The Snow Leopard: Peter Matthiessen

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A masterpiece of travel and nature writing that gloriously transcends both genres. This is one of the best books I've ever read in the English language. Yes, that's right. I'm including a quote at the end of this review so you can see what I'm talking about. When you get to that quote, try reading it aloud. The beauty of those words spoken will break your heart. One day he comes across his fellow villagers wanting to kill a captured snow leopard, which has killed many of the villager’s sheep and goats. Rinzin, who is only 16, makes it his mission to save the life of this beautiful snow leopard.

But the point of this book is to neither romanticize nor demonize PM (or myself). I think we mostly do come to admire PM, at times, but that is decidedly not the point in his writing, overall. His goal is is to be honest, and clear. He is trying to empty his soul of all self-destructive desires and needs. But he has a son that needs him, you say, and you’d have a point. PM is not always an easy guy to get along with or like. He sometimes seems, regarding his hired sherpas, a tad ethnocentric, as even more so does his friend GS, if not downright racist on the rare occasion. But PM is not trying to whitewash his story. He is trying to be truthful about himself, and he is, about his marriage, for sure. I believe this is one reason some reviewers like the book less, that he is grumpy and cool and removed even by his own accounts, but this is one reason I admired his self reflection here. It feels honest; it feels real. Snow leopards are found in 12 countries in central Asia, from the Himalayas to the mountains of Siberia.

Diet and hunting

Here's some selections from the book to begin, so you can see Peter Matthiessen's spirit, his Buddhist nature, and his love of language, without my intervention or commentary: Matthiessen had recently lost his partner, Deborah Love, to cancer, and left their children behind – at residential schools or with family friends – to go on this spirit-healing quest. Though he occasionally feels guilty, especially about the eight-year-old, his thoughts are usually on the practicalities of the mountain trek. They have sherpas to carry their gear, and they stop in at monasteries but also meet ordinary people. More memorable than the human encounters, though, are those with the natural world. Matthiessen watches foxes hunting and griffons soaring overhead; he marvels at alpine birds and flora. Promoting coexistence through improved understanding of human perceptions, attitudes, and behavior toward snow leopards

Up-front confession: My own interactions with Buddhism have been tangential and shallow, and I may be missing a lot. The sense I get (and to which this book contributes mightily) is that the emphasis this religion places on one's own acceptance, one's own enlightenment, and one's own self-knowledge doesn't really do diddly-squat to help your less-fortunate neighbor down the road. Mathiessen writes, quite movingly, of a child in India, dragging her twisted, crippled legs through the mud, and smiling up with the most beautiful face he's ever seen. While it's nice to be appreciated and memorialized in this way, perhaps studying medicine or public health instead of The Way would provide more tangible benefits to children like this. Similarly, the author's own children, shortly after the death of their mother, were left with another family for months while Mathiessen did, I suppose, what he considered more important than being there for them. The writing is stunning. No wonder this won a 1979 National Book Award (in the short-lived “Contemporary Thought” category, which has since been replaced by a general nonfiction award). It’s a nature and travel writing classic. However, it took me nearly EIGHTEEN MONTHS to read, in all kinds of fits and starts, because I could rarely read more than part of one daily entry at a time. I struggle with travel narratives in general – perhaps I think it’s unfair to read them faster than the author lived through them? – but there’s also an aphoristic density to the book that requires unhurried, meditative engagement. Ok, I admit after the first chapter I considered not carrying on reading. At this point around a third of the content was religious philosophy - which is not for me. However the third of the book that was the hiking expedition and the third that was about the flora and fauna was great, and I am glad I persisted. Through habitat shifts, loss, and fragmentation, climate change is now emerging as another threat to this space-requiring species. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the average annual temperature in South Asia and Tibet will increase by 3 to 4 degrees Celsius by 2080 to 2099, along with an annual increase in precipitation. Due to these warmer and wetter conditions, the forest treeline is expected to ascend into alpine areas, which is the snow leopards preferred habitat. Results indicate that roughly 30% of their habitat in the Himalaya may be lost because of this shifting treeline. This will cause overlap in species range, where the snow leopard will then have to contend for resources with species better adapted to forest habitats such as leopards ( Panthera pardus), wild dogs ( Cuon alpinus) and, in Bhutan, tigers ( Panthera tigris). ( Christensen, et al., 2007; Forrest, et al., 2012)

Matthiessen was introduced to zen Buddhism by his wife, during the process of her death he had several experiences that he understood as being near Enlightenment experiences and in pursuit of these he went with Schaller imagining that the mountain environment and difficulties of the journey might push him into a permanent state of Enlightenment. From another point of view, he is attempting to cope with his grief. Offers a complete and thorough update on snow leopard ecology, conservation, research techniques and population trends, among other topic Chundawat, R. 1990. Habitat selection by a snow leopard in Hemis National Park, India. Int.Ped.Book of Snow leopards, 6: 85-92.

But there is a disarming directness and honesty to Matthiessen's account, he tells us that his relationship with his wife was bad, until he really realises that she is going to die, he tells us about his restless travels and drug taking, he tells us that his boots are not broken in before the journey, he tells us of his longing for inner peace just as in the next paragraph he will talk about how angry he is, indeed how angry he was even before his wife died.It was late fall, with winter a whisper away. Would they make it before the snow season turned the world impassable? Would they see the snow leopard? The element of suspense at the heart of this story exerts a mighty pull. Wharton, D., S. Mainka. 1997. Management and husbandry of the Snow Leopard. International Zoo Yearbook, 35(1): 139-147. Chapter 46: Joining up the Spots: Aligning Approaches to Big Cat Conservation from Policy to the Field The Hook - Peter Matthiessen passed away April 5, 2014 at the age of 86. I had read some of his fiction, loving the way his adventuresome novel Far Tartuga (1975) made me feel. I decided it was time to give this memoir, The Snow Leopard (1978) recounting his climb of Mount Everest in search of Blue Sheep and a quest to spot the elusive snow leopard a try.