The Snow Leopard: Peter Matthiessen

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I don't want it to seem like I didn't enjoy this book. I did. You do get a feel for how liberating, calming, centering, that it would be to walk out of the modern world to the cold and quiet mountains and let it all go…all the complications and illusions of life. He is a student of zen Buddhism and is trying to write a zen Buddhist book. I think if this were a different book I would like it better…but these people, this place…his attempt to be 'zen' all the time, it just feels detached and that we are missing lots of wonderful, dirty, complicated, vivid stuff. He isn't on a meditation retreat. He is walking through people's lives in living breathing communities and he barely seems to notice. For two months of 1973, from late September to late November, Matthiessen joined zoologist George Schaller on a journey from the Nepalese Himalayas to the Tibetan Plateau to study Himalayan blue sheep. Both also harbored a hope of spotting the elusive snow leopard. Don't worry, the snow leopard saves the village later by convincing the soldiers that the village is haunted by demons. John Gatta, Storrs (2004). Making Nature Sacred. Oxford University Press. p.191. ISBN 0198036949 . Retrieved 21 June 2014. Lovari, S., R. Boesi, I. Minder, N. Mucci, E. Randi, A. Dematteis, S. Ale. 2009. Restoring a keystone predator may endanger a prey species in a human-altered ecosystem: the return of the snow leopard to Sagarmatha National Park. Animal Conservation, 12: 559-570.

My grandmother says” is about a young girl looking after wild snow leopards and helping to educate her friends about snow leopards in Nepal. This lovely little book was produced with the help of the Snow Leopard Conservancy. I think it’s the only children’s book on snow leopards published in English and Nepali, which is a great idea so that the children sharing snow leopard habitat in Nepal can read it in their own language. The story is by J. Sherpa and the drawings by Sanjib Rana.This was a donation to my Little Free Library Shed. It was also a winner of the 1979 National Book Award. I was attracted to the book cover, and the idea of it, that made me want to explore reading it. Snow leopards are top predators, they have few natural predators other than humans. However, interspecific killing between leopards ( Panthera pardus) and snow leopards can occur when competition for resources between these sympatric carnivores increases. Adult snow leopards are also potential predators of younger cubs. ( Lovari, et al., 2013) In Tesson, the film has a real writer whose style rises above the cliche into which nature documentary almost always descends. I enjoyed this documentary for the way it keeps human beings within the picture and doesn’t create a world in which animals exist on their own, with the humans’ presence saved for the making-of featurette section in the last 10 minutes. There is real wonder in the snow leopards’ eventual appearance. A few things about the trek had undeniably changed. When Matthiessen senior made the journey, there was a genuine sense of extreme remoteness. The author had cropped his long hair short to his skull as he set out and began to walk barefoot like the Sherpas when they left paved roads. As a reader, you feel exactly how, camping in his wet cotton and wool clothes at minus 20C, he would “quake with cold all night”. High in the Pamir mountains a guardian spirit or Mergichan, in the form of a snow leopard, watches over a remote and peaceful valley. She sings the stars to life, clothes the world in white, and builds walls of ice to protect the village in the valley. Growing old, she begins to search for a replacement, her song finding a young girl, and speaking to her in her dreams. When soldiers invade the village, the cat collects the young girl, and drives the interlopers away with dreams of demons. Teaching her new charge everything she needs to know, the snow leopard departs for the stars, leaving the girl transformed into a snow leopard herself - the new guardian of the valley...

The book recounts the journey of Matthiessen and Schaller in 1973 to Shey Gompa in the inner Dolpo region of Nepal. Schaller's original objective was to compare the mating habits of the Himalayan blue sheep (the bharal) with those of the common sheep of the USA, while for Matthiessen the trip was more of a spiritual exploration. Another aim was to spot the snow leopard, a predator on the bharal and a creature that was seldom seen (it had been glimpsed only twice by Westerners in the previous twenty five years). A third part of the plan was to visit the Crystal Monastery and its Buddhist lama. [1]We observe Matthiessen and how he relates to Schaller. We observe also Matthiessen’s relationship with Tukten, a man he comes to respect and rely on thoroughly. He was originally employed to bear provisions. A bond of kinship develops between the two. This is interesting to note, given that Tukten was frowned upon, viewed by some as an unreliable drunk. I admire Tukten for his ability to stay calm. He became a role model for not only Matthiessen but also for me. Each reader must judge for himself. Tl;dr - A great winter book with stunning illustrations and a rather mythical, mystical bent to it. I'm not giving it five stars because I am not clear on some things. Where are the girl's parents? Were they killed by the invaders? Does anyone notice the girl is missing? Does the girl miss her family when she is taken away by the snow leopard and taught how to be a mystical protector? Too much is up in the air for me to be completely satisfied with this book. Mattiesen’s travels were as much an inner journey as a journey to Inner Dolpo in Tibet studying sheep and hoping to glimpse the reclusive snow leopard. Travel is not just about visiting faraway places, but can also be a lot closer than we think. At age 46, in 1973, Peter Matthiessen walked, with biologist George Schaller, from Kathmandu to the Crystal Mountain in Tibet and beyond. Matthiessen was a novice at this kind of extreme expedition, as who among us wouldn't be, yet turned in 10- and 12- hour days walking up and down icy, fragile, whip-thin mountain trails. Food was meagre. Boots caused blisters. Winds blew cold. Grief over personal matters was impossible to shake. Brings together the most current scientific knowledge, documents the most pressing conservation issues, and shares success stories in alleviating the broad threats that now jeopardize the long-term survival of this species