On Getting Rid of Books and the Pleasures of Re-Reading

I've been cleaning my study over the past few weekends. This is no easy task, alas. It's not that it's big; it's more that it's the most densely packed with stuff, with papers and piles, a desk and a table, 5 bookcases, 2 file cabinets, miscellaneous boxes that have been sitting on the floor since I moved in more than 5 years ago. Every few months I do a purge of the papers, but this time, I actually tackled the boxes and transferred a lot of paper to the recycling and the shredder. While my study is not yet as neat as it was whenever I took that photo (Yes, that's neat, comparatively), it's better than it was.

One thing I did, in the most tentative of ways, was go through my bookcases. Most of my fiction is in my study, from Ab (Diana Abu-Jaber's Arabian Jazz, published while she was at the University of Oregon in the early 90s, the inscription of which calls me her most "delightful, charming, talented, adorable and brilliant" student, which makes me think now that she was excessively giddy to have her first book out) to Sp, Scott Spencer's Endless Love (infinitely better in novel than in movie form). (The remaining fiction is in the hallway.)

I've always wanted a library, and while I may never have the room with the leather armchairs and the fireplace and the sliding ladder--I love the wall of books in my study.

So, it is only with the greatest restraint that I ever get rid of books. Take today's purge of a modest 14 books, for example. Several of the books in the pile are duplicates. A few others are books I can say with some confidence that I'm just not going to read, now or later. These include From Here to Eternity and two Gunter Grass novels, including one, The Flounder, recommended to me by a man who would later break my heart. My bookmark is on p. 88, and at this moment of remove, I'm much more interested in the bookmark--a three tier AC train ticket from Howrah Junction in Calcutta to New Delhi in November, 1994 for a female, age 28--than in the book. My beau had been gone from India for 3 weeks then, and I remember taking it as a sign that this book he'd so recently recommended to me had turned up in a used book stall in Calcutta, with the inscription, "To my dear Frank--May you imbibe these sensual morsels and savor them as you make your way through the jetstream. Love, Mary Ann." Who knows if Frank imbibed the sensual morsels and where he is in the jetstream all these years later. All I know is that I did try--getting to page 88 (even out of a 540 page book) definitely is trying--and maybe the fact that I couldn't make myself read any further was a sign that we were not meant to be.

But I digress. The other books on the pile include a few mysteries, Dreiser's Sister Carrie, Kafka's The Trial and a sappy lesbian novel called Patience & Sarah. I have read all of these books--Dreiser and the sappy lesbian book in college, Kafka in grad school, the mysteries more recently. But they are all on the pile not just because it's been years since I read most of them but because I am quite sure I will not want to read them again.

Because whether a book is re-readable is a key part of both my book acquisition and book retention strategies (if I have such a thing). Sometimes I buy books I've already read, and most of the time I keep books I've already read. It is a huge part of my reading life--and has been since I was a child--to re-read books I've loved and sometimes books I haven't, to see how I feel about them at a different stage of life. (Reading To the Lighthouse in college was a pleasant enough experience; reading it five years later was an astonishing one.)

I know that in some ways, re-reading doesn't make a lot of sense. I will never be able to read all the books I might want to read even once, so re-reading seems almost wasteful, spending precious time on familiar books. But even as I write that, I don't really believe it. I would never be able to read everything I wanted to even if I didn't re-read, and re-reading gives me enough pleasure that I can't imagine forgoing it.

I've been thinking about this recently because when I look through my list of books I've read this year, what I mostly see are mysteries. This is not necessarily a bad thing--I like mysteries--but usually they're interspersed with literary novels rather than with children's books, as they have been this year. The one new literary novel I tried to read I made it halfway through and realized that I just didn't care what happened. I was starting to feel a bit despondent. But I was instantly revived when I learned that Barbara Trapido, the wonderful British/South African novelist whom I adore and admire immensely, has a new book--her first in 7 years--due out soon.











