To Buy or Not to Buy!

Educators, lovers of theatre and great literature--take note! Late in the 1990s, Harper Row began to release on cassettes the Arkangel Complete Shakespeare, all of which I reviewed in one paper or another. Using some of the best of the young theatrical talent in Great Britain and some of the older established stars of stage and screen, the producers gave us readings of every single word of every single play by Shakespeare, including the seldom-performed "Two Noble Kinsmen" which is partially by Shakespeare.

Well, hold on! Audio Partners has been contracted to release the entire set on CDs. The trick is that you cannot purchase the individual sets but are required to purchase the entire package of 38 plays for $600. That is 98 CDs in all with a playing time of just over 101 hours! Libraries and school departments take note.

Hearing them as they were released on tape in batches of four or five, I was impressed mostly with the enormity of the project but found some things to quibble about. Casting Oberon and Titania with a pair whose voices were South African or Jamaican (no Henry Higgins, I) made some sense in that it emphasized their other-worldly-ness. So did assigning Malvolio in "Twelfth Night" to an actor with a distinct Scottish accent, but giving Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet" to the same actor was absurd. Then too there is that sudden sound effect of a train pulling out of a station in the middle of "All's Well That Ends Well"! Granted there was a production current then that did place the play in more modern times, but when one is hearing a recording with no clue as to setting, the result was jarring and should have been omitted.

In the grander roles such as Hamlet, Othello and the like, the younger actors give modern readings which might strike some as slighting demands of the high poetry. And those who long for the grander readings can turn to the re-releases of the old Shakespeare Recording Society sets.

One great disadvantage to the cassettes is that you could locate a specific scene only with much fast forwarding. With CDs, of course, you can jump to any scene by pressing the Skip button on your player. When a scene continues onto another disc, the tracking list tells you at which line the scene picks up.

The price might be prohibitive to all but an institution--but I feel that every library should find its way to purchasing the complete set in much the same way that many purchased the complete set of BBC Shakespeare videos.

If you have to empty your penny jar, if you have to cash in your IRA, do so. Get this. These are absolutely superb recordings of some of the best English ever written and some of the most memorable characters ever created. So you don't recognize every word. Doesn't matter. The excellent actors carry you along and draw you intimately into the drama.

You can follow the play in text if you choose to -- they follow the readily available Complete Pelikan Shakespeare. But you don't need to -- if you aren't familiar with a play the brief four or five line summaries of each scene in the small fold-out accompanying each play are quite sufficient to know which characters are involved. It's possible to listen to these while driving, but you can't concentrate fully unless you're totally stuck in traffic. My number one recommendation is to take a Walkman and a pair of headphones to a hammock under a tree and indulge yourself. Second best is a comfy easy chair.

However you listen to these, do get them and listen to them. Or persuade your local library to get the set.

The price -- ...-- seems high until you figure that this is 38 complete plays -- less than the cost of the same play in paperback -- and there are a total of 83 disks, so you're paying just $5 per disk. Cheap! And these aren't some pop music you'll listen to once; these are a lifetime investment for yourself and your family.

Get it. Period.

These performances will keep you spellbound. There is something profound and amazing about listening to this Shakespeare, probably owing to the combination of perfect sound; nuanced, captivating, stellar acting; and fully comprehending the magic of The Bard's words. The quality of the recording is impeccable - there are no glitches, and the volume-level is consistent. Listening on my CD player at home, and following along with the text (not included with the CDs), I feel like I'm "getting" Shakespeare, and being moved by his words, like never before. I even find this listening more satisfying than seeing a Shakespeare play because I can better grasp and appreciate every line. The acting is first-rate (most actors are well-recognized RSC alumns, many of whom have become respected British film stars - ahem - Joseph Fiennes, Ciaran Hinds, Simon Russell Beale, Amanda Root, to name a few), and the clarity of the production picks up the most delicate subtleties of each performance. The background music complements and enhances each play, but isn't obtrusive. I wholeheartedly recommend this set - it will take you to a new level with Shakespeare.

Book groups in Austin are loving the book. Jean sleeping with St. Joseph and hitting that whizzing forehand in her holy nun garb are delightful stories. We can not wait until Wiliam writes another book to help us all journeying to find home. He is a most gifted writer and sensitive author. I hope it becomes a movie someday.

William Fiennes has just taken me on a trip from his boyhood home,Broughton Castle in England,to Texas and from there 3000 miles north to the nesting lands of the Snow Geese.This extremely well written book will capture the imagination of those who read it.His thorough,very descriptive,account of his journey and the people he met,and sites he saw along the way,kept my interest from beginning to end.This book is more than just about Geese.It contains tender ,heart warming, messages for all.Congratulations to you,William,on your first book and it's widespread appeal.

