The Cloud Forest: A Chronicle of the South American Wilderness

When one thinks of travel writing, one thinks of a writer engrossed, enthralled, in love with the countries through which they go, enamored with traveling itself. We always imagine these people as gregarious, positive, and more-than-ready for the next adventure. They are the intrepid wanderer, air underneath their soles. Peter Matthiessen is a wanderer, but he is the chain-smoking, cynical, pig-headed Western wanderer, and to his credit he is only partially intrepid. It took me a long time to become accustomed to his demeanor. But first I had to understand: ‘Okay, so this is what the book is about’: a grumpy man backpacking through South America in the early sixties, who has no trouble complaining, judging, disliking, or disregarding. Such a style can be seen as refreshing. There's no upbeat assessments when traveling prospects are gloomy; he does not leave out the frustrations involved in such a rigorous trek; he worries a lot, and who wouldn’t on such a trip? He grumbles and complains. He dislikes some people for no real reason, and likes others for the same. In fact, he’s quite human. That’s great…but still, one always feels as though they are missing something with Matthiessen, like he's hiding beneath the print. He is a taciturn and private writer; he shows you places in South America but remains an odd enigma himself.

Much of the book is observation rather than interaction. Especially before his journey into the Amazon, Matthiessen sees South America, but does not involve himself. All right, so maybe this is what we do when we travel: we see a lot of stuff, we connect to it in our heads (or don’t), but we rarely participate; we remain voyeurs. On the other hand, after spending months and months in South America, you’d think he’d have a few more stories to tell, something entertaining like a night in a bar or getting sick from contaminated food or a girl he met or…er…well…something. Most of the book is long descriptions of places, and if you’ve never been there it can become dull. The sections on Peru and the Amazon proved the most interesting to me because I’ve been there; the rest, while they sound like incredible places, I couldn’t relate to in the same way.

There are moments that jar you from the slow rocking of his prose and description, but many of these have to do with dismay. Matthiessen is a true white Western male. He disdains the natives, and even when he seems to treat them or their lives with some appreciation, he never shows respect. They are not his equal. One has the sense that he believes the Spanish conquest was not at all a bad thing, and that Westernization of South America has had a good civilizing affect on the either child-like or eternally-depressed natives. He states that the Peruvian Quechua (the natives of the Andes and the descendents of the Incas) “neither smiles nor scowls, and this deadness of face seems incongruent with the gaiety of dress” (65). But perhaps, they didn’t smile for Matthiessen because they had been oppressed for centuries. The Spanish brought to the Quechua inescapable poverty, endless toil, political disenfranchisement, and alcohol. And this was after their population was almost completely wiped out by disease. However, I also think Matthiessen is just not looking very hard; while in Peru I found that the Quechua were incredibly friendly and warm; I will never forget the night a Quechua Shaman from a mountain village kept hugging and kissing. Since we could not communicate, this was how he showed his joy at meeting a traveler.

The respect Matthiesen lacks for natives seems to be counterbalanced in his love for wildlife. On his journey from New York to the mouths of the Amazon, he lists every wildlife sighting. He is enamored of birds and knowledgeable. But once he finally enters the jungle, and begins his white-man’s quest, he seems to lose all the respect he had. The jungle can do strange things to a man. At this time it is a hobby with natives and travelers to take pot-shots at every caiman they see (it’s no wonder the black caiman—the larger of the two caiman species—is practically extinct). And while Matthiessen states how the caiman have lessened in the Amazon due to this reasonless killing, he eventually joins in. It’s a weird moment when our narrator picks up the gun and starts firing; he states his duplicity quite openly: “I am as much a hypocrite as the next man, and eventually my itchy trigger finger got the best of me” (234). Then one of the books strangest and most pathetic moments begins with a capybara appearing at the river’s edge. Now let me preface this by stating that the Capybara is the world’s largest rodent—the size of a large dog, but bulkier. It is a magnificent animal, beautiful and truly strange; spending its life in the water, eating the Amazon's plentiful grasses, it is in some ways the hippo of the Amazon. Also, let me state that up to this moment Matthiessen has not seen a large mammal—except for American suburbs, the rain forest is the hardest place in the world to actually see wildlife—he has spent hours searching the river sides for a sign of mammalian life: capybara, tapir, river otter, or jaguar. Nothing. Then he enters the Amazon itself and spends grueling days trekking amidst the endless green and many more days on a small native raft in its rivers, and now—now he finally sees a large mammal and what happens? He shoots it dead. A bullet through the neck, and then the slain sinks into the river. The one defense Matthiessen may have at this point is that had the men been able to get hold of the body, they probably would have eaten it. However, it seems particularly symbolic to me that the first land animal he sees—after frigging months of searching and despairing—he shoots dead: thusly our relationship with nature.

Words should be stated in Matthiessen’s defense, for throughout this entry I have been rather smug and righteous. We must remember this is the very early sixties; times were incredibly different and mindsets regarding the natural world and the natives of America were nearly the opposite of what they have become. I believe this transformation in our regards to the natural world and native peoples is one of the major credits to the human race during the past century (though these beliefs have yet to progress to any action). Matthiessen is a man of his time: he is at once aware of the growing plight of the animals and the horrible history that the natives have suffered under Spanish rule, yet his words and deeds are still that of one who believes himself superior to…well pretty much everything. He is not the big-game hunter of Ernest Hemingway-styling nor is he the hippie Buddhist who loves and respects all living things. He sits at the very cusp of a great re-thinking of many cultural norms for the white Westerner. So, he’s just an intelligent white guy who does some stupid things then feels guilty about them later.

All of the above is definitely a very negative review of what has become a classic of Nature and Travel writing. Yet despite my many issues with the work (and not just ethical ones), I must say that I actually kind of enjoyed it. It was one of those books that was difficult to get through—mostly because I was not interested enough—it definitely wasn't what I expected or hoped for. However, it has proved one of those rare books where I don’t really know why I like it but I still do. Either that or it’s a book I didn't particularly enjoy reading, but only well after finishing realized its brilliance; I had this experience the first time I read Thomas Hardy. Still Matthiessen is not Thomas Hardy, not in this book at least. Nor is he anywhere close to the greatest travel writer I have read, Patrick Leigh Fermor; though I cannot claim to be widely read in travel narratives, Fermor outdistances what I have all by miles. So let us just say that I don’t regret reading The Cloud Forest, but wouldn’t recommend it unless the person has a specific interest in South America and pig-headed narrators.

I plan on someday reading Matthiessen’s travel/nature work The Snow Leopard, which won him the National Book Award. Mostly I want to read it because I am obsessed with snow leopards, and the premise of traveling to the Himalayas with the goal to see one in the wild—they are famously elusive—proves to hard to resist. But hopefully, if he does see one he won’t shoot it.


I work now at an independent (dare I work for any other?) bookstore in Minneapolis; I purchased the book there

The Cloud Forest: A Chronicle of the South American Wilderness

By: Peter Matthiessen

Penguin Books, 1996 (originally published in 1961)

Paperback, 280 pags

0140255079