Word: matthiessen
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Consider two new sequels by a couple of very good writers, Larry McMurtry (Comanche Moon; Simon & Schuster; 752 pages; $28.50), and Peter Matthiessen (Lost Man's River; Random House; 539 pages; $26.95). Each lengthy book has its strong points, and each is worth a reader's time; but for quite different reasons, neither entirely works...
Even in war time, we had memorable teachers. Professor David Owen taught British history, and his Crystal Palace lecture was famous. I remember "Doc" Davison in Music 1 lecturing on the music of William Byrd with such enthusiasm that there were tears in his eyes. F.O. Matthiessen's Shakespeare-reading course in Adams House was another highlight. (I think it was in Adams: memory sometimes double-faults...
...Peter Matthiessen's ongoing search for primitive landscapes...
...Matthiessen was an environmentalist before the term was fashionable -- just as he was a "searcher" before it became a '60s job description, and an apostle of "male wildness" before Robert Bly got out his drums. Yet he is too tough-minded to dwindle into New Age pieties, and even though he does not hesitate to call the Gulf War "one of the great disgraces in our history," he equally stays clear of reflex anti-Establishmentism: at times, he says, he has been obliged to remind more militant friends that police self-discipline makes this "a very easy country...
...physical and metaphysical worlds often conspire melodiously. His novels, however, can seem like mountain climbs -- effortful, punishing, dauntingly ambitious mountain climbs that demand as much of the reader as of the author. Often their virtuosity almost obscures their virtues. "Peter always takes the difficult way out," says one editor. Matthiessen all but acknowledges this when he says, "I am really not in the least bit conscious of the reader. Maybe that's braggadocio, or flamboyance, but I really don't think that way. I think you're doing your best work when you're not even conscious of yourself. That...