Posted on 04/05/2014 7:15:13 PM PDT by EveningStar
Peter Matthiessen, a roving author and naturalist whose impassioned nonfiction explored the remote endangered wilds of the world and whose prize-winning fiction often placed his mysterious protagonists in the heart of them, died on Saturday at his home in Sagaponack, N.Y. He was 86...
Mr. Matthiessen was one of the last survivors of a generation of American writers who came of age after World War II and who all seemed to know one another, socializing in New York and on Long Island’s East End as a kind of movable literary salon peopled by the likes of William Styron, James Jones, Kurt Vonnegut and E..L. Doctorow.
In the early 1950s, he shared a sojourn in Paris with fellow literary expatriates and helped found The Paris Review, a magazine devoted largely to new fiction and poetry. His childhood friend George Plimpton became its editor.
A rugged, weather-beaten figure who was reared and educated in privilege — an advantage that left him uneasy, he said — Mr. Matthiessen was a man of many parts: littérateur, journalist, environmentalist, explorer, Zen Buddhist, professional fisherman and, in the early 1950s, undercover agent for the Central Intelligence Agency in Paris. Only years later did Mr. Plimpton discover, to his anger and dismay, that Mr. Matthiessen had helped found The Review as a cover for his spying on Americans in France...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
ping
bleeech.... am tempted to say who cares but I guess his family does
His book “The Snow Leopard” was one of my favourite reads when I was in my teens. He described the Himalaya so well, you could literally feel it.
The book also inspired a stunningly beautiful song by the same name that was done by the Austin, TX indy-rock group “Shearwater”.
He really was a wonderful writer. “Far Tortugas” is a great book
RIP.
His Killing Mr Watson trilogy is my all time favorite. set Floridas 10000 islands. Historical fiction based on a number of actual florida pioneers. You gotta read all three.
A talented writer with enviro-commie premises is still, in the final analysis, a pimp for collectivism.
His book “What Dreams May Come” was a New Age hippie fest.
“His book “What Dreams May Come” was a New Age hippie fest.”
Hippies are truly wonderful in their time and place. I remember a lovely Bard College blond whom I pothgtaphed standing on a rock in a trout stream, dressed in a dark green full length gown she designed and made. The rest of what turned out, in retrospect, to be one of the most wonderful days of my life, will remain untyped.
However, to assume what most hippies believed is to be a perpetual teen, not an adult.
Not surprisingly, she was a woman seeking a soulmate and a husband. The “Woodstock Nation” trashy pseudophilosophy resulted in many lives being diminished due to those faulty premises.
I must here not the guilt of the New Yuk Slimes, which trumped the arrival of “Wooddstock Nation” as a subtle shilling of the communism they had pushed for generations. What would not have sold directly, was sold indirectly. “Those are not irresponsible, self centered fornicating freaks, those are the “Age of Aquarius” citizens showing us the way to the future.
Bah! Humbuggery!
And Himbuggery!
And Herbuggery, too!
the idea of letting loose and having a good time is great, but it was taken to a toxic extreme.
One minute flowers, the next minute acid trips and violence.
Looking back I think it glamorized suicide in an unhealthy way and really badmouthed Christians.
In one passage a woman who was a devout Christian was happily in her garden and telling the main character how wonderful heaven was and how she had told him time and time again, but the inside monologue was “there is more,” as if a woman in heaven shouldn’t be content working on a dream garden.
Then there was the last scene, where the character (Chris) was getting himself rest after going through hell and a man was shouting about how he wanted to be taken to meet Christ, but the guide ended up saying how close minded the Christian was, as if wanting to see Christ was narrow minded.
Cudda been worse, the man might have wanted to meet Mohammed.
A Muslim died, went to Heaven, and asked to meet Mohammed. He was told Yp those stairs. He climbed for what seemed like days and came to a ladder going into a room. G*d was there and, noticing the man’s exhaustion, asked if he would like a cup of coffee.
The man said Yes!
Then G*d asked the man what he was looking for and was told about the desired meeting with MadMo. Both can be arranged, said G*d.
G*d then yelled “Two coffees, Mo!”
Genius joke.
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