Let’s start with Monte Veritas. It struck me as though du Maurier used the symbol of Monte Veritas to shed light on the sublime and primitive magnetism of mountains. A force not to be underestimated. The mountain generates an atmosphere that can be intoxicating at the very least, and at most truly enlightening. This eden would be difficult to leave, but it’s experience is not the same for all. Much in life can hold the duality of enlightenment and astounded ignorance that is highlighted by Victor and Anna, despite their shared view of Monte Veritas. Often it is the perspective of the viewer that is of most important.
In addition to the mirror of humanity that is Monte Veritas, I had difficulty ignoring the metaphor that stems from the character of Anna. Early in the story, our narrator likens the mood of mountains to that of women. This metaphor was embodied throughout the tale by Anna. She is the ultimate unattainable goal; Victor’s fiancé. Her allure, not unlike that of Monte Veritas, is nearly indescribable. She is lovely, but not the most beautiful. Anna is bold, yet withholding. Monte Veritas: not the highest, not the most remote, not nearly the most difficult, but a most worthy obsession and surely inaccessible to those with the wrong perspective.
Mount Analogue held less gravity for me. All around there are goals that cannot be realized in truth until they have been released. Mountains that can only be climbed if you’re not looking for them and such forth…some would recall a distorted resemblance to the Room of Requirement from the Harry Potter book series. Mount Analogue and it’s intrigue come to those who seek it in the proper spirit and may take many forms.
An interesting facet of this story was Father Sogol. “Life treated me a little of the way an organism treats a foreign body; trying either to enclose me or to expel me.” he said, and away he goes to find religion. Then, his fascination with developing “devices to snap people from their torpor.” This is just great! What would this man have done in our world today? Probably he’d have been a mountaineer. By any means he was ripe for an adventure of this existential scale.
Finally, Daumal. This guy was something else. It’s interesting, though maybe not surprising, to me that such an iconic piece of quasi-philosophy came from an avant-garde poet with a penchant for carbon tetrachloride and mind-altering substances (especially hallucinogens). Rock and Roll! I also had to wonder what the return journey would have been like? What could the other side of this allegorical coin possibly hold? The path, the objective, the author…each as wondrous as the next.