by Peter Matthiessen
DNF. Damn. This book started out so well. However, after only a few pages it seems to have turned into a version of Log from the Sea of Cortez, complete with philosophical and religious musings on the author's own life, his experimenting with different drugs, and his understanding of Buddhism - ...
“Amazingly, we take for granted that instinct for survival, fear of death, must separate us from the happiness of pure and uninterrupted experience in which body, mind, and nature and the same.” (42) Matthiessen’s book is part travelogue, part naturalist observations, and part comi...
Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard is his account of his two months in Nepal. He was invited along by field biologist George Schaller on his expedition to study Himalayan Blue Sheep--and perhaps catch a glimpse of the elusive snow leopard. (Said in the book to consist of only 120 remaining individuals. ...
I enjoyed the contrast in the book of the banal and the majestic. It more closely resembles the realities of life where even the most magical moments are only seconds away from the earthly realities of a rock in your shoe, the biting cold, falling behind schedule. Matthiessen is prone to the same pa...
Three stars instead of two for the descriptions of Nepal and its people. LSD did not leave this guy as unscathed as he thinks it did.
This turned out to be a real struggle for me to get through. While the travel portions gets interesting, it was the veering off into Buddhism that bored me to tears. Your experience may vary. Four stars overall, but only because I can't give a three and a half on this one. For the longer review, ple...
This book was not what I was expecting. I was expecting a book about the biology, behavior and ecology of the snow leopard. What it was actually about was, first, a travelog, second, a popularized survey of the anthropology of the people who live in the range of the snow leopard and, a distant third...
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