Mount Analogue — Rene Daumal

The cult classic allegory of a man's search for enlightenment and self-knowledge by the French poet and literary critic.

In Mount Analogue, Rene Daumal introduces readers to an anonymous protagonist much like himself: a young author who travels in the literary circles of mid-20th century Paris. When the author is reminded of an article he once wrote about the symbolism of mountains in ancient mythologies, his speculation about “the ultimate symbolic mountain” sets him on a journey to discover it.

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.