The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes

I first read Peter Matthiessen in the 1970s: "The Snow Leopard", and was so moved by his writing that I began to read everything I could find that he authored. I have never been disappointed. "The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes" is, like his other books scholarly and absolutely sings with his love of the subject. And the included art is breathtaking. With International Crane Foundation as well as other authorities on wildlife conservation, Matthiessen has written another book that will transport the reader to numerous countries, under numerous skies to see and hear the ancient bugling of the birds of heaven.

The readers of "The Birds of Heaven" should be prepared for joy, awe, geographic and naturalist education, but also sadness,fear and disgust. Matthiessen travels the world in search of the wild cranes. He is not just an observor, he is part of the effort to study and save these amazing birds. Robert Bateman's drawings are beautiful and serve as references as you read.Peter Matthiessen travels with George Archibald, from the International Crane Foundation, through Asia revisiting places where cranes were previously abundant. They share the wonder of the many sightings of cranes. Yet Dr. Archibald is quoted as saying,"What a species we are!" after "being astonished anew by the destructive and murderous proclivities of man".I learned so much from this book and recommend it to those who are not afraid to see the world as it is.

Peter Matthiessen, for those unfamiliar with his writing, is a keen observer; the natural talent for a writer. His difference, and as far as I know it if a fairly uncommon one, is his ability to make little of what one would suppose to be the difficult borders between fiction and non-fiction. You can read Far Tortuga or Killing Mr Watson as easily as Snow Leopard, often losing any sense of balance between what is real and what is spirited from the real. In both he writes highly evocative prose that twists, often in a surreal fashion, from the everyday into careful conclusions of what is the higher ground for the protagonist, in the case of fiction, and for the observer in the naturalist elegies. I have found the same dialectic in both. When I read the review of Birds of Heaven in the NYRB I was excited with the prospect of another journey with Mr Matthieseen, even though I had extant ones still to make with The Spirit of Crazy Horse, Wildlife in North America (which the NYR reviewer called the "classic" study) and others. ... this book will also merit classic status, as a definitive study of current crane populations in Asia and Japan that is approachable by the general reader. I had little knowledge of cranes as a species, but nearing the end of the book, thanks in part to the wonderful color illustrations and drawings, I feel enriched just for the cursory knowledge I have gained of these magnificent birds. And I have been able to travel as part of Mr. Matthiessen's party, taken in by the detail of each landform and each river, the anecdotal descriptions of the people which, with his pen, rise to something more akin to actually being there and finally, to the heart of those who seek preservation of the little bit of wildness that is left to us as a planet....

If you've read any of Matthiessen's non fiction you'll know that when he's passionate about a subject he has the ability to bring feelings alive with his poetic and vivid command of language. Tie that in with his inclination to be a naturally introspective writer - literally seeking inner truths through nature - and you've got the threads that are woven together here to make THE BIRDS OF HEAVEN a beautifully written book. In describing a glimpse of three Japanese cranes on a misty early evening on the snow covered banks of a river, Matthiessen is at his evocative best. "Sun silvered creatures, moving gracefully without haste and yet swiftly in the black diamond shimmer of the Muri River - a hallucinatory vision, a revelation, although what is revealed beyond this silver moment of my life I do not know." While Matthiessen is poetic and romantic as a nature writer he is a blunt and critical social commentator. Our species comes in for some stick. We neither stack up well in creation - look at the beauty of an African Crowned crane, the "red-black-and-white head crowned by a spray of elongated feathers on the nape, like spun gold in the bright sun...how wonderful it seems that even the boldest colors of creation are never garish or mismatched, as they are so often in the work of man." Nor do we do so well with what we create - China's Three Gorges Dam will destroy some pristine crane wintering lands and is, according to Matthiessen, "a grand folly of enormous cost." Worse still is that we are such a self destructive species. The dam, he goes on to say, will also cause "social and environmental ruin" in this part of China. Poignancy, yes, even sorrow at the passing of so many of the last wild and unspoilt areas of the planet, but sentimentality, wistfullness, hopelessness, and inaction are not words that are in this author's vocabulary. Indeed the fact that cranes are the central focus here is cause for cautious optimism. Cranes have always been a vibrant part of our cultural history and remain evocative symbols of our spiritual and creative imagination and are seen as omens of good luck and longevity in many countries. The fifteen species of cranes (eleven of which are endangered or threatened) have lessons to teach mankind. Matthiessen's recounting of the sectarian squabbling that took place at an international gathering of crane conservationists is illustrative. While economics, politics, and nationality remain common dividing factors among the human participants, more than half of the species of cranes are content to make the Amur River basin in central Asia their common gathering ground. A powerful book for Matthiessen's writing, the beautiful paintings and illustrations offered in support, and the stories of the cranes themselves - Saurus, Crowned Crane, Brolga, Siberian and the rare Whooping and Japanese Cranes - two of the most endangered species that Matthiessen says are "heraldic emblems of the purity of water, earth, and air that is being

Peter Matthiessen includes stories of native people on all the continents that harbor cranes in _The Birds of Heaven: Travels With Cranes_ (North Point Press). He recounts some encounters with humans ("craniacs") who are trying to save the cranes, which are in trouble everywhere, but most of the extensive travels described in this book can only report trouble. If we do not, however, learn what the crane has to tell us, it will be despite Matthiessen's efforts, for in him, cranes have a lucid and compelling advocate.He has gone to exotic locales wherever cranes go. There are plenty of common denominators wherever he travels. Cranes, like so many other forms of wildlife, are hunted, trapped to sell as exotic specimens, and poisoned as agricultural pests. Cranes need wetlands in which to feed, and humans need wetlands to serve as repositories for waste and to be built over to make more space for more humans. It is clear everywhere that Matthiessen goes that humans are winning, and therefore losing.He has produced an unforgettably bleak picture of ecological matters in China, and an optimistic account of our own country's efforts in getting whooping cranes started again. That we don't know what we are doing in dealing with the cranes is shown in a paradoxically happy outcome for them in Korea. Wars are, as the posters used to declare, harmful to children and other living things, and the Korean War was disastrous for humans and for cranes. There is now a Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas, just a couple of miles wide but running from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea. Human habitation is forbidden in the area, and farming is very limited. Matthiessen is thus able to visit the DMZ's boundary, accompanied by armed soldiers. ("One may visit a North Korean museum that reveals American atrocities, but we decline this educational opportunity, electing to go birdwatching instead.") He thus gets to watch cranes in the "most fiercely protected wildlife sanctuary on earth... an accidental paradise for cranes." Woe to the cranes if peace breaks out.This volume includes paintings and drawings of cranes by Robert Bateman, lovely renderings that are more compelling than the usual field guide renditions. They complement Matthiessen's fine text. Cranes are long lived, and they often mate for life. Their windpipes are modified like French horns to produce eloquent and distinctive calls. Their size and their pugnacity, for they are protective birds and dangerous to handle, should make us respect them as fellow-citizens of the planet. There is no need to invoke anthropomorphism; there is a spiritual bond between humans and these animals which Matthiessen has movingly demonstrated. He knows, however, that "the time is past when large rare creatures can recover their numbers without man's strenuous intervention," and despite his romantic optimism, his stories show we are strenuously bent on something else entirely.