Peter Matthiessen's Magnificent "The Snow Leopard"

If you are interested in the ways and means of factual writing, as I am, Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard is a must read. Yet for many years, I resisted reading it. Why? Because it has the reputation of being about a spiritual quest. I’m not a spiritual person. I consider myself a realist. I’m allergic to magical thinking. 

There is a lot of Zen in The Snow Leopard. But it’s only one strand in the book’s rich fabric. Other strands are nature, travel, and adventure – all of which I relish. The Snow Leopard is an unforgettable account of a gruelling expedition that Matthiessen and field biologist George Schaller undertook, in 1973, into the remote mountains of Nepal to study the Himalayan blue sheep and possibly glimpse the rare and beautiful snow leopard.

Five things I love about The Snow Leopard:

1. It’s written in the first person major.

The book is an account of personal experience, which, for me, is the most real form of writing. Apparently Matthiessen’s use of “I” in The Snow Leopard was a departure from his usual approach. Maggie Doherty, in her “Rambling Man” (The New Yorker, October 20, 2026), says,

But what truly distinguishes the book is its personal nature. From early in his journalistic career, Matthiessen had abhorred the use of the first person, which he associated with a “National Geographic style of expedition writing,” sensational and unserious. In “The Snow Leopard,” however, he lets the “I” lead the way, offering access to his inner life, even as he questions the entire concept of the self. 

2. It’s written in the present tense.

No verb form conveys immediacy better than present tense. Matthiessen’s use of it in The Snow Leopard is inspired! Here are some examples:

I sit back in straw and dung warmth against the sunny stones. A brilliant black-red beetle comes, and a husky grasshopper, rubbing its fiery legs. A crow flaps to a cedar by the river, and the crow’s wings, too, are filled with the hard silver light of the Himalaya.

GS lingers and I keep on climbing, then pause to drink and wash in a mountain brook. Greenfinches come, and a hawk flies down the valley. Asters and everlasting, lavender and white; the soft humming of a bumblebee consoles me. Sitting awhile on a warm rock, I enjoy the view of Yamarkhar as it comes into the sun. At this season, the flat roofs are bright with the fire colors of the harvest, which will sustain the inhabitants through the long winter – yellow squash, red peppers, bronze tobacco, a red millet, maize, and hemp, which is used for twine and cooking oil as well as marijuana. 

The path enters a narrowing ravine that climbs to a higher cleft between boulders, and the cleft is reached at the strike of the rising sun, which fills this portal with a blinding light. I emerge in a new world and stare about me. A labyrinth of valley mounts toward the snows, for the Himalaya is as convoluted as a brain.

3. It’s structured as a diary.

Each chapter is a day in the journey, beginning on September 28 and ending on December 1. I love this type of structure – chronological, sequential. The journey determines the shape of the narrative. To me it’s the most natural (and real) form of narrative – much preferable to thematic structure. 

4. It brims with wonderful descriptions of nature.

This, for example:

At a canyon bend stands the headman of Tarakot, who wears Hindu puttees and carries no pack of any kind. He is pointing at the bouldered slopes across the stream. “Na!” he cries. “Na!” Then he goes on. A pale form jumps across a gully, followed quickly by six more; the animals move up a steep slope to a haze of green between the rocks and snow. I watch them climb until, at snow line, they are swept up and consumed by clouds that have rushed up the valley from the south: this wonderful silver-gray-blue creature in the bharal, the blue sheep of the Himalaya – in Tibetan, na – that we have come so far to see.

And this:

Higher, where the snow has melted, a hill fox jumps from tussock grass and runs to a group of rocks, then turns to watch. Its black points and rich red coat are set off by a frosty face and chest and an extraordinary long thick tail, dark brown and black with a white fluffy tip; the tip remains visible long after the creature’s glowing colors sink among the stones.

Joy Williams, in her “ ‘A Fury of Dark Energies’ ” (The New York Review of Books, September 24, 2026), says that Matthiessen’s “greatest attribute as a writer” was his “keen attention to the natural world.” Based on my reading of The Snow Leopard, I’d say she’s right.

Credit: The above portrait of Peter Matthiessen by Andrea Ventura is from Joy Williams' " 'A Fury of Dark Energies' " (The New York Review of Books, September 24, 2026).