At Play in the Fields of the Lord by Peter Matthiessen

 


At Play in the Fields of the Lord is a tale of high adventure, action and more action set in the Amazon Jungle.

And who better to tell this multilayered yarn than Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014)? After all, he was not only an accomplished novelist but also a naturalist and worldwide explorer, author of, to list three, The Snow Leopard, African Silences and Cloud Forrest, the last being an account of his crisscrossing 20,000 miles of South American wilderness, dealing with tribespeople and bandits, all the while chronicling fauna and flora, the entire web of life he deeply revered. Also worth mentioning, Peter Matthiessen practiced Zen Buddhist meditation and later became a Zen priest.

Since our American author enjoyed nothing more than good old-fashioned storytelling complete with compelling, colorful characters (an opinion he shared some years ago when I attended one of his book readings in New York), other than mentioning much of the plot revolves around Protestant missionaries setting out to save souls for Christ, I'll let Peter Matthiessen do the telling and thus make an immediate shift to note the major players.

Martin and Hazel Quarrier along with son Billy arrive fresh from their missionary duties on behalf of American Indians (author's language) back in North Dakota. The Quarrier family will work under the direction of Leslie Huben, a fellow American missionary who's been living among the Amazonian Indians for a number of years. Although Leslie doesn't have any children, he does have a wife - beautiful Andy (in the film based on the novel, Daryl Hannah plays the part of Andy Huben).

The Quarriers quickly come in contact with four other individuals they must deal with, a quartet of men Peter Matthiessen portrays in vivid detail: Comandante Rufino Guzmán, political leader for this region, Father Xantes, Dominican Padre who has also been working with the Amazonian Indians, and two American soldiers of fortune/bandits on the run: scruffy, knife-wielding outcast Wolfie, and Luis Moon, a Cheyenne raised on an Indian reservation and winner of a college scholarship.

Casting the spotlight specifically on the missionaries, first we have Leslie Huben. "A former star in college basketball, he had been called from a lucrative job in the real-estate and insurance business to emulate St. Paul: "Be ye followers of me," he had told the Tiro Indians, "even as I also am of Christ." The moving event had been described in his first letter to Mission Fields the monthly publication of the New Fields Mission. He became a regular contributor, and his fervent accounts of the dark jungle won high praise. Soon he announced his intention of carrying the Word to the savage Niaruna."

Tall, blonde, tan and athletic, Leslie faces the world squarely, his arms akimbo, a man convinced he possesses the truth and his mission in life is to bring the truth to those in darkness. Seen from one angle, Leslie embodies the religious American frontier spirit, his blazing blue eyes forever ready to seek out converts for Christ, a Billy Graham courageously venturing forth to the South American jungle in the name of the Lord.

Yet from another angle, Leslie can be judged an insensitive brute. The more we turn the pages, the more it becomes clear he has absolutely no respect or sensitivity for others, neither the people he's working with nor jungle natives, most especially the "wild, savage" Niaruna, their customs and tribal wisdom, their beliefs and sacred rituals.

In many respects, Martin Quarrier is Leslie's opposite - although trained at Moody Bible Institute, Martin possesses not a shred of personal charisma nor physical presence; Martin is an acne-scarred, bespectacled loser. However, Martin does maintain a strong sense of integrity and desire to better understand people - Martin even compiles a notebook on the Niaruna way of life as he did when he worked with the Sioux back in North Dakota. Martin recognizes his responsibilities as a missionary but he also envisions his converts accepting the tenets of Christianity within the context of their own social and religious beliefs.

Hazel Quarrier takes Fundamentalist Christianity to the extreme. For big, hulking Hazel, the snake infested jungle, the heathen savages, even the Catholic padre and his converts for Rome are counted as within the realm of Satan. When Hazel first lands at the Brazilian outpost, she spots a Mestizo man wobbly on his feet, urinating with his back to the small crowd. ""Dead drunk! And at this hour of the morning!" Hazel Quarrier exclaimed; she felt slapped across the face. But her remark struck her as silly and scared - not that she would have described herself as "sensible and effectual and courageous," yet she knew she was regarded in this way by those who knew her on her own home grounds, where good sense and diligence and moral courage meant something. in this place such qualities must be totally unfamiliar, much less effective." Oh, huge Hazel, if only the sinister jungle and all its devilish inhabitants could be taught to mirror your sparkling clean, God-fearing North Dakota.

Beautiful, soft-spoken Andy Huben is the type of person my dad called a true Christian. Andy opens her loving heart to all she meets, becoming a special friend to eight-year-old Billy Quarrier. By the inclusion of compassionate, generous Andy Huben, Peter Matthiessen provides a fair, rounded picture of Protestant missionaries in the jungle. In other words, our Zen Buddhist author does not use his novel as an opportunity to bash the Christian religion.

By my judgement, the two most interesting characters in the novel are Billy Quarrier and Louis Moon. Billy makes an instant connection with all the critters and each and every woman, man and child he encounters on his jungle adventure. Oh, Billy, I love you, buddy! Louis Moon is one complex man - fierce, tender, courageous, intellectual, emotional. At one point, as Moon flies his small plane dangerously low on fuel over uncharted jungle, a much concerned Leslie Huban contacts Moon on the radio. "What is your exact location; repeat, what is your exact location. Over." To which Louis Moon replies, "I'm at play in the fields of the Lord."

At Play in the Fields of the Lord is an adventure you don't want to miss. Pick up a copy and when you're finished, watch the film available on Amazon Prime. Moving. Powerful. Unforgettable.




Peter Matthiessen, 1927 - 2014