In 1982, Arthur von Boennighausen climbed the Petit Grepon, which rises to 3,751 meters, in the Rockies, in the United States. Up there, he finds a jar containing a blue book, accompanied by a handwritten note: ” Well done ! When you get to the top… keep climbing! “ The message is signed Royal Robbins (1935-2017), a famous American mountaineer. As for the book, it is the Mount Analogue, the unfinished novel by René Daumal (1908-1944), published in 1952. This discovery upsets Arthur, who describes himself as a poet, engineer, real estate agent, inventor and mountaineer: “I liked the book so much that I decided to write the rest of it, on my blog”, says the 66-year-old American from his ranch in Colorado.
Over time, the aura of the Reims writer has continued to grow among altitude enthusiasts. In Mexico, a mountaineering club is called Monte Analogo. On the heights of northern Italy, a carpentry and a socio-cultural center took their name from the neologism forged by Daumal, “péradam”. A little further east, in Trieste, the Monte Analogo association combines art and mountain: “For us mountaineers, it’s a legendary book, which goes from backpack to backpack”, says 66-year-old President Marko Mosetti.
Bernard Amy discovered the novel at the Librairie des Alpes, in Paris, in the 1970s. He often thinks of it, like that day when, in a “State of grace”, he gets out of a storm on the peaks of Patagonia. “It is a reference for all literature-loving climbers, explains the Frenchman, 81 years old. In addition to having a lot of humor and culture, we feel that this author knew the mountain. “ In Memories of Mount Analogue (Fournel, 2018), the mountaineer imagines himself walking in the footsteps of the Daumalian heroes, exploring in his turn this mysterious massif whose base is accessible and the summit inaccessible: “When I write, I experience the same difficulty in progressing as when I climb rock, he continues. This correspondence, Daumal admirably suggests. Its ascent is first of all mental. “
Masonic culture
In Freemasonry circles, references to the mountain are legion – starting with the erection of Solomon’s Temple on Mount Moriah. Among these, the novel by René Daumal figures prominently. His grandfather, a beekeeper, was he not steeped in Masonic culture? “In 1981, in the lodge I attended in Montpellier, a brother told me about Mount Analogue. I was 22 years old. This is one of the tools that we pass on, between masons ”, remembers journalist Jean-Philippe de Tonnac.
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