It’s one thing to know that a book is an unfinished work. It’s quite another to be in the middle of a sentence, with what seems to be a sizable chunk ahead, only to find that not ven this sentence has been completed. The remainder of the book turned out to be notes from Daumal on mountaineering and a postscript from his wife. The beginning of the book already had a lengthy essay discussing Daumal’s influences.
Mount Analogue is an odd little book. Even though i’ve read some Gurdjieff, i’m still not well-versed enough in his brand of bullshit to catch what Daumal was doing. (Yep, i skipped that essay in beginning.) It came off as a literary fantasy to me, but not quite. An Amazon commenter mentioned that he read it as parody of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. It might be an allegory, but it’s a relatively fun one.
The other thing is that while it was completely different in tone, it was reminding me ever so faintly of The Third Policeman. If you have read Daumal and know that i’m full of shit, consider this… Lost. I forgot who insisted that if one read The Third Policeman that one would have a better grasp as to what’s going on with the television show lost, but i was getting the vague sensation that some of the same stuff was going on with Mount Analogue. The character Sogol’s explanation on why the island, in the South Pacific no less, existed without discovery came off as something that might turn up in Season 4 of Lost.
There are more reasons, but i left the book at home and didn’t take notes. Again… tt was a hell of a suckerpunch to be left hanging in the middle of that last sentence.