Peter Matthiessen - 1927
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Read another essay on Peter Matthiessen written by New York teacher
Marylin Dykens.
I. Personal and Professional Biography In an interview with Kay Bonetti, Peter Matthiessen said, "We all must make an effort for the betterment of
mankind, even though we know it won't do any good." Matthiessen is an acclaimed science, nature, and travel writer. At the core, he is a naturalist and international explorer. He goes in search of places
and societies untainted by Western culture. As a result, he has created many works of both fiction and nonfiction that familiarize the reader to the lesser-known parts of our
world. He is a master of prose. His use of detailed imagery makes the reader feel the earth that he walked on and taste the air that the he breathed. Even his nonfiction reads like
poetry. On the other hand, despite philosophic, meditative prose, the reader is grounded by vivid and detailed descriptions of the natural world. Matthiessen writes with unbelievable clarity.
The effect of Matthiessen's work reaches beyond the literary world. Along with his masterful use of imagery in his prose, he has an acute eye for detail and history. He thirsts
for facts, research, and adventure. All of these factors make him an important literary and world figure. His book Wildlife in America has been credited with having a hand in
launching the conservation movement in the United States in the late 1950s. In Wildlife in America, as in all of his books, fiction and nonfiction, Matthiessen did extensive research
in order to compile a detailed, historically accurate account of the great auk (a North Atlantic bird wiped out in the mid-nineteenth century). Kay Bonetti described the theme throughout all of Matthiessen's work as "the
impossibility of purity in the ultimate corruption of civilization, and the impossibility of finding one's way back." Matthiessen immerses himself in environmental and social issues wherever he goes. He lives his material. Matthiessen says that he loves to revise and polish until he starts doing
more harm than good by the process. His books begin as his travel journals then are reworked and revisited. He has the eye of a tracker. The scientific accuracy and artistic
quality of his work makes the reader realize the need to preserve the places and cultures he writes about. Matthiessen was born in New York City in 1927 to a well-to-do family. His first fictional novel,
Race Rock, about upper-middle-class Americans and their struggles with their family history, personal lives and social appearance, may have been based on parts of his
early life. The other part of his life growing up revolved around a piece of property in the hills of Connecticut owned by his family. Matthiessen and his brother enjoyed a shared
interest in wildlife, particularly snakes and birds. For a while they had a copperhead den in their backyard in Connecticut, until their mother finally got them to get rid of it. This is
where both Matthiessen and his brother developed their love for animals and for being outside in nature (Matthiessen's brother went on to become a marine biologist).
Matthiessen was educated in private schooling. For college, Matthiessen went to Yale as an English major, but he also took classes in ornithology and zoology. This gave him the
background he needed to start his science and nature-writing career. When he was at Yale, Matthiessen had already begun publishing short stories and articles in various journals
and newspapers. He was still attending Yale when his first short story, "Sadie," won the Atlantic Prize. After he graduated from Yale, Matthiessen married Patsy Southgate in 1950. They then
moved to Paris together so that he could study at the Sorbonne. While in Paris, Matthiessen, along with Harold L. Humes and George Plimpton, founded the Paris Review.
In the late 1950s Matthiessen divorced Patsy and began a series of world travels that led to an enormous collection of fiction and nonfiction works that document our natural world.
Matthiessen is most widely known and acclaimed for his meticulous nonfiction writing, but he always wanted to be a fiction writer. Throughout his early career, his nonfiction works
were merely side projects to keep money coming in. To him, "nonfiction is like making a cabinet. You can make an absolutely beautiful cabinet with no seams and no glue
showing, but it is still a utilitarian object. A fiction writer is like a sculptor. He has no idea where he is going and no idea how it will turn out." A friend tried to point out to
Matthiessen that he was writing about the same themes in fiction as he did in nonfiction. Matthiessen was frustrated because he felt he "couldn't make [his nonfiction books] good
from a literary point of view and still accomplish [his] purposes." He feels like his political books especially have "come at a cost to his artistic standards." During his career,
Matthiessen began to lean more and more towards nonfiction writing, but he still held on to his love of storytelling. Now, nonfiction continues to be his primary output.
Matthiessen plays with form and imagery through all of his books. His love for experimentation is seen especially in Far Tortuga, which is a nonfiction novel written as
prose-- leaving out transitions, modifiers, etc. Matthiessen does not romanticize nature. He writes painfully truthfully about topics such as—American wildlife (or the deterioration
of it), shore birds, the wilds of South America, a war tribe in New Guinea, life on an Antarctic Island, and his travels in East Africa. His view of the world is presented purely
objectively. He uses nouns and verbs, not adjectives, to convey a rare reality in his books. One of Matthiessen's Zen teachers once told him that "The only way to be truly universal
is to be very particular, moment by moment, detail by detail." He follows this advice very closely. Matthiessen has been called "a shaman of literature" by many various sources.