And one thing led to another, and I found myself going to the bookcase in the hallway where the T's live and taking out my copy of Trapido's Noah's Ark. (The cover on the left is the edition I have; the one on the right is one of the newer, spiffier reprints.) It's not that I had really planned to re-read it. It's just that in reading the description of the new novel (Sex and Stravinsky, due out in Britain in May), I noticed that there was a character named Hattie, and I wondered if it was the same Hattie who is age 8 in Noah's Ark, fierce-willed, wild-haired and enamored of sparkly disco roller skates, whose decision to smuggle a 3 week old kitten (a female ginger tabby named Susan, "with just the smallest speckle of white on the end of her tail . . . Just like the tiniest spatter of milk.") in her hand luggage from South Africa back to Britain sets up the novel's conclusion. Since four of Trapido's six previous novels share a common set of characters, I won't be at all surprised if it's the grown-up Hattie we meet in the new novel.

But I took the book out, just to look, and just like the first time I read Noah's Ark--in Varanasi in 2002, after having found the book in a used bookshop in Kathmandu when I'd left India briefly for visa purposes--I found myself inexorably drawn into Trapido's complex, beautifully-detailed domestic world, a world I was so loathe to leave that immediately upon finishing the book the first time, I started it again and read it straight through.

Even having read Noah's Ark multiple times already, I still took great pleasure from it this time. I remembered the main arc of the story--how the marriage of the ethereal, artistic South African-born Ali to the American Jewish medic Noah evolved and then evolves as Ali finds herself drawn back to her past--but I'd forgotten many of the details, and re-discovering them was no less of a pleasure for their familiarity. I found myself engrossed all over again, carrying the book around with me and being irritated by anything that distracted me from it. With re-reading, the anxiety of "what happens next" is gone. There's only the pleasure in rediscovering a once familiar and much loved world.

And my re-read of Trapido has refreshed me, I find. Having returned to where I had been before, I'm more ready to strike again into unfamiliar territory. And a heap of intriguing new books beckons, not just Trapido's new novel, but Maggie O'Farrell's as well, and Katharine Weber's and more. Re-reading, it seems, leads me to reading, and so I hope it will continue.

Excellent Chewy Granola Bars

Sometimes when I find an interesting recipe online, I bookmark it and put it away for future reference. And sometimes, especially if it happens to be a Monday when I'm home, I preheat the oven and start measuring ingredients immediately. So it was a few weeks ago when Deb at Smitten Kitchen posted this recipe for thick, chewy granola bars. (She'd adapted the recipe from one on the King Arthur Flour site.)



Since I am a person who likes a little something with my tea in the afternoons, and since I am also a person who goes to the gym after that, I'm always looking for afternoon snack options that are reasonably healthy and reasonably filling and also, of course, more than reasonably tasty. These granola bars absolutely fit the bill. The beauty of the original recipe is that it is incredibly flexible and adaptable. I am writing about it now because I wanted to write about one particular combination.

Last year, during the May blogathon, I wrote about my favorite granola recipe, one full of coconut and wheat germ, sesame and sunflower seeds, slivered almonds and raw cashews, raisins and dried cranberries. Since I started making it, seven or so years ago, I have not strayed. I figured that since the granola was so delicious, the granola bar version of it must be equally delicious. And, I have to say, I was right. Not only that, but the bar version is almost more delicious thanks to the addition of peanut butter, which is obviously a bit tricky to add to granola but ideal in granola bars that you want to stick together. All of my testers approved heartily, and the granola bars were gone within just a few days.



I tried again a week later, this time adding chocolate chips. I am sad to say that it didn't work. It's not that the granola bars were inedible or anything--they tasted fine. But somehow the chocolate didn't mesh with the rest of the ingredients the way I hoped it would. I am going to go back to the original recipe and try a different combination that might work better with the chocolate--no sesame or sunflower seeds, for one thing, and perhaps peanuts or more almonds for the nuts. I will report back if I come up with anything particularly good.

