and colonization, reflecting anxiety not only over the confidence of science, but also that of vast, unexplored reaches uninhabitable by humans. Lovecraft’s horror and his sense of place are inextricably linked: the arctic is both a physical space and a conceptual framework from which the author mounts his “deliberative argument” via his narrator, as Oakes puts it (21), against a subsequent invasion of the Antarctic by a fictional team of scientists, the “Starkweather-Moore Expedition” (MM 514). [MAY NOT BE A BAD IDEA TO INCORPORATE EVIDENCE OF ANTARCTIC EXPEDITIONS MOUNTED IN LOVECRAFT’S TIME, IN ADDITION TO THOSE ACCOUNTS OF HEARNE AND COOK FOR THE ROMANTICS].

At the outset of the narrative, Lovecraft describes the projected Antarctic undertaking by the narrator Dryer as an invasion: “I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my will that I tell my reason for opposing this contemplated invasion of the antarctic…” (481). The narrator’s reluctance to fully explain his own experiences in the deep south is significant—not only should the Antarctic be left alone, but even explaining why it should be left alone is a taboo topic. Immediately, Lovecraft expresses that some things are better left unknown for the good of human understanding. He augments this sentiment by appealing to higher scientific authorities and pontificating on a sanity plea: “

In the end I must rely on the judgment and standing of the few scientific leaders who have, on the one hand, sufficient independence of thought to weight my data on its own hideously convincing merits or in the light of certain primordial and highly baffling myth-cycles; and on the other hand, sufficient influence to deter the exploring world in general from any rash and overambitious programme in the region of those mountains of madness. It is an unfortunate fact that relatively obscure men like myself and my associates

(MM 481)

Lovecraft’s conceptions of intellectual independence and professional influence emphasize humility: as is the case with Dryer’s own team who are

Hillary's Commentary:

I really love the idea of examining how the arctic landscape operates in 19^th century literature- particularly in the gothic. It is such a perfect setting- otherworldly as it seemed then and still seems to us today- and rich with symbolic potential. I spent a lot of time writing about the arctic last year- both as it appeared in 19^th century literature and in travel books and scientific periodicals. I have some great books you can use as you explore how it works (as you say) as a conceptual and physical space. One in particular, The Arctic in the British Imagination, focuses both on how the arctic was presented in the 19^th century and how it was received and understood among popular audiences. I think it could be useful to you.

I also like the idea you mention in parenthesis to incorporate evidence from actual travel logs. There is no end to how you could do this! William Peary was a very popular Arctic explorer, and I believe some critics have speculated about the influence of his work on Mary Shelley. You may consider bringing some of his work in. Also, a lot of the travel logs, and other publications (like those in newspapers and periodicals) that dealt with the arctic included some fantastic engravings and other artistic representations. The book I mentioned suggests that these sorts of images had a great influence on the way people envisioned the polar landscape. You might consider taking a look at some of these images as you research- they could be useful. Good start!!!!!

On terror...or...SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS

My silly Montaigne tribute serves a specific purpose--to call attention to the "essay" as a form, essais as attempts. Also, I hope to exonerate myself from a potentially troubling title-robbery, while in tandem saving my soul from failing utterly my attempt. Well, that's the hope anyway. There are plenty of other academic heresies that will get me thrown into the pit of fire before this will.

I have been terrified before in my life; multiple times, actually. When I say "terror", I mean the sensation where all parts freeze, the blood turns to ice-water, and your consciousness explodes--an explosion that can be contiguous rather than momentary--dismantling all sense of reason save basic physiological responses. This happens to me whenever I fly--an embarrassing trait, considering that I hail from a family of fighter pilots. I also remember experiencing the sensation upon perceiving what I thought was a ghost as a child.

Terror occurs when something demolishes your orientation of reality, your sense of what is right in the universe. My first plane trip was only a few years ago. Maybe I am too old; my sense of perspective may be off kilter. My brother had never flown, though, and he loves it. There's something cathartic about it for him. For me, I can never define a level plane (no pun intended), nor internally orient myself to what is normally "forward"--only "up" and "down" are applicable.

This is not to say that I have never been on a precipice, or have been in other kinds of truer danger. When I was younger, I used to do all manner of climbing on rocks and hills and trees, ascending to dangerous heights with no fear whatsoever (well, maybe a little fear). I have been on the brink of thousand foot drops and have spotted areas where if I were to fall my body would be irrecoverable. Still, I was not terrified then.

I think that being terrified of the ghost makes sense in terms of being terrified of flying. Both experiences shattered my sense of normalcy to such extremes that my consciousness had no basis for comparison. Sure, I have seen aerial photographs and heard many ghost stories--experiencing those things are another matter altogether.

Anna Barbauld argues that there is pleasure in these amazingly novel experiences, despite the pain that terror causes. I can say, with all manner of certainty, that I do not derive any pleasure whatsoever from flying except to be able to say that "I faced my fear." Ditto for the ghost. However, I have deliberately failed to make a distinction between my experiences and that of Gothic terror; one is temporal, corporeal, and subject to the senses, while the latter plays upon the imagination, inciting it to eventually run wild on itself if not kept in check. Sir Bertrand, in Barbauld's own example, nearly loses control as he approaches the delapidated house, even though all that he must contend with at the moment are some freaky noises and the darkness.
Barbauld is careful to distinguish between cathartic responses and that pleasurable feeling from experiencing something novel, astounding, and horrific. The term "horror" is key in understanding the difference between Gothic terror and terror. I cannot for the life of me remember who said this (or something very akin to it), but "Terror is what you experience when the bomb goes off; Horror is what you contend with after." Thus, horror lingers, a violation of harmony and order. Horror is not so much escapist, as Michael Delahoyde puts it, but "an entry into real psychocultural issues."