Kay Bonetti points out this theme in Matthiessen's works: "the unity with the multiplicity." This theme reflects Peter Matthiessen (Muryo Sensei)'s belief in Zen Buddhism. Deborah
Love, Matthiessen's second wife, inspired him to follow Zen back in the early 1960s; and through the past couple of decades, Matthiessen has become a Zen priest and teacher. His book The Snow Leopard
started out as an expedition through the Himalayan Mountains in search of the half-legendary snow leopard. But as Matthiessen found Tibetan holymen on the lower slopes of the mountain, the expedition instead became a
spiritual journey and a search for an "egoless transcendence." Throughout his life Matthiessen has been involved in various research projects
throughout the globe concerning environmental protection. Currently, Matthiessen is a Principal Ecotoxicologist. He is an advisor to the Paris Commission, the International
Council for Exploration of the Sea, and the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (all international organizations). He is also a member of the editorial board of
the international journal of environmental pollution. Peter Matthiessen's experience gives his books authority. His prose give them spirit and
voice. His attention for detail and historic accuracy ground the reader in reality amidst all of his fantastic details and imagery. Matthiessen is an inspiration to readers, travelers,
chroniclers, historians, and fellow writers. He and has earned more than just the title of a leader in American literature. II. Regional Influences
In 1954, after living in Paris, Matthiessen moved back to Long Island, New York, where he worked as a captain on a charter fishing boat. It was then that he published his novel, Partisans.
After three years working on the boat, Matthiessen began the series of travels that shaped his writing career. From then on, both Matthiessen and his books have been
connected to the world as a whole. His books echo a love of the remote and unknown. He travels to undisturbed places around the globe and writes about the environmental as well
as political situations he encounters. He has a love of nature, and it shows in the prose-style novels that he writes. Any beauty of the city is lost to him; about New York City, Matthiessen says that it is:
A city that I once found exhilarating now seems oppressive in its noise and filth, and the homeless and hopeless on the stoops and benches, the humans lying in sharp-smelling
crannies of the railway stations, as that dead man lay in the back alley years ago, reawaken the old anger and disappointment that history's richest (and at times most generous)
nation should produce a leadership so shortsighted and greedy. Suppressed rage seeps through these city cracks like hardweeds through a broken sidewalk.
Matthiessen has never written about his birthplace. He was born in metropolitan New York, but he has found his connection to the environment and lost societies through his
meditative expeditions and his path to Zen priesthood. III. List of Works Fiction: Race Rock, 1954 At Play in the Fields of the Lord, 1965 Far Tortuga, 1975 Last Man's River, 1997 Non-Fiction: Wildlife in America, 1959 The Snow Leopard, 1978 Sands Rivers, 1981 In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, 1983 Periodical Publications:
"Sadie," Atlantic Monthly, 187 (January 1951): 55-58. IV. Other Awards
Matthiessen has received the Gold Medal for Distinction in Natural History from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and a Global 500 Environmental Achievement Award from the United Nations Environment Program. V. Interviews Rea, Paul. "Causes and Creativity: An Interview with Peter Matthiessen." RE Arts & Letters: A Liberal Arts Forum, vol. 15, Fall 1989: 27-40.
VI. Further Information/Links "Peter Matthiessen" This web site is a biography site put on the web by the New York State Writer's Institute.
The biography mainly contains the works of Matthiessen, what each piece is about, and why and when some of the pieces were written. There is also a quote from Matthiessen on
the page. The site also has two links: one to a selected biography on Matthiessen, another to the New York State Poet/Author Awards. "Peter Matthiessen: Selected Biography" This site is a link on the above page. It is a selected biography list. Not only does it list all
of Matthiessen's fiction and non-fiction works, it also lists resources for criticism of his work, profiles and interviews on Matthiessen, and a bibliography. "The Nature of Peter Matthiessen" This is a great site! It is a half interview/ half biography of Peter Matthiessen. The author
of this site has a very comprehensive writing style and is very inclusive, while at the same time easy and interesting to read. This site also gives good descriptions of what a lot of Matthiessen's books are about. "Featured Author: Peter Matthiessen"
This page has links to reviews of most of Matthiessen's books, as well as links to articles about Matthiessen. Unfortunately, all but one out of five of the articles are about the
controversy and court case over Matthiessen's book In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. The fifth article is a general look at the type of genre he writes in and what he writes about.
"Ecorisk Incorporated" http://www.ecorisk.com/matt.htm This is a brief biosketch of some of the things Matthiessen has done in conjunction with environmental education and preservation.
"Peter Matthiessen @ onOnline.com" http://ononline.com/books/authors/mn/pmatthiessen/pmattlnk.htm At this site you can search for pictures, and video and audio clips of Matthiessen. It also
gives links to other Peter Matthiessen sites. These sites are of good use; some are biographies, others are interviews. Bibliography
Clemens, Andrew. "Author Peter Matthiessen talks to Andrew Clemens." The Guardian Oct. 26, 1999: acquired from ProQuest. "Ecorisk Incorporated." April 19, 2001 <http://www.ecorisk.com/matt.htm>.
