The Snow Leopard Book

I have taken months since reading this book to finally write this (long) review:

Here's some selections from the book to begin, so you can see Matthiessen's spirit, his Buddhist nature, and his love of language, without my intervention or commentary:

"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."--Peter Matthiessen

"Today most scientists would agree with the ancient Hindus that nothing exists or is destroyed, things merely change shape or form. . . the cosmic radiation that is thought to come from the explosion of creation strikes the earth with equal intensity from all directions, which suggests either that the earth is at the center of the universe, as in our innocence we once supposed, or that the known universe has no center."--Peter Matthiessen

"The sun is roaring, it fills to bursting each crystal of snow. I flush with feeling, moved beyond my comprehension, and once again, the warm tears freeze upon my face. These rocks and mountains, all this matter, the snow itself, the air--the earth is ringing. All is moving, full of power, full of light."-- Peter Matthiessen

"The Lama of the Crystal Monastery appears to be a very happy man, and yet I wonder how he feels about his isolation in the silences of Tsakang, which he has not left in eight years now and, because of his legs, may never leave again. Since Jang-bu seems uncomfortable with the Lama or with himself or perhaps with us, I tell him not to inquire on this point if it seems to him impertinent, but after a moment Jang-bu does so. And this holy man of great directness and simplicity, big white teeth shining, laughs out loud in an infectious way at Jang-bu's question. Indicating his twisted legs without a trace of self-pity or bitterness, as if they belonged to all of us, he casts his arms wide to the sky and the snow mountains, the high sun and dancing sheep, and cries, "Of course I am happy here! It's wonderful! Especially when I have no choice!"--Peter Matthiessen

"Left alone, I am overtaken by the northern void-no wind, no cloud, no track, no bird, only the crystal crescents between peaks, the ringing monuments of rock that, freed from the talons of ice and snow, thrust an implacable being into the blue. In the early light, the rock shadows on the snow are sharp; in the tension between light and dark is the power of the universe. This stillness to which all returns, this is reality, and soul and sanity have no more meaning than a gust of snow; such transience and insignificance are exalting, terrifying, all at once. . . Snow mountains, more than sea or sky, serve as a mirror to one's own true being, utterly still, utterly clear, a void, an Emptiness without life or sound that carries in Itself all life, all sound."--Peter Matthiessen

"Figures dark beneath their loads pass down the far bank of the river, rendered immortal by the streak of sunset upon their shoulders."--Peter Matthiessen, all from The Snow Leopard

I started this book a few times in my twenties. It won the National Book Award in 1978, when I was first teaching, and I was not yet ready to read it. Or maybe, if I had gone "on the road" as Kerouac got a generation to do, one way or the other, I might have taken it with me then and actually read it. I tried on a few other occasions to get into it, and I couldn't do it, for one reason or the other, but for some reason I always knew at some point it would be important for me to experience. Something like Zen and the At of Motorcycle Maintenance, it was a book for a time, highly influential. But even then, having slow-read it over the month of my trip, it has still taken me months to get to writing about it. I warn you, this could go on for a while. I'm mostly writing it for myself, but you are welcome to come along for my (reading) journey.

The Snow Leopard is one of the best and important books I have ever read, and I finally read it not in some hippie solo way or at an Ashram or something, but on a one-month road trip (in a mini-van, no less, ha!) with three kids and my wife, making a big western circle of the U.S., leaving Chicago and going through Montana to Seattle, down the Oregon coastline to Monterey Bay, across the desert (stopping at Vegas for a day, which was of course surreal in comparison with everything else), through the Rockies and across the Great Plains back home. An epic, once in a lifetime trip, tent camping, hiking several national parks, driving through the west I know and love, sometimes reading the poetry of the region if I remembered to look it up as I went. A pilgrimage, of sorts, for me, anyway, partly spiritual as much as getting in touch with natural beauty and friends along the way. I'm not as Matthiessen is, a Zen Buddhist, by the way, but in addition to Buddhism-inspired poetry like Gary Snyder's, I also read a Buddhist-themed architectural book on the trip, The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander, that explores the relationships between selves and surroundings. Organic architecture, in harmony with place. Also perfect for the trip and in tandem with The Snow Leopard. I also reviewed Alexander's book on Goodreads awhile ago.

Matthiessen, equally adept at fiction and non-fiction, in The Snow Leopard writes the book of his life. He's on a pilgrimage to the Himalayas a year after his wife is dead, leaving his eight-year-old son behind with family as he seeks at least two things: A glimpse of the rare and the presumedly soon-to-be-extinct Snow Leopard, and a visit with the Lama of Shay at the Crystal Mountain, where few westerners have dared venture. As I said, he's a Zen Buddhist (something I in the seventies casually studied, as I eased slowly but inexorably out of my Dutch Reformed Christian upbringing), and this is a time in his life he wants/needs to make this quest, this journey. And he makes it with a friend, crusty field biologist George Schaller, who is there to study the Himalayan Blue Sheep. Matthiessen is crusty, too, actually; he doesn't project himself as a saint. They go with a number of sherpas and encounter a very few people along their way, though PM does actually meet the Lama of Shay. But the book is mainly Matthiessen's account of his inner and outer journey, past and present, as they all become one, a study of grief, beauty, impermanence, related in some of the most beautiful language to ever grace the page. You know Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods? Or Cheryl Strayed's Wild, or even old John Bunyan's Pilgram's Progress? The travel narrative that is also a journey of the soul has a long tradition, and a rich one. It's worth the time to travel with them once in awhile.

