"Sand Rivers" is a strange, bittersweet, autumnal book based on a safari into the Selous Game Reserve in southern Tanzania, one of the last great wildernesses left on earth. Once again we have a clear triumph from Peter Matthiessen, who has delivered so many that I am reminded of D. H. Lawrence's insistence that the only true aristocracy on earth is that of consciousness. Whenever Mr. Matthiessen publishes a book, we learn what new lid of consciousness he has popped through. (p. 1)
On its surface, "Sand Rivers" is a record of a trek, a march back through time with the deeply disturbing resonance of the future hanging in the air like a death announcement. Mr. Matthiessen is guided by a white Kenyan, Brian Nicholson, the former warden of Selous…. Selous is a "reserve," not to be confused with such famous game parks as the Serengeti or Ngorongoro. There are no accommodations or conveniences for tourists in Selous, an area of some 22,000 square miles … The reserve has an estimated mammal population of 750,000 creatures, a density of animal life that renders all comparisons fatuous….
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