Mount Analogue

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.René Daumal's Mount Analogue is a twentieth century classic, combining the author's poetic gifts and philosophical accomplishments in a manner that is both entertaining to read and profound to contemplate. Among other things, this is a marvelous tale in which the narrator/author, one of an intrepid company of eight, sets sail in the yacht Impossible to search for Mount Analogue, the solid, geographically located, albeit hidden, peak that reaches inexorably towards heaven—as Mount Olympus reached to the home of the Greek gods, or Mount Sinai to the presence of Yahweh. Daumal, often described as one of the most gifted literary figures in twentieth-century France, died before the novel was completed, providing an uncanny one-way quality to the journey.