Stalking The "Snow Leopard"

 The Snow Leopard is a memoir-nature study written by Peter Mathiessen, published in 1978, based on his journey with George Schaller to regions of the Himalayas, and won the National Book Award that year.  (I chose to re-read it this week for personal reasons.)  Mathiessen grew up in a wealthy family in NY/ CT, founded the Paris Review in 1953 (as a cover, it turns out, for being a CIA spy), and went on to write a series of major works about other cultures that emphasize Nature and conservation.   The book weaves together several threads: a) It is a detailed description of the walk up a trail in Nepal to a region around the Crystal Monastery where Schaller wished to study blue sheep, and Mathiessen wanted to view the rare snow leopard.  Detailed comments about the bird, animal, and plant life are included along with descriptions of the mountain scenery.  b) It is a survey of the evolution of Buddhism and its development in Tibet, along with cultural details of the peoples and regions he traveled through.  c) It describes his experience with psychedelic experiments and his study of zen over the past few years.  d) And it is a memoir of the death of his wife,  a year before,  his struggles with her loss, with death, and the feelings about separation from their 8 yo son while on this trip.  He was invited to go on the trip by Schaller,  a noted field biologist, whom he had met only once a year before. There was no compelling reason why he would accept the offer,  which suggests that it was part of some personal transition he wished to accomplish.

In the context of the 1970s,  the book champions going on exotic journeys,  psychedelics,  meditation and eastern culture (the phase of Alan Watts), and the "personal journalism" of Hunter Thompson and Joan Didion, among others,  though the discussion of his wife's death is very different from their styles. It was well received critically,  popular among a certain group as part of the literature of the 70s and 80s that responded to the 1960s by withdrawing from political engagement.  From the perspective of the 2020s, another theme emerges.  Throughout the book M. and Schaller bitterly complain about the unreliability and laziness of the the porter's hired to carry their gear on the trip.  As in safari's in Africa (Kilimanjaro) and other regions,  the Europeans invariably depend on the local natives, their knowledge, and their physical strength, to accomplish the journeys.  Edmund Hillary was honored as the first to climb Mt. Everest, long before his co-climber Tenzing Norgay was recognized.  And the many sherpas and porters involved were never mentioned.  This is one more memoir of self preoccupied Europeans venturing out of their comfort zone, using natives to aide them in their journey, and complaining all the while that the natives do not perform to their satisfaction. From this perspective,  The Snow Leopard tells a different story of Europeans, who believe their intrusion into other regions of the world are associated with special privileges,  and local natives should feel honored to be selected for these journeys.  The journeys often lead to exploitation or outright confiscation of the lands.  Climbing Mt Everest has now become a symbol of fitness adventure that the path is clogged with climbers, and many deaths needlessly occur.  Schaller is described as a socially isolated man obsessed with his minor concerns about details of field biology.  He is more at home in the wild,  and eventually formed a foundation to protect wild felines.  Schaller scheduled this particular trip at an unfavorable season in the Himalayas supposedly to observe the mating rituals of the sheep for evidence of whether they were more goat-like or sheep-like.  (Today this issue would be answered by genetic analysis.) His Sherpas and porters must have thought him crazy to schedule the trip at such a time in the start of Himalayan winter.  

The Snow Leopard is a charming relic.  It's description of a walk in the Himalayas, and the villages traversed is a unique pilgrimage.  Its obsession with a minor European objective completely ignores the message of non-attachment of Zen.  Its sensitivity to local natives while berating the natives that supported the trip illustrates the confused ambivalence of the European adventurers.