Barbauld does not mean to tangle etymology as perversely as I do, though she understands the difference between utter terror and the creeping sensation that allows the imagination to stretch itself, to run wild in vast and unexplored crypts of the conscious mind. The entry into psychocultural issues via horror allows the mind to tread otherwise forbidden ground. What is the significance of Sir Bertrand kissing the lady in the coffin, who reaches with outstreched arms? Necrophilia? Maybe, but that desire seems too alien. I am compelled by the collapsing house; something sexual has transpired between the coffin lady and Bertrand, a violation chivalric codes, the conception of the household, and decorum--Sir knight is an uninvited guest, as is evidenced by the sabres clashing and Jeeves attempting to run him off. Worse, the house itself, symbolic not only of order but also of duty and societal roles, crumbles after the forbidden kiss occurs. Like in The Eve of St. Agnes, the structure of the house is violated--both figuratively and literally.

Barbauld argues that wonderous, unusual things should accompany Gothic horror in order to maximize its effect--after all, the imagination wants stretching! I showed the two clips in class from The Mummy and Dracula to test Barbauld's assertion. In The Mummy, we are set in contemporary Egypt, though in the middle of the desert amongst ancient tombs: an alien environment to most of us probably. Archaeologists poke around with their findings until the creepy Van Helsing character (Edward Van Sloan, who incidentally plays Professor Van Helsing in the version of Dracula I had shown) decides to be a party pooper. Young scientist opens the case anyway--the veritable hand in the forbidden cookie jar--only to awaken Imhotep, who creaks over to his forbidden scroll, retrieves it, and is on his merry way. Mr. Impatience goes nuts, and we are left alone with a laughing madman--"H-h-h-h-h-he decided to go for a little walk! You should have seen the look on his face!" Why should we have seen the look on his face, when the camera won't let us? Obscurity heightens the moment of horror.

Though as alien and fantastic (and disturbing) as that Mummy bit is, the proceedings in Dracula have always bothered me more. Recently, Philip Glass and the Kronos Quartet scored the film--the only music in the original is a rendition of Swan Lake at the credit roll. I can't help but feel that Philip Glass couldn't stand the disturbing vistas of silence, and felt the need to fill space. Certainly Glass's work is creepy, and adds a sense of tension to the film, but on the other hand we don't really need it, considering that the silent spaces are even more tense without the music to latch onto (silent tension and musical tension are different beasts altogether). I am reminded of some individuals who cannot stand silent spaces in conversation--they feel as if silence is some sort of social shortcoming, and overcompensate to remedy the awkwardness. Dracula's silence creates false obscurity in the entropic castle--the Count only breaks it after he himself has broken nearly every rule of good hospitality: greetings at the door, plenty of light, a clean (or at least bearable) home-environment, and a lack of giant spiders. Essentially, Dracula is letting Renfield stew in horror, only to relieve him of his pain temporarily, "like a spider spinning his web..." We know, at least in part, what's in that house--vampire brides (Dracula is a polygamist, presumably, further messing with the ideas of household roles and established order), corpses, and Armadillos. If we were to linger on the issue of Dracula's brides, they further explode normalcy by reversing the roles of motherhood--barren, corpse-like, they feed on other human flesh (including children, we later learn). Where does this fall on Barbauld's spectrum?

Maybe The Mummy isn't alient enough anymore--are we, as academics, close enough to archaeologists and their environments that nothing seems quite as alien to us as it would to a viewer in the '30s? I wonder, however, if it is too alien, especially in comparison with Dracula. The Count and his brides are foreign, yes, but do they not violate that which is most familiar to us? Dracula is a literal anti-Christ, an unliscensed resurrectee, who reverses and corrupts nearly every aspect of Christ: crosses are bad for both, but in diometricallly opposed ways; stabbing with spears and stakes is prevalent for both; vampires, like Christ, exhibit uncanny mobility; one
sucks blood while the other proffers his blood and body (think of the Eucharist and its reversal--a cannibalistic ritual in the figurative sense); baptisms of blood and pollution versus cleansing baptisms--the list can go on. Significantly, Christ cries "Noli me tangere!" when Mary Magdalene attempts to touch him--like Imhotep (who has an awkward moment with his sweetheart when he leaves a trail of himself behind on her arm), Christ is still corporeal, and thus, still very much a zombie: if you were to hand Jesus some skittles right before he ascended, they would drop right out of the holes in his hands onto the ground. Again, the primary difference between the two, aside from intentionality, is that Dracula is an unliscensed resurrectee: he has accelerated events that should only occur during the apocalypse.

"Wait, jackass", you may say. "I am not Christian and still find Dracula creepy." Well, academically speaking, Christian doctrine has, to whatever end, impinged upon Western consciousness--most of this operates below the surface of our concerns anyway. However, other vampire variants show up all over the world: the loss of blood or the pollution of blood seems to be a universal concern.

I tend to want to think that Barbauld would be more approving of The Mummy's horrific effectiveness, though on the other hand her Sir Bertrand bit mirrors Dracula in many ways. The familiar becomes the exotic through a process of dual othering and the adoption of repressed urges--first the coffin lady is othered, heightening her other-worldly qualities, but yet she exhibits desires simultaneously repressed and embraced. We later discover that Imhotep is cursed for attemping to raise his beloved--"They broke in upon me and found me doing an unholy thing." More necrophilia!

I wish I could just show Barbauld those bloody clips and be done with it. What did you find more effective, by the way?