SNOW

LEOPARD
By: - Peter Matthiessen
A Book Review

Submitted by: - Submitted to: -

Simrik Shrestha Mr. Bharat Neupane
Roll no: - 177106 Faculty of English
BBA 1st year, 1st semester
Section: C

Table of Contents

1. About the Writer

2. About the Book

3. Context and Setting

4. Character Analysis

5. Story (Plot)

6. Buddhism in Snow Leopard

7. Snow Leopard as Travelogue

8. Flora and Fauna

9. Symbols

10.Conclusion
 About the Writer

Peter Matthiessen Was an American novelist,

naturalist, CIA agent and a wilderness writer born
on 22nd May, 1927. He completed his schooling
from St. Bernard’s School and Hotchkiss School.
He then served in the U.S. Navy from 1945 to 1947.
After that, he continued his studies and joined Yale
university where he majored in English.
He was the co-founder of the literary
magazine, ‘The Paris Review.’ He was known as the
only writer to achieve the National Book Award in
both fiction and nonfiction.
He wrote many of the literary pieces in his
life. He succeeds to receive positive response for
both of his fictions and nonfictions. Some of his
fictions are Race Rock (1954), Partisans (1955), Raditzer (1961), At Play in the
Fields of the Lord (1965), etc. And some of his nonfictions are Wildlife in America
(1959), The Snow Leopard (1978), In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983), African
Silences (1991), Tigers in the Snow (2000), End of the Earth, etc.
He was recognized and awarded for many of his works. He won National
Book Award, Contemporary Thought, for The Snow Leopard in 1979. Also, he
achieved National Book Award, General Non-Fiction, for The Snow Leopard in
1980.
He explored to many places to fulfill his travelling desires. His passion to
travel around the places took him to so many beautiful locations. He went to
Alaska, the Canadian Northwest Territories, Asia, Australasia, South America,
Africa, New Guinea and Nepal.
 Therefore, after giving so many contributions to the literature field, he died
at his home in Sagaponack on 5th April 2014 at the age of 86 because of leukemia
in late 2012.

About the book

The book ‘The Snow Leopard’ is the book written by Peter Matthiessen. It was published in
1978. This book is a Travelogue where the author has described his journey to the Himalayas. It
is an account of his two-month search for the snow leopard with the naturalist George Schaller in
the Dolpo region on the Tibetan Plateau in the Himalayas. This beautiful book of Peter
Matthiessen won the 1979 National Book Award in the category Contemporary Thought and
the 1980 National Book Award for Nonfiction. It has achieved more appreciation since then. It
has been included in several lists of best travel books including World Hum's ten most
celebrated books, Washington Post Book World's Travel Books That Will Take You
Far, and National Geographic Traveler's Around the World in 80+ Books.

Context and Setting

This beautiful book is basically about 2 months long voyage and a personal experience of
Peter Matthiessen and George Schaller. They are travel mates who are on the journey to Shey
Gompa in the inner Dolpa region of Nepal. This book is based on Nepalese rural life. The main
objective of Peter to travel was just to achieve spiritual experience but George Schaller travelled
to be able to compare the mating habit of the Himalayan blue sheep (bharal) that could be the
ancestors of both sheep and goat in the USA. They also wanted to search for the snow leopards
that hunt the bharals. Here, he explains how the lifestyle of rural parts in Nepal are different. It
has been narrated that the life was hard in the rural context of Nepal. It was even hard to fulfill
basic needs such as rice, medicines, etc. Likewise, in the novel we can analyze that they wanted
to visit the crystal monastery and meet Buddhist Lama. This point in the novel involves with
meditation, spiritual realization, inner peace of Matthiessen who wanted to forget his wife,
Deborah who had died because of cancer. This book is also the spiritual study about death,
suffering, loss, memory and healing.
This novel portrays a very beautiful setting. In the book, narrator describes about the flora
and faunas in the Himalayan regions of Nepal. Also, he explains about the religious surrounding.
He was quite influenced by Buddhism around the area of his journey. He has described the
setting of Buddhist monasteries, thanka paintings and other artifacts of Buddhism.
 Character Analysis

