Peter Matthiessen wrote about his travels and his books were written partly as an adventurer and partly as a naturalist. In that manner they harken back to a style popular in a prior century. The Cloud Forest was first published in 1961, in a genre that was already dated. But his prose was contemporary. His style changed radically at the end of his career, from first person to multiple narrator and he rightfully won some awards and accolades. But his skill was evident decades earlier as it is here.
"A simple grace prevails here, in the postures of children waiting for nothing in the doorway, the young girl breast-feeding her baby, the old man in the corner with his hands folded in his lap—the grace of people who have never gone anywhere and never will go. Only their grief is ungraceful, and perhaps grief should be..."An average writer may not write something so eloquent in the whole of their life.
