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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
A suprise that it was about so much more than a hawk. The author makes a novel melange of T.H.White's life, books, bird training for both White and Macdonald, British upper crust society, and so much more. Macdonald lost her father suddenly, and it took her a long time to come to terms with the loss, perhaps momentarily losing a bit of her humanity, while she and her hawk learned to behave as a hunting unit.
I, on the other hand, am coming to terms with the loss of my father through the thousand cuts of dementia. I won't forget this book, I hope.
I, on the other hand, am coming to terms with the loss of my father through the thousand cuts of dementia. I won't forget this book, I hope.
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
When I was a child, I sometimes gravitated toward narratives where the author describes the wonder and bond between human and beast. Old Yeller, The Black Stallion, and anything written by Jack London were my favorite. I am also no stranger to autobiographies about women who have lost a loved one and are on a healing journey such as Gardens in the Dunes, Tracks or Wild.
Unfortunately, even given this, I cannot recommend H is for Hawk. I found it painfully boring and impossible to relate to. Perhaps I felt this way because MacDonald comes across as a member of the very removed British elite, or because she expresses very little regarding her emotions even though her father just died, or because she projects her emotions onto her hawk. The hawk is the one I often feel sad for as she is constantly being starved or restrained from what comes as instinct. Unfortunately, the reflections on TH White, The Sword and the Stone, and The Once and Future King, are all so limited by a very narrow cultural lens that I could not stay engaged. I felt the psychoanalysis of White was enough to disappoint and upset me.
I read this because my book club read it. I bought the audiobook version read by the author just so I could finish it.
Unfortunately, even given this, I cannot recommend H is for Hawk. I found it painfully boring and impossible to relate to. Perhaps I felt this way because MacDonald comes across as a member of the very removed British elite, or because she expresses very little regarding her emotions even though her father just died, or because she projects her emotions onto her hawk. The hawk is the one I often feel sad for as she is constantly being starved or restrained from what comes as instinct. Unfortunately, the reflections on TH White, The Sword and the Stone, and The Once and Future King, are all so limited by a very narrow cultural lens that I could not stay engaged. I felt the psychoanalysis of White was enough to disappoint and upset me.
I read this because my book club read it. I bought the audiobook version read by the author just so I could finish it.
I was really looking forward to this but I was a bit disappointed in the end. She writes beautifully and her descriptions capture the waves and gut-punches of grief powerfully. What I found off-putting was the amount of detail about hunting with the hawk and the meditation on the author T.H. White. Eventually I ended up skimming those sections, which unfortunately constitutes half or more of the book.
The detail about hunting with her hawk is both well-written and provides insight into her mental state after her father's death; it shows her obsession and how the hawk was basically the only thing she could handle. By putting all her energy into the hawk, she could try to ignore, or at least find refuge from, the pain of her father's death. I really appreciated that device, there was just way too much of it. She recounts many hunts in extraordinary detail (tracking rabbits through meadows and hedges, where the hawk flew, then where the rabbit went next, then what the hawk did next, etc.), which becomes monotonous after a couple of hunts. (Also, she wrote the book about 5 years later, so either she kept meticulous journals at the time or a lot of this detail was generated after the fact.) Although her intense focus on the hawk and the details of hunts is revealing in some respects, it is obscuring in others. For example, we get the impression that she hadn't been able to deal with anything besides the hawk, but these kinds of details (e.g., not paying her bills) are noted only in passing. In the end we get a somewhat veiled picture of this period; the attention is on her attention on her hawk. People who are really into birds will appreciate this more than those who aren't.
The hawk-hunting detail was a bit much, but the bigger disappointment was the extended meditation on T.H. White (author of The Sword and the Stone) and his book The Goshawk. At one point early on she specifies that the book is not a biography of him, a note that feels like something an editor made her put in because so much space is dedicated to him. Based on his writing and letters, she writes detailed passages that are imagined scenes of him with his hawk. It's clear that this book and this man are important to her, and perhaps important to her grief and hawk training experience, but I found those sections uninteresting and disruptive. They felt like they should have been part of a different book.
