Travel to Asia

The Snow Leopard (Classic, Nature, Penguin)

Format: Paperback
Author: Peter Matthiessen
ReleaseDate: 04 August, 1987
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Rating:

Can a book generate a karma all its own? This one does.
Matthiessen illuminates the mystery and silence of the Himalayas, and the human need for nature and it's transformational powers. The Snow Leopard is not just a book, rather a marvelous mental holiday one can return to as often as one needs, like a literary hitchhiker, to get away from the modernity and electronic technology that swamps us.

I read this book every year, and for two years taught it on a college level to over 500 freshman. Yes, freshmen, at 7:00 a. m. , who have never even seen snow.

Being a public college and teaching a book with overtly religious themes, I suggested they skip over the "Buddhist bits" if it did not interest them, and stick to the journey, paying attention to PM, George Schaller and the mixed bag of porters and Sherpas who guided them. Funny thing when you tell students not to read something, they go right for it.

To my amazement, they got it. They understood Matthiessen's flaws: the drug use, failed marriages, parental doubts about leaving family once again to pursue "nothing" in one of the remotest places on earth--the Land of Dolpo, where lamas rule and people obey. Students are intimate with the concept of to work for the sake of work; be it one foot in front of the other on a trail in Nepal, or their own path of study; these young people easily saw how humans transforms themselves through their work and passions. They were also quite politically savy, impressed by the results of this remarkable and timeless journey into the heart of the wilderness where it's okay to get lost, make mistakes and fail.

Readers should not ignore the after affects, literal shock waves, both literary and political which came out of this simple journey between a writer and field biologist, who submitted his report on the wildlife numbers to Kathmandu who ten years later created the Shey-Phoksumdo National Park, the largest preserve in Nepal. The snow leopard still lives and is protected because PM and GS walked that path, and more importantly freely shared their observations, not just writing within their fields, but about themselves as human beings and the role human beings play in protecting or destroying what's left of our environment.

Matthiessen much deserved the National Book Award for Contemporary Thought in 1980, and many people do not know The Snow Leopard was to be the cover story for the New York Times Book Review the Sunday the pressmen went on strike for the first and only time in it's history. The review was never run. It did not become the best seller it seemed destined to be, given the glowing reviews of the time.

It has become a cult classic instead, with a karma all its own. It's okay not to "get it" all the first time you read it. It unfolds, like a lotus blossom.

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Zen and the art of wildlife biology
Matthiesen has been studying Zen Buddhism for several years, and is interested in the area both for its wildlife and for its Buddhism. After the death of his wife, Matthiesen joins a friend (George Schaller) on a fall expedition to Nepal to study the rut of a rare sheep/goat (the classification of the species is one of the subjects of the research). This book consists of (heavily edited and revised) journal entries that tell the story of his journey. He gives us both a travel story and meditations on Buddhism. The interplay between the two work very well.

Several of Matthiesen's own Quests are revealed as the book goes on, and many end up having Zen lessons. Many of these have the kind of resolution that you might expect if the book were fictional, in that some are Too Perfect for a Zen novice. Yet they are entirely believable, and I suspect that the degree of poetic license here is not too great.

If those two paragraphs have convinced you to read the book, stop right here. If not, I'll summarize some of the Zen lessons - - but be advised that several spoilers follow.

Matthiesen wants to see a snow leopard but never does. However, when he splits up from his partner, his partner sees the leopard.

Matthiesen wants to visit a particular "monastery" to visit a particular lama. He ultimately visits the monastery and later learns than he has already met the lama.

He wants to learn Buddhism from the Buddhists who serve as the expedition porters, but not too surprisingly they aren't very Buddhist at all. Also not too surprisingly, he learns the most from the least likely candidate, who is not trying to teach him anything at all. (I actually think that Matthiessen is wrong about this porter, but the literary point is what Matthiesen thinks he learned from him. )

And again, not surprisingly, in the end Matthiesen does find what he is not looking for.

If you're part of a reading group, you might try this one alongside Catherine Reid's "Coyote: Seeking the Hunter in Our Midst. " Both books interweave a story about the natural world with an intensely personal journey. As I discussed in my review of "Coyote," I think Reid fails, while Matthiesen succeeds. In part, this reflects the fact that Matthiesen has a strong spiritual core, though a seemingly weak, Zen core. He has no chip on his shoulder. Matthiesen is also traveling more interesting terrain than Reid (Nepal versus western Massachusetts). His recurring stories of goals not reached are also more interesting than Reid's more linear narrative.

Despite its strengths, Matthiessen can be an exasperating companion at time. He has Great White Hunter attitudes toward the porters. He has abandoned his son shortly after his wife's death, and does not keep promises to his son about his return. He can be self-indulgent, as is true of many people on a spiritual quest. He's not as self-critical as he might be, but honest enough to give us the rope with which to hang him if we want to do so.

Finally, if you're interested in the Himalayan region, this is one of the best travel narratives that I've read. It has richer characterization and a stronger sense of setting than the more spartan account in, say, "Seven Years in Tibet. " It's a page turner and worth reading more than once.

In my rucksack forever...


These are the mountains of your heart. When I'm not carrying this book, it's carrying me.

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