A few notes: I took Deb's advice to make these in an 8" x 8" square pan (though mine is actually 9" x 9") rather than a 9" x 13" pan--this is how they get their thickness, but you do need to be press them firmly into the pan so that they stick together. I use a stainless steel measuring cup to assist with this. The thickness means that they're dense. Deb says she cuts hers into 16 pieces and eats them for breakfast. Since I mostly eat mine as a snack, I've been cutting them into 25 pieces, meaning they are small but still potent.

I usually don't cook with corn syrup, but it helps with the sticking together. Please note that light corn syrup is not the same as the high fructose corn syrup that is so evil.

As you might guess, the sticking together can be an issue. If you read through the 400+ comments on Smitten Kitchen, you'll see that it comes up frequently. (It's also fascinating to read the different combinations people have come up with.) Letting them cool completely before you cut them helps (though it takes some self control). Some time in the fridge helps. I also found that after a night in an airtight container, they held together pretty well. Also be aware that these keep very nicely. I didn't bother individually wrapping them--I just put the squares into a container, and they were fine. Several people mentioned making a double batch and baking it in a 9" x 13" pan, which I might try if I make these for an occasion or if I want to be generous and share while still having plenty for myself. That's the thing about these granola bars--they make you (me) a little bit greedy. But when it comes to granola bars, that might not be such a bad thing.

Thicky, Chewy Granola Bars
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen/King Arthur Flour

1 2/3 cups quick rolled oats
1/2 cup granulated sugar (This makes a not overly sweet bar, but you could cut down or eliminate if you wanted them even less sweet)
1/3 cup oat flour (or 1/3 cup oats, processed till finely ground in a food processor or blender)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup dried coconut
1/2 cup cashews
1/2 cup slivered almonds (I used toasted ones, though raw would be fine.)
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 tablespoon water

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8″ x 8″ x 2″ pan in one direction with parchment paper. Lightly grease the parchment paper and the exposed pan, or coat with a non-stick spray.

Stir together all the dry ingredients, including the fruit and nuts. In a separate bowl, whisk together the vanilla, melted butter and oil, honey, corn syrup and water. Toss the wet ingredients with the dry along with the peanut butter until the mixture is evenly crumbly. Spread in the prepared pan, pressing them in firmly to ensure they are molded to the shape of the pan. (I used a stainless steel measuring cup to help with this.)

Bake the bars for 30 to 40 minutes, until they’re brown around the edges. (I find that 35 minutes works well--the edges are dark brown, the center light brown and a bit soft. They will firm up as they cool)

Cool the bars in their pan completely on a cooling rack. (Alternately, according to Deb, after about 20 minutes you can use your parchment “sling” to lift and remove the bars, and place them in their paper on the rack to cool the rest of the way. This can speed the process up.)

Once they're cool, use a serrated knife to cut the bars into squares. Store in an airtight container. Enjoy.

The View from my Window

So, the one day we had a bunch of snow last week, I took some photos, and on a whim, I sent one of them to Andrew Sullivan's blog, The Daily Dish, for his "The View from Your Window" feature. He gets lots and lots of submissions (hundreds a week, he says), so I didn't really think mine would end up there.

But my eagle-eyed brother called today and said he thought he recognized, well, the view from my window, and sure enough, he was right.

Of course, since the weather has warmed up these last few days, it no longer looks like this from my window, but on that snowy morning, it did: The View from My Window.

Easy Winter Tomato Soup

For years, my tomato soup routine was the same. In the summer, I made a version of tomato soup that I found in Cooking Light years ago. (I meant to post this version when it was tomato season and didn't, so now it will have to wait another few months.) And in the winter, I didn't even try to make my own but relied on Trader Joe's.

