While browsing the Economist‘s Xmas issue I came across an unlikely-but-excellent article on Hell. Thanks to this article I also found a nugget that sounds very similar to the ending of At The Mountains of Madness…
“The Trojan hero Aeneas in Virgil’s Aeneid toured Hades [Hell], with difficulty enough, and [while there] he merely glanced towards Tartarus [the prison of the defeated gods], glimpsing a high cliff with a castle below it surrounded by a torrent of flame. That single sighting fixed him to the spot in terror.”
Very similar to Danforth’s final backward glance (in which he presumably glimpses Kadath), I thought. As far as I can tell, no-one’s spotted this possible source before. It suggests there may be further links between the Aeneid and Mountains.
On the other hand, final backward glances with dire consequences have been around since at least Lot’s wife.
Yes, but I think we can assume that Danforth’s glance across hellish icy wastes — like that of Aeneas across the fiery wastes of Hell — is also toward elevated land that serves as a prison of the gods. Toward Kadath, in other words – a place which according to Lovecraft apparently serves as a prison or exile-place for the old gods of earth. So the similarities arise from three specifics that are over and above the mere act of glancing back.