The Peter Matthiessen Reader [Paperback]

Peter Matthiessen (Author), Mckay Jenkins (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 4, 2000

"Our greatest modern nature writer in the lyrical tradition." --The New York Times Book Review

"Matthiessen is a great travel companion. . . . His knowledge of plants, animals and people is breathtaking." --The Boston Globe

Perhaps no writer has better articulated our relationship to the environment than Peter Matthiessen. From Wildlife in America to Men's Lives, his work has captured the wonder of the natural world--and the horrors of resource exploitation, with its violent effects on traditional peoples and the poor.

In The Peter Matthiessen Reader, editor McKay Jenkins presents a single-volume collection of this distinguished author's nonfiction. Here are essays and excerpts that highlight the spiritual, literary, and political daring so crucial to Matthiessen's vision. Matthiessen chronicles his 250-mile trek across the Himalaya to the Tibetan Plateau in a selection from the National Book Award winner The Snow Leopard. Wild peoples, wilderness, and wildlife--common themes throughout Matthiessen's oeuvre--are examined with grace and power in The Tree Where Man Was Born. Here too are excerpts from Indian Country and In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, Matthiessen's stunning exposé of the Leonard Peltier case and the ongoing conflict between the U.S. government and the American Indian Movement. Comprehensive and engrossing, The Peter Matthiessen Reader celebrates an American voice unequaled in its commitment to literature's noblest aspiration: to challenge us to perceive our world--as well as ourselves--truthfully and clearly.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Over the last half century, Peter Matthiessen has enriched American literature with a series of influential, highly regarded novels, many set in out-of-the-way places. Along with these novels, Matthiessen has written 16 books of nonfiction that explore issues in the conservation of animal species and human cultures--books such as Wildlife in America, an early contribution to the literature of environmental awareness, and In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, a defense of American Indian activism.

McKay Jenkins, a literary scholar and outdoors writer, chose widely among Matthiessen's nonfiction work for this anthology, which includes excerpts from well-known (The Snow Leopard) and forgotten (Sal Si Puedes) books alike. Jenkins's careful selections highlight Matthiessen's many strengths as a lyrical interpreter of nature who has joined a poetic appreciation for nature to a hard-edged, fact-based style of reportage. The reader of this book will visit episodes of life and death in highland New Guinea and arid South Dakota, learn about the astounding migration patterns of Eskimo curlews and the feeding habits of great white sharks, and be transported to mountain summits and jungle rivers. Those armchair journeys come thanks to an extraordinary writer whose work, Jenkins writes, "is marked above all by an unblinking gaze at the world's subtle beauty, and at its fragility when set against humankind's blundering self-interest." --Gregory McNamee

From Library Journal

An introduction to Matthiessen's nonfiction, this collection of excerpts will inspire the novice to indulge further and convince those already familiar with his work to reconnect. Jenkins (literature and writing, Univ. of Delaware) provides a thoughtful preface, placing the excerpts in the context of Matthiessen's literary life and providing complementary biographical information. Each excerpt is introduced with a brief overview that provides the place and time and identifies them as a source of inspiration for "an entire generation of writers who have collectively helped make 'nature writing' one of the vibrant fields in contemporary American literature." For all the literary excellence in Matthiessen's nonfiction prose (of which the excerpts in this reader are prime examples), Jenkins reiterates Matthiessen's desire to be first and foremost a novelist. This book is highly recommended for all public and academic libraries. [See also Mathiessen's Tigers in the Snow, reviewed on p. 153--Ed.]--Sue Samson, Univ. of Montana Lib., Missoul.
---Sue Samson, Univ. of Montana Lib., Missoula
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (January 4, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375702725
• ISBN-13: 978-0375702723
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #770,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful collection by the modern Thoreau, October 29, 2000

By 

J. Nicholas Dirga "Nik" (Roseburg, OR USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Peter Matthiessen Reader (Paperback)

This is a book any nature lover should pick up. I'd heard Matthiessen's name but sadly hadn't read any of his work until now, and what a great collection this is to start off with. Matthiessen writes about the world around us vividly, lyrically and eloquently, without getting TOO florid and new-agey as some nature writers tend to do. He travels the world in this collection spanning his career, from shark observations to Himalayan treks to African safaris to New England fishing villages, always honest and compulsively readable. His description of a pack of wild dogs hunting zebra in Africa ranks with the best passages about wildlife I've ever read, and will floor you.