What We Read: The Snow Leopard
I bought my used copy of Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard in preparation for my trip to Nepal in July 2012. As I believe most book lovers can understand, it joined a long list of must-reads and, a year and a half later, I have finally cracked its spine. 201 pages in, I am now extremely grateful to the afterthought that made me throw the book into my already over packed bag on the eve of my departure.
Published in 1978, the book details the journey of writer Peter Matthiessen and field biologist George Schaller (accompanied by multiple porters and sherpas) as they trek through Nepal’s Himalayas. Schaller (or GS, as Matthiessen refers to him) heads the expedition with an aim to prove that the region’s blue sheep are actually more goat than anything else, a subject that fills him with (some may say) inexplicable passion. Though GS tempts Matthiessen to accompany him by dangling the possibility of seeing the extremely rare snow leopard along route, it becomes clear early on that Matthiessen hunts for something much harder to define: a spiritual reawakening of sorts. Writing in the form of daily journal entries, he describes the day's events in between historical tales of Buddhism, personal anecdotes from his experience with spiritualism and, perhaps most importantly, his insight into the effect the journey is taking on his mind, body and soul. His skillful prose is dizzying at times, making the reader feel as though she is standing in thin air at high altitude, snow waist high along a perilous mountain edge, right alongside the author, mesmerized at the surrounding dark peaks that jut into a blinding blue sky.
I find myself rereading sentences, picking apart phrases, trying to unlock the box that holds the secret to Matthiessen’s captivating style. Here is one section that especially caught my breath––if you are put off by its length, I assure you it’s worth it:
Published in 1978, the book details the journey of writer Peter Matthiessen and field biologist George Schaller (accompanied by multiple porters and sherpas) as they trek through Nepal’s Himalayas. Schaller (or GS, as Matthiessen refers to him) heads the expedition with an aim to prove that the region’s blue sheep are actually more goat than anything else, a subject that fills him with (some may say) inexplicable passion. Though GS tempts Matthiessen to accompany him by dangling the possibility of seeing the extremely rare snow leopard along route, it becomes clear early on that Matthiessen hunts for something much harder to define: a spiritual reawakening of sorts. Writing in the form of daily journal entries, he describes the day's events in between historical tales of Buddhism, personal anecdotes from his experience with spiritualism and, perhaps most importantly, his insight into the effect the journey is taking on his mind, body and soul. His skillful prose is dizzying at times, making the reader feel as though she is standing in thin air at high altitude, snow waist high along a perilous mountain edge, right alongside the author, mesmerized at the surrounding dark peaks that jut into a blinding blue sky.
I find myself rereading sentences, picking apart phrases, trying to unlock the box that holds the secret to Matthiessen’s captivating style. Here is one section that especially caught my breath––if you are put off by its length, I assure you it’s worth it:
To the north, high on the mountain’s face, has come into view the village called Rohagaon. The track passes along beneath wild walnut trees. The last leaves are yellowed and stiff on the gaunt branches, and the nuts are fallen; the dry scratch and whisper of sere leaves bring on the vague melancholy of some other autumn, half-remembered. Cracked nutshells litter big flat stones along the path, and among the shells lie fresh feathers of a hoopoe, perhaps killed in the act of gleaning by the accipiter that darts out of the bush ahead and down over the void of the Suli Gorge. In a copse below Rohagaon, maple, sumac, locust and wild grape evoke the woods of home, but the trees differ just enough from the familiar ones to make the wood seem dreamlike, a wildwood of children’s tales, found again in a soft autumn haze. The wildwood brings on mild nostalgia, not for home or place, but for lost innocence––the paradise lost that, as Proust said, is the only paradise. Childhood is full of mystery and promise, and perhaps the life fear comes when all the mysteries are laid open, when what we thought we wanted is attained. It is just at the moment of seeming fulfillment that we sense irrevocable betrayal, like a great wave rising silently behind us, and know most poignantly what Milarepa meant: “All worldly pursuits have but one unavoidable and inevitable end, which is sorrow: acquisitions end in dispersion; buildings, in destruction; meetings, in separation; births, in death...” Confronted by the uncouth specter of old age, disease and death, we are thrown back upon the present, on this moment, here, right now, for that is all there is. And surely this is the paradise of children, that they are at rest in the present, like frogs or rabbits.
From somewhere comes the murmur of a hidden brook, and the chill air of autumn afternoon carries a mineral smell of humus. GS and I put down our packs and gather wild walnuts in the wood; soon the sherpas and porters come, and we run about in happy adolescence, and crack small grudging nuts in the twilight haze beyond the trees before climbing up the last steep path into Rohagaon.
Another interesting aspect to reading this book is the note that I found tucked away in its pages, a nostalgic bookmark long forgotten by a previous owner. Written on the back of pink office memo paper, it is a sweet reminder that I am not the first to find inspiration from Matthiessen's words or to feel compelled to pass on his tale to others.