But speaking of harmony, and seeking a creature as you are also essentially seeking yourself, which is a kind of contradiction to Buddhism about being content where you are: There were two key Snow Leopard-like creatures on our trip's list: Hump-backed whales and elk, though we hadn't sought them out in particular, initially. The hump-backed whales, orcas and other whales were closer to the shoreline than in decades around Monterey Bay in late August 2015, and we stood with various locals reverently and feverishly, able with our naked eye to see them spout, breach and feed, boats and kayaks hovering around them at a respectful distance. It felt like what the Indians call a ceremony to have been there. As would have been the case in the seventies, a couple evenings there were guitars and much wine, as locals excitedly told about how wonderful this occasion was even for them, having lived there all their lives.



In Colorado, in the Rocky Mountain State Park, a week or so later, we were privileged to be around for the once a year "bugling" or mating call of the Elks, which felt completely magical to experience:



Kind of comical, too, right? That some mate, any mate, might find that noise inviting? But we found it pretty transformative, that and the whales, though we saw many many other species of animals and birds we dutifully recorded along the way.

In the seeking, PM learns the Buddhist patience of expecting nothing as he seeks. The seeking, the journey, is key. We did see all these creatures, and were happy to find them. Did PM find his snow leopard? Did it matter to him, either way? Read it to find out.

Reviews then and now have been critical of Matthiessen for leaving his son home, his son's mother dead less than a year ago, to make his own lonesome spiritual trek, and I'll admit they have a point. In a way it seems selfish. On my trip I had also left my 15 year old son home, as there was little room in the van and he had other responsibilities at home, but we could have made it work, and I felt guilty for failing to do so. When I saw and felt the criticism of PM for his fatherly desertion, I felt this sense of responsibility for desertion as PM felt it. I should have taken my camping-passionate son. I should have just found a way to do it, but I left him with his mother, guilt replacing him every mile of the way. 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 not 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 ethno-centric, 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 account more. The account feels real.

His observations of environmental devastation, even already in the seventies, even paling in comparison to the acceleration of the extinctions now, is nevertheless poignant, of course. His thrilling poetic descriptions of the Himalayas make it all seem timeless, eternal, on the one hand, separate from selfish humans, and yet also fragile, in many ways, vulnerable to human devastation. On our trip we traveled through the massive west coast drought, through the haze of unspeakably scary fires. The trip from Spokane to Seattle, for instance, took place in smoky haze. Even in the car with windows closed a couple times we felt it difficult to breathe. It felt at moments like Cormac McCarthy's The Road in places, apocalyptic.

A massive old growth tree fell in Redwoods National Forest not a hundred feet from our tent, a victim of the worst drought in anyone's memory. The exposed roots were sadly dusty. Park workers told of the loss of many such trees. What the hell were we doing there, while the landscape and the people there were suffering?! What kind of self-indulgence had traveling become as the planet was dying before our very eyes? Was this just a naïve (and selfish) "vacation" on our part, to think we could just enjoy nature and somehow pretend for a time that we as a race were not in the process of contributing to this devastation? Maybe. Maybe we should have taken the trip money and contributed it to environmental organizations.

But so many good things happened, including a deepening commitment to enviromental awareness, for all of us. Our study of tide pools in Oregon was amazing, for instance. Watching shooting stars in Arches National Park. Hiking the Narrows in Bryce Canyon. These are the privileges of the middle class, to spend lots of money as PM and I do to experience nature on spiritual journies. Is it merely sixties-inspired individualism? Or in experiencing nature travel in this way is it possible we bring more to loving the earth? I hope it is the latter and not just an escapist frolic when this happens for any of us who do it. The Buddhism of PM does seem more inner than socially focused, and we too at times seemed to be escaping our lives, as travel can be, but on the whole, and speaking for myself, I felt the occasion as traveling into myself, and at the same time linking with family and friends along the way, and the greater world. We made a commitment to increasing our advocacy for the environment as a family on this trip.

I loved Matthiessen's parallel and integrated inner and outer searches in this pristine natural setting, looking for these rare and special and still not quite extinct animals in their habitat, as he seeks himself and reflects on his life with his wife and family. I found it very moving and inspiring. Sometimes reading books like this can be just important, as you know. Some books as you read them can be almost autobiographical, as in telling you your own life. But I can't imagine this book would be the same to everyone at all stages of their lives. And PM's Buddhism might annoy/bore some readers at times, as it did a couple friends I know. I loved every page of it, though, I really did.

P.S. There were two Snow Leopards born in the summer of 2015 at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo. Several times now I have seen them, but I waited to see them until I was done with this book. I traveled the country to see the Snow Leopard at home! Is that like the Wizard Oz: There's no place like home?

Here they are!!!



[Update August 2107: The snow leopards are still doing fine here at the zoo!]