Those days have come to an end. Not that I will forgo Trader Joe's tomato soup entirely, but now I have an easy homemade alternative. And it should be no surprise that the source is Deborah Madison, soup genius. This recipe is from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, which has been on my shelf for years. Why I never tried this recipe before, I can't say. Maybe I thought it was too simple or basic. I don't know. But now that I've tried it, it's going to be in my repertoire for a long time. It's easy, quick and delicious. And in early March, when one day the sun is out and the next day it's snowy and gray, it's nice to have something both dependable and delicious to rely on.

I hardly tweaked this recipe at all. I did add a carrot to the onion and celery, and I think if you're going to make the soup with water rather than vegetable stock (as I have), the carrot helps give the soup some depth. Otherwise, I followed her instructions pretty closely and was not disappointed.

Cream of Tomato Soup
Adapted from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

2 1/2 tablespoons butter
1 small onion, chopped
1 celery rib, chopped
1 carrot, chopped (optional)
1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil, crumbled between your fingers
Pinch of ground cloves
2 tablespoons flour
Two 15-ounce cans diced tomatoes in puree or juice (or 1 28 ounce can, if that's what's in your pantry)
Pinch of baking soda
2 1/2 cups vegetable stock or water
1 1/2 cups milk
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
Tomato paste if needed

1.Melt the butter in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion, celery, carrot (if using), basil, and cloves; cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is limp, about 5 minutes. Stir in the flour, then add the tomatoes, baking soda, and stock or water. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer, partially covered, for 20 minutes. Let cool briefly, then puree in a blender until smooth (or, of course, in the pot with your trusty immersion blender).

2.Return the soup to the pot, add the milk, and season with salt. If the soup is too thick, thin it with additional milk or stock. If the tomato flavor isn't as rich as you'd like (if the tomatoes were packed in water instead of puree), deepen it by stirring in a little tomato paste.

Serve with toasted cheese for a lovely lunch. ((A fancier version of this soup, incorporating souffleed cheese toasts rather than separate bread and cheese, is in Deborah Madison's soup cookbook. I have no doubt that it's also delicious, but I haven't tried it yet.)

Winter Holiday

It's been a very snowy winter many places on the East coast. For better or for worse, my part of Western Mass. is not one of those places. (Every big storm that’s hit further south or east (or west) has mostly managed to miss us.) The most time I’ve spent in the snow has been when I’ve been shoveling it off my driveway. My new snowshoes are still in their bag, and I’ve only used my x-country skis once, and for that, I had to drive halfway to the Berkshires to find (almost) enough snow to ski on. (Admittedly, that was a few weeks ago, and now I wouldn’t have to go so far, after the cumulative effect of this week’s storms.) Still, I felt the need to read about a real winter, of sudden blizzards and frozen lakes with homey houseboats conveniently frozen into them, of skates and sleds and semaphore. In other words, I had to dig out Winter Holiday, by Arthur Ransome, fourth in the Swallows and Amazons series and the only one of his novels set in winter.

I have to add that I was not alone in this impulse. A few days later, I went to look at my friend Mo's blog, Loving the Tasmanian Devil, and saw that she'd written a long and thoughtful post called a Happy Confluence of Winter Books about two of her favorite winter books, one of which is Carol Ryrie Brink's Winter Cottage. I had never heard of Winter Cottage and had to put it on my library list immediately.

But back to Arthur Ransome. I didn't grow up reading the Swallows and Amazons books. For those not in the know, they're a beloved series of British children's books, written mostly in the 1930s and 40s, set mostly in the Lake District of England and featuring several families of intrepid adventurers who sail and camp and have adventures. The first I heard of them was in college, when I discovered my friend and next door neighbor, Ann, reading Swallows and Amazons, the first in the series, which she did, I learned, whenever she was stressed out. Some years later, looking at her bookshelves, I found one of the later books of the series, with the inscription, “For Ann on her 23rd birthday,” which made me laugh.

