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The Book of the Week is “The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen, True Nature” by Lance Richardson, published in 2025.
Born in May 1927, Matthiessen was a son of white male privilege. He came of age in Connecticut, and on the eastern end of Long Island, New York State.
Matthiessen was the black sheep of the family, becoming a “bad boy” from adolescence onward; making mischief by throwing rocks at and shooting BB’s at cars. At his boarding school, he interrupted a violin quartet recital with a case of the giggles (later loosely duplicated in that episode of Seinfeld when Elaine does so at a piano recital) that became contagious. When the headmaster tried to see who started it, Matthiessen pretended to be horrified by his fellow students’ rudeness.
After his midlife crisis, in his forties, Matthiessen began to write about causes he cared about, especially environmentalism and Native Americans. In 1970, he published a nonfiction book, Sal Si Puedes. It was about environmentalism, and then-current events in America. He felt that the way people thought about nature, ran parallel to the way they thought about economic, social and political issues. “In damaged human habitat, all problems merge.”
Not everyone is intelligent enough to see how one thing leads to another; there are currently numerous Americans who– out of greed, power-hunger, jealousy of successful alpha males with hubris syndrome, or selfishness– can tolerate their own cognitive dissonance. They hold contradictory attitudes toward the different issues. The political Right constantly smears those who agree that all issues are connected– ignorantly labeling those people who believe in ethics– Liberals, Communists, and Socialists.
Mathiessen claimed he felt bad about going to live among peoples of different cultures in order to sell information about them in the books he wrote. Such exploitation has been going on for centuries among journalists and social scientists. But in some instances, the native peoples benefit when the writers publicize how the “white man” is swindling them. Pursuant to those rare political times favorable for them, the victims acquire a little bit of power and compensation for the damage done to them.
Matthiessen practiced “New Journalism” by writing a personal account of his interviews with Cesar Chavez, who advocated for the union, United Farm Workers. Chavez began a grassroots movement that tried to get Americans to value dignity and justice, amid the “worrisome national trends of materialism, poverty and ecological decline.” Good luck with that, all. That still has yet to be accomplished for the past century.
Read the book to learn everything you ever wanted to know about Matthiessen– his writings, love affairs, travels, trials and tribulations.