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Title: The Snow Leopard (Penguin Nature Classics) by Peter Matthiessen, Edward Hoagland ISBN: 0-14-025508-7 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: June, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.57 (42 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Book, A Mountain
Comment: My brother casually lent me this book some years ago, but I only had the chance to read it recently. In a word I was stunned- in both Mathiessen's honesty and the force and beauty with which he renders all things he chooses to write about. Framing a period of great loss and confusion in his personal life, Matthiessen sets out on a scientific trip through Nepal with preeminent zoologist George Schaller. Their aim is to study and observe the Himalayan blue sheep, but in the back of their minds is the rare chance to see the mythic cat of the mountain cathedrals, the snow leopard. What makes Matthiessen's storytelling so rich is his ability to blend all his interests throughout the odyssey (philosophy, anthro, biology, history) in a way that magnifies the simple art of walking a path, observing. Throughout the book, we share that image with Matthiessen: walking a path surrounded by mountains ringing in light. With these surroundings he initiates an ongoing conversation with himself. Passing him and falling behind him on the path are a motley group of guides and sherpas. Some are quiet and resourceful, some opportunistic and cunning, and there is one who we never fully understand. This one, the enigmatic Tukten, is the one whom Matthiessen is the most drawn to. Perhaps because he feels he himself is a mystery, and that the world is a mystery. And to acknowledge this, is also a direction. After finishing the book, I called my brother to tell him how much I enjoyed the book. I mentioned a favorite passage, where George Schaller exchanges a haiku with Matthiessen, one that he had written during a long hike up to one of the villages. Unfailingly, my brother recited the haiku from memory after which must have been years since reading it. Maybe you too will find yourself saying it on a path of similar space:
Oh cloud trails I go Alone, with chatting porters. There is a crow.
Rating: 5
Summary: Self-Indulgent but Compelling
Comment: Let's get some things straight. This is not a nature book. Except for a few pages of description, it is not about snow leopards. It is not a book about mountaineering or even about the environment and ecology of mountains. It is about human ecology and the landscape of the mind. It is a narrative of a personal journey of self-discovery set against an exotic backdrop. The author comes in search of the snow leopard, enduring months of privation, exhausting mind and body along the way. Not once does he glimpse a snow leopard, but he is satisfied merely to have made the trek and to have known someone who did see the snow leopard. That is the thesis, plot, denouement and summation of the book. And while the author claims to have discovered the meaning of life, it is not a book about family values. The recently widowed author abandons his eight year old son to the care of relatives in the United States in order to make this three month trek through the remotest heart of Asia, promising the boy that he'll be home for Thanksgiving. The trek soon stretches beyond Christmas to five months or more, throughout which the author remains out of voice or mailed contact with his own now motherless child. And, while the author pines away in the Himalaya about failing to meet his promised date of return, one gets the sense that this is said only to impart the unrequited personal sacrifice incurred by the author in pursuit of a deeper understanding of his own interior life, for not once does he acknowledge the pain of abandonment his son might be feeling in the wake of the mother's death. The author's voyage of personal discovery in the ways of Tibetan Buddhism, and the acceptance of whatever may come or not come one's way, is the real subject of the book. It was not the author's fate to meet the snow leopard, and he accepts it. It was not his son's fate to accompany him on this journey, and the author accepts that, too (never mind the son). Once the realization sets in that this is about the author's own narcissitic journey of the mind--and nothing more--the book rewards even the most skeptical of readers. The book is fascinating for its depiction of the social and material conditions of the mountain people of western Nepal, living beyond the reach of modern medicine, plumbing, telephone, radio, public sanitation, internal combustion, pasteurization or democracy. From the descriptions of the rough accommodations of the villagers, the rough commerce by yak train through the high Himalayan passes, the uneasy negotiations between the westerners making the trek and the Nepalese Sherpas who accompany them and bear (or refuse to bear) their luggage, and the impoverished hermits and monks ensconced in their crude rock hovels in the most remote, least accessible mountain sanctuary on the flanks of the Crystal Mountain, one gains an intimate acquaintance with the social meaning of trekking and the interior meaning of Buddhism. It is a moving, engrossing piece of writing.
Rating: 5
Summary: No Simple-minded Animal Story - It's an Adventure
Comment: If you're looking for a fifth grade narrative about really neat animals you'd better skip the Snow Leopard. However, if you are ready to take on a great author weaving the physical and the metaphysical together into one of the greatest adventure stories ever written you'll read and always remember this fantastic work of art. It's a tale of exploration that encompasses unbelievable off the map trekking, fascinating research by the greatest living large mammal zoologist, and enlightening insights into the very core of oriental religion. I have never read a book that successfully integrated so much intelligence into one superbly narrated tale. Without exaggeration, it's a classic.
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Title: Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man's Miraculous Survival by Joe Simpson ISBN: 0060730552 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: January, 2004 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine De Saint-Exupery, Lewis Galantiere ISBN: 0151970874 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 15 October, 1992 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Nine-Headed Dragon River : Zen Journals 1969-1982 by Peter Matthiessen ISBN: 1570623678 Publisher: Shambhala Pub. Date: 28 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard ISBN: 0786704373 Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub. Date: April, 1997 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Coming into the Country by John McPhee ISBN: 0374522871 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 1991 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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