The Snow Leopard

Peter Matthiessen (1978)
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THE A5 BOOK REVIEW

The Snow Leopard is a deeply moving travelogue by Peter Matthiessen recounting his two month trek in the Dolpo region in the Himalayas.  The primary objective was to study the Himalayan blue sheep with naturalist George Schaller, but the expedition also hoped to spot an extremely rare snow leopard along the way.  His obvious love of language is compelling, and his rich descriptions of the pristine landscape and the local people make this a good travel book by itself.  Matthiessen takes it much farther though; the Tibetan trek however was much more of a spiritual journey for him, an internal exploration fueled by external exploration.  He spends a lot of time reflecting on Buddhist learnings of beauty, suffering, fulfillment and death, tied into memories of his wife Deborah, who died of cancer about a year before the trip.  The Snow Leopard won The National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1980.
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ABOUT PETER MATTHIESSEN

Peter Matthiessen (1927–2014) was an American author and naturalist, famous as the only writer to win the National Book Award in both fiction and non-fiction.  His language is praised for being lyrical and poignant, often incorporating nature and spirituality into his work.  He is best known for The Snow Leopard, but he did win The National Book Award for Fiction at age 81 for Shadow Country (2008),a set of three novels that took place in frontier Florida.  He also co-founded the literary magazine, The Paris Review.

GREAT QUOTES FROM THE SNOW LEOPARD

“We walk on in mud and gloom and cold.  At the mountain of Sibang, to the beat of tom-toms, a buffalo is slowly killed for Durga Puja and its fresh blood drunk, while children stand in a circle in the rain.  These mountain children have the big bellies of malnutrition and though they seem no less malcontent than the children of the valley, they are quiet, and do not sing out to us; one of the blood-drinkers has the loveliest face of any child that I have ever seen.”

“In the clearness of this Himalayan air, mountains draw near, and in such splendor, tears come quietly to my eyes and cool quietly on my sunburned cheeks.  This is not mere soft-mindedness, nor am I all that silly with the altitude.  My head has cleared with these weeks free of intrusions – mail, telephones, people and their needs – and I respond to things spontaneously, without defensive or self-conscious screens.  Still, all this feeling is astonishing; not so long ago I could say truthfully that I had not shed a tear in twenty years.”

“The secret of the mountain is that the mountains simply exist, as I do myself: the mountains exist simply, which I do not. The mountains have no "meaning," they are meaning; the mountains are. The sun is round. I ring with life, and the mountains ring, and when I can hear it, there is a ringing that we share. I understand all this, not in my mind but in my heart, knowing how meaningless it is to try to capture what cannot be expressed, knowing that mere words will remain when I read it all again, another day.” 

INTERESTING LINKS:

  • Read "Walking the Himalayas", the New York Times review of The Snow Leopard, written in 1978 by Edward Hoagland.
  • In 2014, L.S. Montejo followed Mattiessen's steps to produce a beautiful follow-on book with photography showcasing the land of Dolpo, Nepal.  All benefits from the sale of this book will go to mhealthkarma, a charity helping bring inexpensive medical devices to the needy. 
  • Mark Adams, the author of Turn Right at Machu Picchu, wrote an excellent story on Peter Matthiessen for Men's Journal.  
  • Learn more about the snow leopard and perhaps donate to help protect them by visiting the World Wildlife Foundation.  See more here.
  • This classic in travel writing is one of our favorites.  Click here to see the full list of our top recommendations.

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