Perhaps incongruously, I read my first Swallows and Amazons book in Delhi in 1994. I belonged to many libraries during that long stay, one of which was the American Embassy library, where there was a 15 rupee sale shelf. More often than I'd imagined, decent books turned up on the 15 rupee shelf, and I snatched them up. One summer day, a battered copy of Swallows and Amazons was there, and I bought it. I did not read it right then, however. I remembered Ann's use of Swallows and Amazons as comfort reading, and I saved it for when I might need it. (I knew the time would come, and it did.) In the years since then, I've read a number of the others, and along with Swallows and Amazons, my favorite is Winter Holiday.

The book involves 3 groups of siblings: the Walkers (aka the Swallows), the Blacketts (the Amazons) and the Callums (the D's) who all end up, mostly parentless (except for Mrs. Blackett), in the Lake District during their winter holiday. It is one of the coldest winters on record, and as more and more of the long lake begins to freeze, the children hope to be able to mount an expedition to the north pole (aka the end of the lake). Due to a fortunately timed case of the mumps and subsequent quarantine that keeps them at the lake for an additional month, their wish is granted.

One thing that’s appealing about the book is how well the kids take advantage of winter. They skate daily on a frozen pond and on the lake itself, they take wild sled rides down the hill onto the lake, they spend time in an igloo they’ve constructed and even manage to rescue a sheep stranded on a cliff. Eventually, they take possession of the Blackett sisters’ Uncle Jim’s houseboat that’s been frozen into the lake, renaming it the Fram, after the boat in Nansen’s arctic expedition in the 1890s, systematically eating their way through all of his stores and readying themselves for their own version of polar exploration, a trip to their own north pole, which turns out to be more than they bargained for and also the adventure that they desperately wanted.

By the end of the book, it is abundantly clear that Nancy Blackett’s pronouncement about winter that serves as the book's epigraph—“Dark at tea-time and sleeping indoors: nothing ever happens in the winter holidays.”—is absolutely false. And for those of us who may never build an igloo, enjoy a frozen houseboat or mount an expedition to any pole at all, it’s a true pleasure to go along with them.

I can’t write about Arthur Ransome without noting that he was recently the subject of a major biography—The Last Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome—in which it turns out that he was a spy for Britain and also so close to the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution that he was nearly prosecuted for treason. I read two fascinating reviews of the book in the Guardian and in the Times of London, but I have to admit that I can't decide how much I actually want to know about his real life. Sometimes, at least, it's best to stick with the fiction.

Meatless Mondays: Pasta with Roasted Butternut Squash and Greens

It seems that almost everything I make these days involves butternut squash or chard. A few weeks ago, it was Roasted Butternut Squash Risotto. Then, it was my favorite chard and onion torta from Deborah Madison. This past week, just to liven things up, I made something with both, the pasta with roasted butternut squash and greens from The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper. I mentioned this pasta the first time I wrote about a recipe from this book (the wonderful soup with fresh greens and alphabets), and I've made it numerous times since then, but somehow, I'm not getting around to writing about it til now.

No matter. Despite our lack of snow in western New England, it remains winter here, and fresh vegetables are not in abundant supply. Still, it's possible to get nice-looking, even local, butternut squash and chard (though this is less likely to be local). This pasta dish is nice because it's delicious, first of all, and relatively quick (more about that in a minute) but mostly because it's a nice change from my usual pasta with a tomato-related sauce.

Lynne Rosetto Kasper said that this dish takes 10 minutes to prep. I think she either has a sous chef or she is deluded. I can't figure out how she can possibly prep this dish in 10 minutes when peeling and chopping (or even just chopping) several pounds of butternut squash is involved, not to mention washing and chopping the chard, not to mention the onions and garlic. Anyway, even with the longer than anticipated prep, this is a relatively speedy dinner to make. (Just make sure you allot more than 10 minutes for it.) Although I usually don't buy pre-peeled or chopped vegetables, I make an exception here. A local store (Atkin's Farm, home of the cider doughnut) sells bags of peeled butternut squash, and when I want to make this pasta, that's what I buy. Then it's just a matter of chopping it, which is much quicker.