There are many characters in the novel who have several roles in the novel.
Peter Matthiessen:
The main character is the narrator in the book. He seems to be a kind person who respects the
porters and other guides who helped him in the journey. After reading the book, we can imagine
Peter loving his family as he decides to make a short trip and wants to get back with his children
as soon as possible. In the book, it also seemed like he was still deep in love with his former
wife, Deborah love.
George Schaller:
He is a travel mate of the narrator. He has quite different characteristics than Peter Matthiessen.
He used to question about the logic of religion. He used to believe that there is nothing like
religion and even said that people believing in religion in the past did not know about the
presence of science and technology.
The Porters:
They were the people who lived a tough life in those rural part of Nepal in that time. They were
adjusting their incomes by carrying the loads of the tourists visiting their places. After studying
the book, we can analyze that they were hardworking people who believed to work honestly and
properly.
Dawa:
He has quite small role in the book, but we can see that he is a sick person. But although he was
sick he didn’t care about his sickness. That is why later, he suffers from altitude blindness and
dysentery.
Tukten
The narrator describes Tukten being a rude but a good person. As per the travel offices, he was a
drunkard who used vulgar languages. Maybe he that is why, the narrator explains him as a loner.
But still, he helped Peter with his journey back to Kathmandu till the end.
There are many other character in the book who have small roles. For example: the Sherpas. the
famous mountain tribe of Nepal. Similarly, in some parts of the book, Peter talks about his son
Alex explaining about his love towards Peter. Likewise, Peter explains about Deborah, his wife
who died due to cancer. Here, he also talks about Jang-bu- head of Sherpas and Bim bahadur
who was an old magar.

Story (Plot)

The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen is a travelogue and kind of personal diary as he
mentions dates in the starting of every part in the book. It describes about the journey of the
narrator to the mountainous regions of Nepal.
This book basically represents the quest for the narrator to find inner peace. He starts his
venture in 1973 with his travel mate, George Schaller on a hike to crystal mountain in the North
Nepal near the border of Tibet. Whereas George Schaller was aiming to look for the bharals, blue
sheep which are supposed to be the ancestors of both sheep and goat. The whole journey was of
250 miles and it was over the snow and the ice capped mountains.
They competed this journey with the help of their Sherpa guides and potters. They
wanted to seek the bharals as well as they wanted to look up the snow leopards. Schaller is
supposed to be one of the only two westerners who have seen the Snow Leopard in the past
twenty-five years. The snow leopards are very rare, as it is said that only 6 of them are found in
the Himalayas of Nepal. Their journey gets harder and harder as the weather challenges them
with heavy rainfalls in the monsoon and along with that, they had to struggle with the
snowstorms, the illness of the porters and other dangerous conditions. But after a long struggle,
Schaller and Matthiessen successfully get to see many herd of Bharal at the beginning of rutting
season. Schaller starts to write about the animal’s mating and social habits.
The book also explains about the critical conditions of Himalayas and its unpredictable
weather. The group encounters many people, mostly Nepalese, during their journey starting at
Kathmandu and ending at Jumla.
Since, Matthiessen is a devout Zen Buddhist; he sees the trip as one of the personal and
religious enlightenment. He was struggling with grief of his wife’s sudden death due to cancer
the previous year. So, began to search for
Lastly, Schaller and Matthiessen departed as Schaller decides to spend more time on
Crystal Mountains and Matthiessen decides to return Kathmandu for his son. And at last, Peter
starts his journey in Kathmandu and gets the information from George detailing an encounter
with a snow leopard.
 Buddhism in snow leopard

The book is highly esteemed by religious norms and values. This book is entirely focused
on the beauty of spiritual life. The book talks about Zen Buddhism which is the Buddhism in the
story. Matthiessen seems to be practicing Buddhism himself and engaging himself with his
conscience.
When the narrator- Peter Matthiessen was heartbroken due to the death of his beloved
former wife Deborah Love. However, the death of his wife taught him to be a follower of Zen
Buddhism. This book also talks about the Samsara which is the stage of grief after attachment to
material wellbeing and about Nirvana which is the stage of being enlightened.
Here, Peter talks about Buddhist philosophy where he explains the history that explains
the path of inner peace, but the book could be a little deep for those who are not a student of
Buddhism. As a practitioner of Zen Buddhism and Zen worldview, the author has managed to
bring the philosophical thoughts and facts of the journey together.
The book later relates Buddhism with our Nepalese and Tibetan context and history.
Here, Peter talks about Padhma Sambhava which is a mythical figure as per the Buddhist beliefs
who fought and threw away the demon at Shey. Here, he talks about the visit to different
monasteries, observing the different culture and tradition of Buddhism. He also tries to imagine
the Yeti as Buddhist as it had been explained that the humans originated from Tara- female with
a male monkey having 6 children and teaching them to eat grains. And he also mentions the
children losing their tails and growing white fur like Yeti had.
Thus, the snow leopard is a good read for those who would love to gain enlightenment.
 Snow Leopard as a Travelogue

