Peter Matthiessen

American novelist and nature writer whose work addressed environmentalism, cultural survival, and spirituality

• Born: May 22, 1927
• Birthplace: New York, New York
• Died: April 5, 2014
• Place of death: Sagaponack, New York

Biography

Peter Matthiessen is considered to have been one of the foremost environmental writers of the twentieth century. Both his fiction and nonfiction devote themselves to considerations of environmental concerns and the impact of an explosion of technology on all cultures, but especially on those most threatened with extinction by the spread of industrial imperialism. Matthiessen was born in New York City to Erard and Elizabeth Matthiessen on May 22, 1927, and worked variously as a commercial fisherman and a captain of a deep-sea charter fishing boat. He attended the Sorbonne and received his bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 1950. Matthiessen participated in expeditions to such places as Alaska, the Canadian Northwest Territories, Peru, Nepal, East Africa, and New Guinea. These and other experiences—as well as his lifelong commitment to sharing his concern for the preservation of the wild in the world—informed all of his writings. Finally, Matthiessen frequently coupled an external journey with an interior one toward self-awareness or psychic healing.

Matthiessen was particularly noted for his unflinching consideration of what the technocrats were doing or were about to do to the world’s fragile system, particularly to those underdeveloped or undeveloped portions of the globe most vulnerable to the depredations of such things as clear-cutting, pollution, and overpopulation. Thus, the journeys that Matthiessen shares in his writings are meant to challenge readers to think about what they see when traveling in “exotic” places and to develop a shared concern for the continued well-being of a threatened environment, ecosystem, or ancient culture. His books reflect his fear that industrial greed threatens to eliminate cultures, creatures, and whole geographical areas. Such fiction as At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1965; film adaptation, 1991) and Far Tortuga (1975) as well as most of his nonfiction, such as Indian Country (1984), Sand Rivers (1981), and Men’s Lives (1986), all adopt this perspective as their controlling focus. Matthiessen came to his interest in nature and the environment early in life. His father, an architect, was a trustee of the National Audubon Society, and his son soon developed a passion for the natural world. After teaching creative writing for a year at Yale University in 1950, he returned to Paris and developed friendships with a variety of American expatriate writers, including James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Terry Southern, and Irwin Shaw. With Harold L. Humes, Matthiessen founded the Paris Review in 1951.

Matthiessen began his journeying at an early age, and, in 1956, he undertook his first lengthy trip with the intention of visiting every wildlife refuge in the United States, because he wanted to see the untamed places and peoples before they all disappeared. The result of this journey was his book Wildlife in America (1959), which helped to launch Matthiessen’s career as a traveler to far places, an activity that was to be the main thrust of his life for the next twenty years. His travels informed all of his work, fiction and nonfiction alike. For example, Far Tortuga chronicles the voyage of a Caribbean turtling schooner. Yet, Matthiessen did not always write of faraway places; he also addressed the problems faced by the vanishing or victimized cultures of North America with the same intensity that he brought to his exploration of the more remote corners of the world. While such a book as Under the Mountain Wall (1962) examines the culture of the New Guinea Kurelu tribe, Sal Si Puedes (1969) discusses Cesar Chavez’s efforts to organize migrant workers in California. Books such as The Cloud Forest (1961) and Oomingmak (1967) examine remote cultures far from the immediate influence of the United States. In the books In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983) and Indian Country, however, Matthiessen examines the effects of the modern age on American Indian cultures and peoples.

Accounts of his own interior journey comprised the final side to Matthiessen’s writing personality. Such books take the reader on a quest for answers, not only to the problems posed by encroaching civilization but also to the complexities Matthiessen faced as he confronted personal pain and confusion. The Snow Leopard (1978) is perhaps the best example of this aspect of Matthiessen’s writing; in this book, he journeys through Nepal with George Schaller, a wildlife biologist on the trail of the endangered snow leopard. Of equal importance is Matthiessen’s search for inner peace, for he undertook this trip after his second wife’s death from cancer. The Snow Leopard is as much, if not more, about Matthiessen’s need to find internal answers and silence as it is about the two men’s pursuit of the leopard. The book functions as a working toward an interior Zen peace and acceptance, and the leopard eventually serves as an externalized version of that Zen silence. In addition to The Snow Leopard, Matthiessen wrote another autobiographical work, Nine-Headed Dragon River (1985), which reveals his journey in and practice of the Zen philosophy and way of life. The Snow Leopard won for Matthiessen both the National Book Award (1979) and the American Book Award (1980). Matthiessen later won recognition for Sand Rivers, which received both the John Burroughs Medal and the African Wildlife Leadership Foundation Award in 1982 as well as the gold medal for distinction in natural history from the Academy of Natural Sciences in 1985. Matthiessen also received Arts and Letters Awards in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1963, the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award in 1993, the Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities in 1999, the Lannan Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2002, the Harvard Museum of Natural History's Roger Tory Peterson Medal in 2003, and both the Spiros Vergos Prize for Freedom of Expression and the William Dean Howells Medal in 2010. In 2008, he became the only author to win the National Book Award for both fiction and nonfiction when he won the award once more for his novel Shadow Country (2008).