The sequence is this. Make sure you pre-heat the oven with the pan in it. (I've forgotten this more than once.) While the pre-heating is going on, you combine all of your chopped vegetables in a bowl:

Then, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper, brown sugar and herbs. When the oven is pre-heated and the pan hot enough, spread the vegetables on the hot pan. Make sure you keep an eye on the vegetables while they're cooking, and don't worry if the quantities look enormous. They cook down substantially while in the oven.

You can cook the pasta while the vegetables are in the oven, so everything can be ready to combine as soon as the vegetables are ready. Once they're done, it's just a matter of mixing with the half and half and the cheese and adding more salt and pepper to taste.

One more thing I should note--this full recipe makes a lot of pasta. Really, like a lot. So, good for dinner for 6 people (and some leftover), less good for 1 or 2 people who don't want to be eating this every day for a week. When I made this last, I used a 2 1/2 pound squash, 1 supermarket bunch of chard and about 3/4 pound of pasta. (I didn't fiddle much with the rest of the amounts.) This provided me with one dinner and 2 lunches early in the week and dinner for Alex and me later in the week. We both looked at our empty plates regretfully, and it seemed better to want more than to feel oppressed by the leftovers. No matter the quantity, though, I do highly recommend making this pasta. Soon enough, there will be lovely spring dishes on the menu, so we might as well appreciate an excellent winter dish like this while we can.

Pasta with Roasted Butternut Squash and Greens
Adapted from The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper

5 quarts salted water in a 6-quart pot

Roasted Vegetables:
3 to 3-1/2 pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into bite-sized chunks
1 medium to large onion, cut into 1-inch chunks
2 big handfuls greens; Kasper suggests escarole or curly endive or spring mix, I use chard; all should be washed, dried and torn or chopped into small pieces
1/3 tight-packed cup fresh basil leaves, torn, if available, or 1 tsp. dried
16 large fresh sage leaves, torn, or 1 tbsp. dried
5 large garlic cloves, coarse chopped
1/3 cup good-tasting extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tight-packed tablespoon brown sugar (light or dark)
Salt and fresh-ground black pepper

Pasta and Finish:
1 pound bow-tie pasta (see above)
1/2 cup half-and-half
1 to 1-1/2 cups (about 6 ounces) shredded Asiago cheese (I've used Manchego, Gruyere and Pecorino Romano, all to good effect)

1. Slip one large or two smaller shallow sheet pans into the oven. Preheat the oven to 450°F. Bring the salted water to a boil.

2. In a big bowl, toss together all the ingredients for the roasted vegetables. Be generous with the salt and pepper.

3. Pull out the oven rack holding the sheet pan. Taking care not to burn yourself, turn the squash blend onto the hot sheet pan and spread it out. Bake for 25 minutes, or until the squash is tender, turning the vegetables two or three times during roasting.

4. As the squash becomes tender, drop the pasta into the boiling water and cook it until tender, but with some firmness to the bite. Drain in a colander.

5. Once the squash is tender, turn on the broiler to caramelize it. Watch the vegetables closely, turning the pieces often. Anticipate about 5 minutes under the broiler. You want crusty brown edges on the squash and wilted, almost crisp greens.

6. Scrape everything into a serving bowl. Add the half-and-half, hot pasta, and 1 cup of the cheese. Toss to blend, tasting for salt and pepper. Add more cheese if desired. Serve hot.

Slings and Arrows: A Heartfelt Plug

Slings and Arrows has been on the edge of my consciousness for years. Canadian, yeah, Shakespeare, yeah, funny, yeah, whatever. I always meant to watch it and never got around to it. But late in the fall, I ran into a friend at the library, and we were recommending DVDs to each other. I told her about the 2005 Bleak House (the one with Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock), and she reminded me about Slings and Arrows. I'm not sure why this time it clicked, but it did.