In the book, we can portray the snow leopard to be a travelogue. According to the survey
of anthropology of the people living in the range of the snow leopard discussing spirituality and
history of Buddhism regarded the snow leopard as a travel-log.
The book- The Snow Leopard is the journals about the venture of the narrator where he
explains his journey based with relation of snow leopard. He even talks about the mythical
character- Padhma Sambhava who arrived at Shey on a flying snow leopard and threw away a
demon at Shey. Besides that, narrator describes his willingness to see the snow leopard
throughout his venture but he could not see it and thinks that if he had continued his journey until
December , maybe he could have had an encounter with a snow leoprd.

Flora and fauna

Throughout his book, he explains about the glorious flora and fauna around the
mountainous areas of Nepal. Here are the floras and faunas he mentions in the book.

1. The Himalayan blue ship (bharals)

2. Snow leopard
3. Banyan and peepal (sacred tree to both hindus and Buddhists), as the birth of hindu god
Indra took beneath the peepal tree. Buddha gained enlightenment below the peepal tree
which is known as bodh gaya
4. Sal forest
5. Asian redstarts
6. Capra
7. Cotton trees
8. Black bear
9. Himalayan langurs
10. The timber wolf
 11. Yellow squash, red pepper, red millet, tobacco
12. Wild camels, bears
13. Marco polo sheep
14. Cargana and Lonicera
15. Yeti

Symbols

Many symbols are used which are basically related to life, suffering, healing, etc. can be found
in the book.
The Stupa:
The Stupas in the travelogue symbolizes peace. Here, the narrator explains how
visitng stupas made him feel like his material need is fading away.
The snow leopard:
In simple language, they are the rare and beautiful members of cat family which
lives in the Himalayas. But it is used as metaphor is this book, those rare and beautiful
moments of life that are hardly seen or noticed. It symbolizes the journey of life. Just like
Peter was much excited to quest for the snow leopard but could not see it, similarly to
that we desire to do and see a lot of stuff in our life but we cannot success in everything.

Peepal:

Here this tree reflects as the tree of knowledge where Buddha gained the
enlightenment.

Livestock dung:

The dung symbolizes firewood or gas which the women in rural used to cook
food while it was raining and were no dry woods.

Kali gandaki:

“kali” means black. This symbolizes the steep black walls, grey torrent and black
boulders that gives darkness to this river.

Yeti:
 It symbolizes the hidden parts in people’s personality. For example, Tukten
looked like a loyal and honest friendly guide to the narrator but later he came to know
that he was a loner, alcoholic and foul mouth in real.

Flora and Fauna:

They can be related to many symbols like the eagle that passed through the
snowfields camp symbolizes something heroic stated by Peter. Also, Silver birds can
symbolize temporary happiness in our lives when they flew by as Peter felt sad when
they left.

Conclusion
In conclusion, we can say that this travelogue is a descriptive writing. The touch of
religious, spiritual and traditional works can be seen in Matthiessen’s writing. He has beautifully
and in detailed manner described all the scenes that has made the narration clear and
understandable.
As this book has the description of flora and fauna of my own country, it made me even
more excited to read this travelogue. He has described the mountains so beautifully that we can
actually feel the beauty of them in our mind.
Therefore, the fact that the book was written in a daily diary format helped to know the
length and magnitude of the journey. Though in the end, we can find that they never saw a snow
leopard, this made the expedition seem pointless, but they did see many other things along the
way and they learned a lot of things in Nepal.
Hence, this book is a master piece which is a must read for all the people who love
travelling and for the nature lovers. The people who enjoy reading travelogues should definitely
read this.
References:
1. The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snow_Leopard
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Matthiessen