The Snow Leopard (Penguin Classics)

Published in 1978, The Snow Leopard is rightly regarded as a classic of modern nature writing. Guiding his readers through steep-walled canyons and over tall mountains, Matthiessen offers a narrative that is shot through with metaphor and mysticism, and his arduous search for the snow leopard becomes a vehicle for reflections on all manner of matters of life and death. In the process, The Snow Leopard evolves from an already exquisite book of natural history and travel into a grand, Buddhist-tinged parable of our search for meaning. By the end of their expedition, having seen wolves, foxes, rare mountain sheep, and other denizens of the Himalayas, and having seen many signs of the snow leopard but not the cat itself, Schaller muses, "We've seen so much, maybe it's better if there are some things that we don't see."

That sentiment, as well as the sense of wonder at the world's beauty that pervades Matthiessen's book, ought to inform any journey into the wild. --Gregory McNamee

Product Description
An unforgettable spiritual journey through the Himalayas now celebrating its thirtieth anniversary

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 Z en 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.

One reviewer bluntly summarised his opinion of this novel as "THE SNOW LEOPARD is the best book I've ever read. Period." I agree.


...in the footprints of the Himalayan leopard   March 7, 2002
Doug Anderson (Miami Beach, Florida United States)
30 out of 32 found this review helpful

A naturalist & Buddhist and adventurer extraordinaire Matthiessen met his traveling companion in 1969 on the Serengeti plain in East Africa. This newfound friend, George Schaller, later asks him if he wants to join him on his next trip to Nepal to study the bharal or Himalayan blue sheep. So late in 1973 the two set out on a journey to the Crystal Mountain that takes them west under Annapurna and north around the Dhaulagiri peaks and across the Kanjiroba to the land of Dolpo, on the Tibetan Plateau.
This is a very literate and philosophic quest ripe with quotes from Lamas and Rilke and Ovid:
Just as a white summer cloud, in harmony with heaven and earth freely floats in the blue sky from horizon to horizon following the breath of the atmosphere-in the same way the pilgrim abandons himself to the breath of the greater life that...leads him beyond the farthest horizons to an aim which is already present within him, though yet hidden from his sight.-Lama Govinda
Spiritual but in an earthy way, an approprate response to Nepal. The Tibetan culture is fascinating to seeker and secular journeyman alike. The country itself comes to life in this book and that is to be expected from Matthiessen who is a world renowned naturalist. What makes the book stand apart form all others like it is Matthiessen who is a much more nuanced character than your average adventurer and the resulting narrative is a many layered and often exalted one. I suppose as a writer he reminds me of that other great American naturalist Henry David Thoreau whose work also operates on many planes at once not the least of which is the earthen one. Matthiessen comes alive once he is beyond the reach of his own temporal civilization and among the timeless elements of the earth under skies where no planes ever appear and no rescue is forthcoming should anything go wrong. A book that continues to enthrall with its stunning imagery and insight and it shines even more on repeat readings, a shrine to the mountainous east.


Spectacular book   September 10, 1999
Seth J. Hettena
25 out of 26 found this review helpful

Spare, lyrical and honest, the Snow Leopard lifts the reader's mind to the high deserts of Nepal. Reading it is almost like spending an afternoon in quiet contemplation. I've read several books that deal with Zen and what makes this book work is that the author is unflinchingly honest about the internal journey that is at the heart of the book. He shares with the reader the mental baggage he brings with him, and that makes the external journey -- described in vivid detail -- seem all the more real. I can understand why other reviewers say they went to Nepal after reading it.


No Title of Mine is Adequate   December 28, 2004
Wayne A. Robinson (New York city)
22 out of 22 found this review helpful

I read this book the first time back in the 70s, shortly after it was published. I've re-read it every two years or so since then. As in reading any number of times lines from Shakespeare, I never tire of their inherent beauty; my heart soars again and again re-reading Mattheissen's lines of ice-like clarity.
The book on one level is a extraordinary travel documentary, describing brilliantly one man's experiences during a trip into a recently opened area in Himilayan Nepal. On a profoundly different level, the book also is a diary of his journey into his own heart and soul, one, perhaps, calling for more true bravery than any mere physical experience.
There are many moments of exquisite beauty and intimacy that have left me sobbing, longing to be on the journey with Matthiessen and his travel companions.
Matthiessen is an Everyman, seeking he really knows not what, searching for what may only be the quest itself. Perhaps he and his fellow Buddhists have the answer: their goal is ultimate acceptance of what each moment brings us, not wanting or desiring anything but what is now.
In closing, if one is looking for some answers to how to live a good life, without being told what to do and not to do, I find that this book is a far more useful guide to being a human being than any religious text that I know.
By all means, even if you think you have all the answers, buy this book.
Wayne Robinson


Self-Indulgent but Compelling   August 9, 2001
elcajonfarms (Lafayette, California United States)
20 out of 25 found this review helpful

Let's get some things straight. This is not a nature book. Except for a few pages of description, it is not about snow leopards. It is not a book about mountaineering or even about the environment and ecology of mountains. It is about human ecology and the landscape of the mind. It is a narrative of a personal journey of self-discovery set against an exotic backdrop. The author comes in search of the snow leopard, enduring months of privation, exhausting mind and body along the way. Not once does he glimpse a snow leopard, but he is satisfied merely to have made the trek and to have known someone who did see the snow leopard. That is the thesis, plot, denouement and summation of the book. And while the author claims to have discovered the meaning of life, it is not a book about family values. The recently widowed author abandons his eight year old son to the care of relatives in the United States in order to make this three month trek through the remotest heart of Asia, promising the boy that he'll be home for Thanksgiving. The trek soon stretches beyond Christmas to five months or more, throughout which the author remains out of voice or mailed contact with his own now motherless child. And, while the author pines away in the Himalaya about failing to meet his promised date of return, one gets the sense that this is said only to impart the unrequited personal sacrifice incurred by the author in pursuit of a deeper understanding of his own interior life, for not once does he acknowledge the pain of abandonment his son might be feeling in the wake of the mother's death. The author's voyage of personal discovery in the ways of Tibetan Buddhism, and the acceptance of whatever may come or not come one's way, is the real subject of the book. It was not the author's fate to meet the snow leopard, and he accepts it. It was not his son's fate to accompany him on this journey, and the author accepts that, too (never mind the son). Once the realization sets in that this is about the author's own narcissitic journey of the mind--and nothing more--the book rewards even the most skeptical of readers. The book is fascinating for its depiction of the social and material conditions of the mountain people of western Nepal, living beyond the reach of modern medicine, plumbing, telephone, radio, public sanitation, internal combustion, pasteurization or democracy. From the descriptions of the rough accommodations of the villagers, the rough commerce by yak train through the high Himalayan passes, the uneasy negotiations between the westerners making the trek and the Nepalese Sherpas who accompany them and bear (or refuse to bear) their luggage, and the impoverished hermits and monks ensconced in their crude rock hovels in the most remote, least accessible mountain sanctuary on the flanks of the Crystal Mountain, one gains an intimate acquaintance with the social meaning of trekking and the interior meaning of Buddhism. It is a moving, engrossing piece of writing.