The Snow Leopard: Peter Matthiessen

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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 No wonder this won a 1979 National Book Award (in the short-lived “Contemporary Thought” category, which has since been replaced by a general nonfiction award).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. Matthiessen frequently digresses to remember his wife Deborah Love who had died of cancer prior to the adventure. [4] The book is, therefore, also a meditation upon death, suffering, loss, memory and healing. The memories of Deborah operate with a number of other recursive stylistic traits that play against the linear, outward progress of the journey logged through maps and dates. [5] Chapter 46: Joining up the Spots: Aligning Approaches to Big Cat Conservation from Policy to the Field Chapter 12: Building Community Governance Structures and Institutions for Snow Leopard Conservation

I'm a little embarrassed to say I hadn't paid attention to much of Matthiessen's work before he died. I had Shadow Country on my shelf and every intention of getting to it soon, but didn't realize he had this whole other nonfiction output. I read the Snow Leopard after I read his obit three weeks ago and discovered he was the only person (?) to win the National Book Award for BOTH fiction and nonfiction. OK, so, maybe it was time to throw off my veil of ignorance and start reading some Matthiessen. I figured 'The Snow Leopard' was a good place to start. 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. 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. Snow leopards are already listed on the international endangered species CITES treaty as Appendix 1, which means they cannot be traded between countries, and are fully protected across all of their range.

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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) Lactation is five-months however the young can begin to eat solid food at two months of age, and are weaned at about 5 months. For roughly the first year of life, snow leopards are dependent upon their mother. Female snow leopards reach sexual maturity at about 2 to 3 years of age while males may take up to 4 years. ( Fox, 1989; Petzsch, 1968) Christensen, J., B. Hewitson, A. Busuioc, A. Chen X Gao, I. Held, R. Jones, R. Kolli, W. Kwon, R. Laprise, V. Magana Rueda, L. Mearns, C. Menendez, J. Raisanen, A. Rinke, A. Sarr, P. Whetton. 2007. Regional Climate Projections. Climate Change, 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, University Press, Cambridge, Chapter 11, 4: 847-940. 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.

Sometimes it's not till I finish a book that I realize how much I am in love with it. That's the case with this lovely travelogue, which smartly does not pretend to be anything that it is not. It's not given any frills or decoration, other than beautiful and inimitable descriptions of nature. It is a humble record of a man's journey through the Himalayas and his concurrent spiritual journey. To ask after the object of the journey is missing the point—and I hope this doesn't sound cheesy, as it does not come across cheesily at all in the book—the journey is the point. Snow leopards inhabit a large geographic range of approximately 2.3 million square kilometers and are widely but sporadically distributed throughout the high mountain ranges of Central Asia. This includes the entire Himalayan mountain system, as well as areas in Bhutan, Nepal and the Siberian region of Russia. Snow leopards are found anywhere from the Himalayas to southern and western Mongolia and South Russia, however 60% of the range occurs in China, particularly in the Xinjiang and Tibet autonomous regions, as well as in the Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu provinces. ( Fox, 1994; Hussain, 2003; Schaller, et al., 1988) Mentally, spiritually, it was perhaps more demanding. Talking to Alex, I mention how over the years that one or two people have told me how special the book has been to them, in helping them to understand or cope with death. In particular, my friend the writer Sonali Deraniyagala, who lost her whole family in the 2003 Sri Lankan tsunami, once told me how the book was just about the only thing she had ever known truly to comfort her. “It’s odd to say but I found that the book really helped with the actual physical pain,” she said. I wondered if Alex felt it to be primarily a book that encompassed grief. In 1973, Peter Matthiessen and field biologist George Schaller traveled high into the remote mountains of Nepal to study the Himalayan blue sheep and possibly glimpse the rare and beautiful snow leopard. Matthiessen, a student of Zen Buddhism, was also on a spiritual quest to find the Lama of Shey at the ancient shrine on Crystal Mountain. As the climb proceeds, Matthiessen charts his inner path as well as his outer one, with a deepening Buddhist understanding of reality, suffering, impermanence, and beauty. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by acclaimed travel writer and novelist Pico Iyer.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.