Snow geese, or "wavies," as they are known due to their wave-like up and down movements during flight, are reputed to be the most abundant goose in the world (an estimated six million breed in the Arctic each year) and come in two varieties. "'White-phase' snow geese have white plumage and black wing tips; 'blue-phase' geese have feathers of various browns, greys and silvers mixed in with the whites, giving an overall impression of slaty, metallic blue. Blues and whites pair and breed together; they roost and migrate in mixed flocks. Both have orange-pink bills, narrower than the black bills of Canada geese, with tough, serrated edges for tearing the roots of marshland plants. A conspicuous lozenge-shaped black patch along each side of the bill gives them a grinning or leering expression."

So William Fiennes defines his quarry, not to hunt, but to observe, as he follows them on their 3,000-mile spring migration from the Gulf of Mexico to Baffin Island where their breeding grounds are located. Just as certainly as the geese desire to return to familiarity, so does the author. Having just recovered from a lengthy illness before starting on his trek, he writes, "my frustrations were mollified but not resolved by the kindness of those close to me, because no one, however loving, could give me the one thing I wanted above all else: my former self."

Nipped by the same bird-watching bug as his father, Fiennes found himself curious about "the mysterious signals that told a bird it was time to move, time to fly," and asking, "Why did birds undertake such journeys? How did they know when to go or where?"

But mostly it would seem he just wanted to be part of the adventure, for early on he provides this textbook answer to his own questions: "A snow goose, like all migratory birds, inherits a calendar, an endogenous program for fattening, departure, breeding, and molt. This schedule is essentially fixed, but it can be fine-tuned by environmental conditions." Interspersed throughout the book - between his tracking of the geese by car, bus, train or plane, and conversations with those he meets in transit - are snippets of information about how these migrating habits came to be known.

The obvious question would seem to be if they can winter comfortably in Texas or Mexico, why would the geese want to make such a jaunt in the first place? The answer: "In the high Arctic latitudes, snow geese find large areas of suitable nesting habitat, relatively few predators, an abundance of food during the short, intense summers, and twenty-four hours of daylight in which to feed."

Put that in your travel brochure and you'll find the place swarming with geese every year around the end of May!

The birds typically leave the south in late-February or early-March to embark on their 3-month odyssey north. Last year, Fiennes, who is from Britain and had never seen a snow goose, carefully scheduled his time so he could accompany them.

He describes their first meeting in Texas: "Drifts of specks appeared above the horizon ring. Each speck became a goose. Flocks were converging on the pond from every compass point..." until finally, "whole flocks circled over the roost, thousands of geese swirling round and round, as if the pond were the mouth of a drain and these geese the whirlpool turning above it."

Lesson #1 in bird watching: it can be a messy avocation. The next time the geese return to their roost, Fiennes says, "I took shelter inside the car, wise to the turd squalls."

He spots other species in his travels, describing them just as beautifully as he does the geese. For example, he shares, "when I saw eight tall, slender birds with the long necks, legs, and bills of herons, and shaggy tail bustles, and the dainty gait of ballerinas, I knew instantly that they were sandhill cranes, the oldest species of bird in existence...which, it was once believed, helped smaller birds migrate by carrying them on their backs. These sandhill cranes would themselves soon be leaving for Arctic Canada...."

The trip doesn't entirely go the way he thought it would ("On maps the flight of snow geese...was a flawless, unbroken arc, the curve of time from one season to another. But the reality was different...a stop-start, stage-by-stage edging towards the north, with geese flying from one resting area to the next, proceeding only as far as the weather would allow"), but there are little victories along the way. Soon after Fiennes arrives in Aberdeen, South Dakota the local newspaper reports 340,000 snow geese have arrived at the Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge within the last 24-48 hours. "I couldn't believe it," Fiennes exudes, "I'd reached South Dakota on the same day as the geese."

The sojourn could also be fraught with peril, more so for the geese than for Fiennes, as he relates, "Once, near Elgin, Manitoba, snow geese were seen flying northeast during an electrical storm. The flock, 300 yards wide and three-quarters of a mile long, was flying at about 180 feet. Witnesses described a flash of lightning, a thunderclap, an entire portion of the flock falling to the ground, struck dead."

Finally reaching Baffin Island, Fiennes found himself in a different world: "It was ten o'clock, evening, but the light still held to the idea of day, with no sign that night was imminent or ever expected," and "The silence was something you could hear...a steady white drone." His guide confides, "Sometimes I'm out there. I'm out on the land, and it's like the void. It's like a sentence or two before Genesis."

This is a good book to be reading with spring approaching - or when you want it to approach - for following the migration of the geese is akin to tracing the permeation of warmer weather as it spreads across the continent. With winter still clinging to parts of the landscape, we need to hear phrases like: "The afternoon was beautiful: unambiguously spring."