Product Description

Snow geese spend their summers in the Canadian Arctic, on the tundra. Each autumn they migrate south, to Delaware, California and the Gulf of Mexico. In the spring they fly north again. William Fiennes decided to go with them and to write about his travels. What he produced turned out to be about very much more than geese. A blend of autobiography and reportage, its subject was also homecoming: the birds on their long journeys home, the grace of homecomings, the strange gravity that home exerts.

The arc of Fiennes' extraordinary physical adventure formed the backbone for meditations on philosophy, natural science and personal memoir. The book thrums with ideas, with stories and anecdotes, with humankind as well as wild fowl, with the funny and observant insights of an assured and highly entertaining writer. The joy of being alive, of being on the move and - above all - of returning home, is poignantly captured in this intelligent, exuberant book, a debut of great delicacy and distinction.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #306605 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 200 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Even without the unbridled enthusiasm of such writers as Peter Carey and Marina Warner that emblazon the jacket, a few pages of William Fiennes’ The Snow Geese would instantly alert the reader that this is something very special indeed. A remarkable piece of natural history and a striking book about the very notion of wandering, this is considerably more than travel writing; it is, in fact, a poetic vision that evokes the splendours and terrors of the Canadian Arctic in a fashion that goes beyond mere description. Perfectly judged prose gives a vision of the natural world that transports the reader utterly.

Snow geese spend each summer in the Canadian Arctic on the Tundra. Every autumn they migrate south to Delaware, California and the Gulf of Mexico, and in the spring they wing northwards again. Fascinated by this, William Fiennes made the decision to go with them and write about his travels. But the result turned out to be about so much more than the migration of geese. This synthesis of autobiography and reportage settles into its real subject swiftly: homecoming, and the powerful pull of the concept of home that motivates us all. The author’s daunting physical adventure is also a meditation on the philosophy of natural science and even the act of autobiography. The sheer energy of the book is mesmerising, and however subtle the writing, we read on transfixed--always relating these strange odysseys to our own travels in the world. The Snow Geese may change your very perception of what home means to you. --Barry Forshaw

Roger Tagholm, Publishing News, 15 Feb 2002
He is a writers' writer and his lyrical, poetic account of a journey... is a beautiful piece of prose that deserves to win awards.

The Sunday Telegraph, March 24 2002
... quirky and autobiographical first book... capturing that sense of wonder...

Customer Reviews

Intense, poetic, moving...
Moving, lyrical, absorbing - what would be a so-so journey for many travel writers becomes an extraordinarily beautiful quest in the hands of a writer whose imagination and precision with words are so utterly astonishing. For instance, comparing the blue light on snow to "a tone in the way the light was speaking" (can't remember the exact quote) just stops you in your tracks.

A fantastically inspiring book to read whilst commuting - real escapism, better than any "sex and shopping" dreck, this takes you out of your grimy tube carriage to the clean open spaces of the arctic tundra. Such a beautiful and moving book, I can't recommend it highly enough.

Excellent
This book is a must for anyone who likes travel, natural history, biography or a read to make you think. Full of characters, places and philosophical readings that are cleverly crafted and are so vivid you feel as if you are transported across America and Canada, sharing the nostalgia/homesickness and the thrill of the flight of the birds. My empathy with the narrator is personal - I know how frustrating confinement by illness can be... to have the pleasure to spread your metaphorical wings and fly with the geese is freedom itself. This book cannot be underestimated in its power.

A journey of the soul
The book is a journey, not just of following the snow geese as they migrate from Texas to the Arctic, but it's the author's journey too - from illness to well-being, from the childhood home to beautiful lands and then home again, from restlessness (his own Zugunruhe) to the sweet weariness of having completed a journey, from familiarity to marvellous strangeness and back to familiarity once more.

The author notices everything. You have a sense of him as almost silent, except for what he writes. He absorbs you with his descriptions of places and other people, delighting your soul with the accuracy of his observations.

It's a peaceful book, restorative, hopeful and uplifting. You give a sigh of satisfaction at the end of the book, glad for having experienced it.