At Play In the Fields of the Lord

Peter Matthiessen is the man. He has explored the world and written several excellent books of both fiction and non-fiction. I first discovered his work with the masterpiece "Snow Leopard". Since then I have read many of his books on a range of topics: Siberian Tigers, Leonard Peltier, Antartica, and the colonization of the Everglades. Each of his works have opened up new worlds of thought for me. So I was pretty stoked to read his early fiction "At Play in the Fields of the Lord".

It was a pretty good book that explored spirituality through an interesting story. I kept turning the pages in the familiar "reader's rush" to find out what happened next. At the end, however, I wasn't moved. I think there are two primary reasons for this: One, Matthiessen wrote many pages in either dream or drug sequences and I hate that shit. I recognize that spirituality requires a more poetic literary form, but these gimmicks are just annoying to read. Two, the characters were ultimately too one-dimensional. Matthiessen's bias against Western values resulted in cliches of American stupidity and "noble savage" indulgence.

I recommend this book for Matthiessen fans, but not for the general reader of fiction.