{"id":352,"date":"2014-08-09T22:29:18","date_gmt":"2014-08-10T06:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.owenscott.com\/?p=352"},"modified":"2014-08-09T22:29:18","modified_gmt":"2014-08-10T06:29:18","slug":"reading-matthiessen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.owenscott.com\/?p=352","title":{"rendered":"Reading Matthiessen"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently finished Peter Matthiessan’<\/a>s Shadow Country , for which\u00a0he won the National Book Award, and most deservedly so.\u00a0 It was an absolute masterpiece, and well worth every moment spent reading the 1100 + pages — although the Kindle discourages counting pages.\u00a0 Let’s just say it took a healthy amount of time.\u00a0 Not nearly, however, as long as it took him to write it, since he mentioned that his notes on the subject dated to 1978.<\/p>\n

Matthiessan was (alas, was<\/strong><\/em>, as he just a few months ago died after a lengthy and worthwhile life) an amazing human being in so many respects, which is better than simply\u00a0calling him a “genius”, although I believe what he achieved with Shadow Country <\/a>qualifies.\u00a0 In this Rashoman-like telling of an obscure\u00a0historical\u00a0story set in South Florida around either side of the turn of the century, Mr. Matthiessan manages to\u00a0convey the depth of the stupidity and brutality of the\u00a0modernization of\u00a0this\u00a0country in a way that\u00a0is all-at-once humorous, horrifying, and compassionate.\u00a0 Not\u00a0many could pull this off, but he does it, and with the\u00a0 investigative ability of the\u00a0skilled and dogged\u00a0journalist,\u00a0coupled with\u00a0old-fashioned tools of the storyteller.\u00a0 This writer is a man who had managed to win the National Book award for both fiction and non-fiction – not many, or perhaps any others have done that.<\/p>\n

What I appreciate about him so much, and why still\u00a0I thank my father for insisting that I read The Snow Leopard when I was seventeen years old,\u00a0\u00a0was the way that\u00a0Peter Matthiessen lived his life – wide-awake, inquisitive, and with an equal respect for journalism and literature.\u00a0\u00a0 He\u00a0not only understood, but demonstrated with clarity the\u00a0notion\u00a0that reality is so astonishing that sometimes the only way to properly render it is through\u00a0fiction.<\/p>\n

I am not sure what to read next- a tough act to follow, to be sure.\u00a0 It will likely be a series of lightweight mysteries.\u00a0 That’s quite OK – after scaling something like Kilimanjaro we all need a stroll through the Catskills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently finished Peter Matthiessan’s Shadow Country , for which\u00a0he won the National Book Award, and most deservedly so.\u00a0 It was an absolute masterpiece, and well worth every moment spent reading the 1100 + pages — although the Kindle discourages counting pages.\u00a0 Let’s just say it took a healthy amount of time.\u00a0 Not nearly, however, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.owenscott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.owenscott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.owenscott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.owenscott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.owenscott.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.owenscott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":353,"href":"http:\/\/www.owenscott.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions\/353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.owenscott.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.owenscott.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.owenscott.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}