Awards
Winner of the 1979 National Book Award for Nonfiction
Synopses & Reviews
When Peter Matthiessen set out with the field biologist George Schaller from Pokhara, in northwest Nepal, their hope was to reach the Crystal Mountain a foot journey of 250 miles or more across the Himalaya in the Land of Dolpo, on the Tibetan plateau. Since they wished to observe the late-autumn rut of the bharal, or Himalayan blue sheep, they undertook their trek as winter snows were sweeping into the high passes, and five weeks were required to reach their destination.
At Shey Compaa, a very ancient Buddhist shrine on the Crystal Mountain, the Lama had forbidden all killing of wild animals, and bharal were said to be numberous and easily observed. Where they were numerous there was bound to appear that rarest and most beautiful of the great cats, the snow leopard. Hope of glimpsing this near-mythic beast in the snow mountains would be reason enough for the entire journey.
For Peter Matthiessen, a student of Zen Buddhism, there was a crucial inner journey as well. In Inner Dolpo, said to be the last enclave of pure Tibetan culture left on earth, the Lama of Shey was revered as an incarnation of Milarepa's teacher, the great twlefth-century Lama Marpa. He had been in seclusion when a scholar of Tibetan religions reached the Crystal Monastery seventeen years before, but it was Matthiessen's hope that they would find him.
Any trip is an epxerience that tests the life of the traveler. But this one especially was a real passage, involving and exploring, unfolding and revealing the narrator and his world. The Snow Leopard is Peter Matthiessen's radiant and deeply moving account of a "true pilgrimage, a journey of the heart."
Review
"Matthiessen's triumph and there is no other word for it is a book that will outlive him. It is a masterpiece." John Hillaby, Quest
Review
"A magical book: a kind of lunar paradigm and map of the sacred. There is a sense that the book has trascended the usual limits of language." Jim Harrison, The Nation
Review
"Simply as a step-by-step account of villages entered, peaks crossed, the enormously elating business of survival, The Snow Leopard is stunning....It is also Matthiessen's attempt to stand beyond modern time, and the extreme beauty of this radiant book lies in the fact that he fails....He has expressed with uncommon candor and no prospect of relief, a longing which keeps the soul striving and alert in us all. That is the profound humanity of The Snow Leopard, a book fiercely felt and magnificently written." Terrence Des Pres, Washington Post Book World
Review
"A beautiful book, and worthy of those mountains he is among." Paul Theroux
Review
"Radiant....We have a veritable yeti here somebody who on his own ground is leaving marks no one else could make." Edward Hoagland, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"A beautiful, magnificent book. It gives off at once what I take to be the resonance of a classic. It is one of the most wonderful accounts I know of journeying in our time." W. S. Merwin
Review
"Marvelously depicted mountain landscapes and scenes of frigid pastoral life....An experiment as daring in its own way as his recent novel Far Tortuga. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the writing life as well as the aspiring life." Alan Cheuse, Bookreview
Review
"A memorable story of spiritual adventure....On page after page the reader's spine tingles. He (Matthiessen) creates a unique picture of that upper Himalayan world in the resonant strokes that are his hallmark." Frank Graham, Jr., Audobon
Review
"Peter Mattiessen is one of the important wilderness writers of our time. This is Matthissen at his best." Paul Zweig, Saturday Review
Synopsis
An unforgettable spiritual journey through the Himalayas now celebrating its thirtieth anniversaryIN 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 Z en Buddhism, was also on a spiritual questto 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.
About the Author
PETER MATTHIESSEN is the awardwinning author of numerous works of nonfiction, including
The Tree Where Man Was Born, and fiction, including
At Play in the Fields of the Lord.
PICO IYER is the author of many books about travel and Asia, including The Lady and the Monk, The Global Soul, and, most recently, The Open Road.