Matthiessen died at his home in Sagaponack, New York, on April 5, 2014, after a battle with leukemia. He was eighty-six years old. His final novel, In Paradise, was published not long after his death and is based upon his experiences at three Zen retreats on the grounds of the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland.

Author Works

Long Fiction:

Race Rock, 1954

Partisans, 1955

Raditzer, 1961

At Play in the Fields of the Lord, 1965

Far Tortuga, 1975

Killing Mister Watson, 1990

Lost Man’s River, 1997

Bone by Bone, 1999

Shadow Country: A New Rendering of the Watson Legend, 2008

In Paradise, 2014 (posthumous)

Short Fiction:

Midnight Turning Gray, 1984

On the River Styx, and Other Stories, 1989

Nonfiction:

Wildlife in America, 1959

The Cloud Forest: A Chronicle of the South American Wilderness, 1961

Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in the Stone Age, 1962

The Shorebirds of North America, 1967

Oomingmak: The Expedition to the Musk Ox Island in the Bering Sea, 1967

Sal Si Puedes: Cesar Chavez and the New American Revolution, 1970

Blue Meridian: The Search for the Great White Shark, 1971

Everglades: Selections from the Writings of Peter Matthiessen, 1971 (Paul Brooks, editor)

The Tree Where Man Was Born: The African Experience, 1972

The Wind Birds: Shorebirds of North America, 1973

The Snow Leopard, 1978

Sand Rivers, 1981

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, 1983

Indian Country, 1984

Nine-Headed Dragon River: Zen Journals, 1969-1982, 1985

Men’s Lives: The Surfmen and Baymen of the South Fork, 1986

African Silences, 1991

Baikal: Sacred Sea of Siberia, 1992

Shadows of Africa, 1992

East of Lo Monthang: In the Land of Mustang, 1995

An African Trilogy, 2000 (includes extracts from The Tree Where Man Was Born, African Silences, and Sand Rivers)

The Peter Matthiessen Reader: Nonfiction, 1959-1961, 2000 (edited by McKay Jenkins)

Tigers in the Snow, 2000

The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes, 2001

End of the Earth: Voyages to Antarctica, 2003

Are We There Yet? A Zen Journey through Space and Time, 2010 (with Peter Cunningham)

Edited Texts:

Courage for the Earth: Writers, Scientists, and Activists Celebrate the Life and Writing of Rachel Carson, 2007

Children’s/Young Adult Literature:

Seal Pool, 1972

Bibliography

Bawer, Bruce. The Aspect of Eternity. St. Paul: Graywolf, 1993. Print. Contains an essay titled “Peter Matthiessen, Nature Boy,” a generally unflattering critique of Matthiessen’s novels prior to Killing Mister Watson. Argues that Matthiessen romanticizes the primitive and hypocritically attacks American and Western civilization. It also traces what Bawer calls an “antagonism toward fathers” in Matthiessen’s work.

Bishop, Peter. “The Geography of Hope and Despair: Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard.” Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 26.4 (1984): 203–16. Print. Places Matthiessen alongside other literary travelers such as Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, and D. H. Lawrence. Discusses The Snow Leopard in depth and compares it to Far Tortuga and At Play in the Fields of the Lord. Sees the book’s lack of conclusion as its success. A thought-provoking article that presents psychological insights into Matthiessen.

Dowie, William. Peter Matthiessen. Boston: Twayne, 1991. Print. An introduction to Matthiessen for the beginning student. Includes bibliographical references and an index.

Gabriel, Trip. “The Nature of Peter Matthiessen.” New York Times Magazine 10 June 1990: 30. Print. An insightful profile, based on interviews with Matthiessen and his circle. Focuses on Killing Mister Watson but also provides an overview of Matthiessen’s career. Presents a nuanced portrait of the man behind the books.

Grove, James P. “Pastoralism and Anti-Pastoralism in Peter Matthiessen’s Far Tortuga.” Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 21.2 (1979): 15–29. Print. Discusses this highly praised novel and reflects on the influence of Zen on Matthiessen’s views. An in-depth treatment of the content and intent of this novel within the theme of pastoralism.

Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher. "Peter Matthiessen, Lyrical Writer and Naturalist, Is Dead at 86." New York Times. New York Times, 5 Apr. 2014. Web. 28 Dec. 2015. A brief chronicle of Matthiessen's life, both public and private.

Raglon, Rebecca. “Fact and Fiction: The Development of Ecological Form in Peter Matthiessen’s Far Tortuga.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 35.4 (1994): 245–59. Print. Looks at Matthiessen’s work, Far Tortuga especially, as a criticism of the dualistic view of nature and humanity. Raglon argues that Matthiessen sees no separation between nature and humanity and writes instead of their necessary interrelatedness.

Roberson, William. Peter Matthiessen: An Annotated Bibliography. Jefferson: McFarland, 2001. Print. A useful resource guide to primary and secondary source literature.

Shnayerson, Michael. “Higher Matthiessen.” Vanity Fair 54.12 (1991): 114–32. Print. Contains considerable biographical information and gives a balanced view of Matthiessen’s personal strengths and weaknesses.