And now that I've finished all three all-too-brief seasons, I really can't recommend it more highly. The show ran in Canada from 2003-06 and then was on the Sundance Channel here a few years ago. I suspect it still pops up on cable occasionally. It's set at the fictional New Burbage Theatre Festival and covers three seasons there, during which Shakespeare's three great tragedies are performed: Hamlet in the first season (with a Hollywood action star as Hamlet), MacBeth in the second (with a pompous blowhard as MacBeth) and King Lear in the third (with an aged, ailing and possibly addicted actor as Lear). Meanwhile, the business manager falls under the sway of an American corporate sponsor in the first season, a lunatic PR guy in the second season and a really bad musical in the third. I loved all three seasons, with perhaps a slight preference for the first as my favorite, though the second was maybe the funniest and the third the most moving.

The show is beautifully written and acted, complex, funny and just all around fabulous. The main character is the theater's artistic director, Geoffrey Tennant (played by the cute and wonderful Paul Gross), who had once been a star actor at the theater before having a nervous breakdown in the middle of Hamlet. (He was playing Hamlet and jumped into Ophelia's grave and wouldn't get out.) When the theater's artistic director--and Geoffrey's former mentor and friend--Oliver Welles, is killed ("run over by a pig truck") at the end of the first episode, Geoffrey is asked to take over. Oliver, however, doesn't go away. His ghost, only visible to Geoffrey (and one other key character, later on), plays a major role throughout the series. He and Geoffrey bicker constantly, alarming all who see Geoffrey engaged in what seems to them to be one-sided arguments with the air.

The acting is wonderful all around, from the main characters--Geoffrey; Oliver; Richard Smith-Jones, the clueless business manager; Anna, his able assistant; Ellen, the festival's leading lady and diva--to the minor ones (Nahum, the Nigerian janitor; Frank and Cyril, the two older gay guys who play many of the minor roles; Maria, the ever-harried stage manager). The occasional big name actor shows up (Rachel McAdams in season 1, Sarah Polley in season 3), although I should re-phrase that to mean bigger name in the US, as many members of the cast are very well-known in Canada. But the writing is also wonderful. And even though each season stands on its own, the three seasons work together as a whole. I read somewhere that the show was conceived of as a 3 season show. (Each season contains 6 episodes of 45 minutes; all three seasons, 13.5 hours in all, equal about one regular TV season in the US.) This becomes clear at the end, when there is a real sense of closure. The ending is bittersweet, but the show ends the way it should end, the way it's been set up to end. And throughout the last few episodes, there are moments that hark back both to earlier seasons--Oliver providing for Geoffrey in King Lear what Geoffrey had provided for his leading men in Hamlet and MacBeth--and to earlier moments in that season (the ever present Bolivian musicians' role in the storm scene in King Lear was just fabulous). One thing I should note is that each season takes a bit of time to warm up. You may not be hooked after the first episode or two. But be patient. Once the story is set up, it's hard to stop watching. And the last two episodes of each season are so well done that I felt that I had no choice but to watch them again, immediately.

I could go on and on. But really, the thing I most want to say is Watch This. I'm not in theater, I haven't read Shakespeare since college, I don't have any personal reasons for enjoying this. But I loved it. It's probably the best TV I've seen since The Wire, and it's much less stressful. (I had rather disturbing dreams while I was watching The Wire, which is probably why I still haven't watched the last 2 seasons.) For a very brief taste, here's a link to a YouTube clip from the first season, the lovely Geoffrey trying to coach his truly terrible Ophelia. And meanwhile, though I'm sad not to be able to watch it for the first time, I have no doubt that it will hold up to repeated viewings, and even having just finished watching it, I'm already looking forward to the next time.