authors
Peter Matthiessen
- Jun 24, 2023
The Snow Leopard
By Peter Matthiessen
Reading this brought to mind Susan Sontag's On Photography, or at least what I remember of it/what I imagine it as saying, having read it a number of years ago. Not to say that they have anything in common or anything, but. What I imagine Sontag saying is something about the act of photography causing an incision between the realities of the viewer and the viewee. The photographer becomes the camera and the subject an object. What occurred to me reading this is that the same logic can apply just as well to writing about the act of photography - in examining photography, you loose the ability to do photography. This is a bit of a silly criticism of Sontag, but I think it points its finger towards ideas around non-fiction as a whole - writing about an experience, and especially planning to write about an experience, will color that experience, make it less Authentic.
- Jan 13, 2024
Shadow Country
By Peter Matthiessen
The term shadow cousins refers to family members that are excommunicated, not spoken of and ignored. At least in the parlance of the book; I suppose in real life as well, although I have not heard of it elsewhere. The context is one in which family is otherwise the bindings and basis of one's entire society - clans of the Hardings or Houses or Daniels, bound together and facing the difficulties of life on the frontier. There is a bit of a moral imprecation here: shadow cousins, bad eggs thrown out of the nest, lacking society, must confront a bleaker reality and in all likelihood become that which they are labeled as. On the other hand, there is for lack of a better phrase deep badness here as well, a reason why shadow cousins are labeled as such. Edgar Bloody Watson, the central character and central shadow cousin whose life the book examines is not vindicated by his traumatic and troubled upbringing or the bad luck he encounters - he is a tough man who makes tough decisions, and at times takes the unflinchingly evil path.