An abrupt leap into geometry was typical of him.
“This place exists. We both know it. Therefore we will discover it. Where? That’s a matter of calculation. I promise you that in a few days I will have determined its geographical position within several degrees. And we are ready to leave immediately…”
“Here then is what I have established simply by eliminating all untenable hypotheses. Somewhere on Earth a territory of at least several thousand kilometers in circumference must exist, where Mount Analogue rises. The base of this territory is formed of materials that have the property of curving the space around them in such a way that the entire region is enclosed in a shell of curved space. Where do these materials come from? Are they extra terrestrial in origin? Do they come from the Earth’s core regions, whose physical nature we know so little about that, according to the geologists, all we can say is that no substance can exist there that is either a solid, a liquid, or a gas?”
That said, three questions arise: How has this territory so far escaped the investigations of travelers? How do we gain access to it? And where is it?
The only admissible hypothesis is that the shell of curvature that surrounds the base is not absolutely impenetrable – that is, not always, everywhere, and for everyone.
Excerpts are from René Daumal’s unfinished novel Mount Analogue.
Images are stills from my short film The Perpetual, filmed on location in Iceland.
Cinesthetic feasts 