"Featured Author: Peter Matthiessen." The New York Times on the Web. April 20, 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/23/home/matthiessen.html>.
Bonetti, Kay. "Interview With Peter Matthiessen." The Missouri Review. April 4, 2001 < http://www.missourireview.org/interviews/matthiessen.html>.
Jenkins, McKay, ed. The Peter Matthiessen Reader. New York: Vintage Books, 1999. Kibler, James E. Jr., ed., "Peter Matthiessen," Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. 6. Gale Research Co., 1980: 218-223.
"The Nature of Peter Matthiessen." June 10, 1990. The New York Times on the Web. May 1, 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/23/home/matthiessen-natureof.html>.
"Peter Matthiessen @ OnOnline.com." April 19, 2001 <http://ononline.com/books/authors/mn/pmatthiessen/pmattlnk.htm>. "Peter Matthiessen." New York State Writers Institute. April 4, 2001
<http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/matsnsa.html>. "Peter Matthiessen: Selected Biography." New York State Writers Institute. April 4, 2001 < http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/matsnbib.html>.
Rea, Paul. "Causes and Creativity: An Interview with Peter Matthiessen." RE Arts & Letters: A Liberal Arts Forum. Vol. 15, Fall 1989: 27-40.
Sims, Michael. "A Series of Tiny Astonishments: An Interview with Peter Matthiessen." Book Page. April 16, 2001 <http://www.bookpage.com/1112bp/peter_matthiessen.html>.
This essay was submitted by a student of Susan Davis at St. Timothy's School in Stevenson, Maryland.
Partisans, 1955
Raditzer, 1961
--nominated for a National Book Award
--adapted into a film directed by Hector Babenco
On the River Styx and Other Stories, 1989
Killing Mr. Watson, 1990
--Ambassador Award, English-Speaking Union
Bone By Bone, 1999
--Southern Book Critics' Circle Award
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: Ceasar Chavez and the New American Revolution, 1969
Blue Meridian: The Search for the Great White Shark, 1971
Seal Pool, 1972 (republished in 1974 as The Great Auk Escape)
The Tree Where Man Was Born, 1972
--National Book Award
--John Burroughs Medal
--African Wildlife Leadership Foundation Award
Indian Country, 1984
Nine-Headed Dragon River: Zen Journals 1969-1982, 1986
Men's Lives: The Surfman and Baymen of the South Fork, 1986
African Silences, 1991
Baikal: Sacred Sea of Siberia, 1992
East of Lo Monthang: In the Land of Mustang, 1995
"The Fifth Day," Atlantic Monthly, 188 (September 1951): 60-63.
"Martin's Beach," Botteghe Oscure, 10 (1952): 310-318.
"The Tower of the Four Winds," Cornhill, 166 (Summer 1952): 143-149.
"A Replacement," Paris Review, 1 (February 1953): 46-56.
"Late in the Season," New World Writing, (May 1953): 320-328.
" Lina," Cornhill, 169 (Fall 1956): 53-58.
"Traveling Man," Harper's, 214 (February 1957): 57-65.
"The Wolves of Aguila," Harper's Bazaar, 27 (August 1958): 75-150.
"Animals of Crime," New Yorker, 34 (1 November 1958): 119-145.
"Midnight Turning Gray," Saturday Evening Post, 236 (28 September 1963): 56-67.
"A Reporter at Large: Sand and Wind and Waves," New Yorker, 41 (3 April 1965): 116-144.
"The Last Great Strand: Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuarty," Audubon, 69 (March 1967): 64-71.
"The River Eater," Audubon, 72 (March 1970): 52.
"Kipahulu: From Cinders to the Sea," Audubon, 72 (May 1970): 10-23.
"Lignumvitae—The Last Key," Audubon, 74 (January 1972): 20-31.
"In the Dragon Islands," Audubon, 75 (September 1973): 4-49.
"The Craft of Fiction in Far Tortuga," Paris Review, 15 (Winter 1974): 39-82.
"Happy Days," Audubon, 77 (November 1975): 64-95.
"A Track on the Beach," Audubon, 79 (March 1977): 68-106.
"Horse Latitudes," Antaeus, 29 (Spring 1978): 7-14.
"A Whale in Spring," Westigan Review of Poetry, 3 (1978): 38-39.
"Stop the GO Road," Audubon, 82 (January 1979): 48-65.
"My Turn: the Prince of Tellico," Newsweek, 94 (17 December 1979): 21.
"How to Kill a Valley," New York Review of Books, 27 (7 February 1980): 31-36.
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/matsnsa.html
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/matsnbib.html
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/23/home/matthiessen-natureof.html
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/23/home/matthiessen.html