The detail about hunting with her hawk is both well-written and provides insight into her mental state after her father's death; it shows her obsession and how the hawk was basically the only thing she could handle. By putting all her energy into the hawk, she could try to ignore, or at least find refuge from, the pain of her father's death. I really appreciated that device, there was just way too much of it. She recounts many hunts in extraordinary detail (tracking rabbits through meadows and hedges, where the hawk flew, then where the rabbit went next, then what the hawk did next, etc.), which becomes monotonous after a couple of hunts. (Also, she wrote the book about 5 years later, so either she kept meticulous journals at the time or a lot of this detail was generated after the fact.) Although her intense focus on the hawk and the details of hunts is revealing in some respects, it is obscuring in others. For example, we get the impression that she hadn't been able to deal with anything besides the hawk, but these kinds of details (e.g., not paying her bills) are noted only in passing. In the end we get a somewhat veiled picture of this period; the attention is on her attention on her hawk. People who are really into birds will appreciate this more than those who aren't.
The hawk-hunting detail was a bit much, but the bigger disappointment was the extended meditation on T.H. White (author of The Sword and the Stone) and his book The Goshawk. At one point early on she specifies that the book is not a biography of him, a note that feels like something an editor made her put in because so much space is dedicated to him. Based on his writing and letters, she writes detailed passages that are imagined scenes of him with his hawk. It's clear that this book and this man are important to her, and perhaps important to her grief and hawk training experience, but I found those sections uninteresting and disruptive. They felt like they should have been part of a different book.
2.5/5 - I guess it's safe to say that I don't have much interest in hawks or falconry. However, there were aspects of this book that I enjoyed.
I know I'm an outlier here because Helen Macdonald's "H is for Hawk" has been heaped with praise, but I didn't enjoy this book at all. I found Macdonald's personality to be fairly grating as an author -- she comes across as a sort of know-it-all that would be a wet blanket at parties. Others have felt profound grief but Macdonald writes as though she cornered the market on it.
A good author can make me interested in a topic that I formerly didn't know anything about... a great author can get me to share their passion. Macdonald doesn't manage either in regards to falconry (or training goshawks...) I just found it to be a weird combination of uppity and dull.
A good author can make me interested in a topic that I formerly didn't know anything about... a great author can get me to share their passion. Macdonald doesn't manage either in regards to falconry (or training goshawks...) I just found it to be a weird combination of uppity and dull.
A co-worker told me about H Is for Hawk back when it first published in 2015. It peaked my interest then, mainly because hawks have always fascinated me. They also terrify me, but that’s a story for another day (I was dive bombed by a pesky hawk during my college years.)
Fast forward five years, and I finally read it and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s beautifully written, almost poetic at times, and I certainly learned things about hawks that I never knew, especially pertaining to their behaviors, and falconry. I will advise, if you don’t have an interest in hawks or falconry, or tend to avoid books about nature, this is probably isn’t the book for you. While there were certainly points that lost me, overall, I genuinely enjoyed spending time with it and came away with new found knowledge of hawks
Fast forward five years, and I finally read it and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s beautifully written, almost poetic at times, and I certainly learned things about hawks that I never knew, especially pertaining to their behaviors, and falconry. I will advise, if you don’t have an interest in hawks or falconry, or tend to avoid books about nature, this is probably isn’t the book for you. While there were certainly points that lost me, overall, I genuinely enjoyed spending time with it and came away with new found knowledge of hawks
I loved H is for Hawk. It's one of the best books I've read in ages.
H is for Hawk is very much a book about relationships: the relationship between the author and her father, whose death propels Helen Macdonald to purchase and train a goshawk. It's about the relationship between herself and the goshawk, between herself and the community around her, and people and nature in general. It's a book about the spiritual relationship and between herself and T.H. White, the author of The Once and Future King, who in the early 1950s wrote a book about his failed attempt to train a goshawk. It's a deep, meditative, beautifully written book. It's a remarkable book. Highly recommended.
H is for Hawk is very much a book about relationships: the relationship between the author and her father, whose death propels Helen Macdonald to purchase and train a goshawk. It's about the relationship between herself and the goshawk, between herself and the community around her, and people and nature in general. It's a book about the spiritual relationship and between herself and T.H. White, the author of The Once and Future King, who in the early 1950s wrote a book about his failed attempt to train a goshawk. It's a deep, meditative, beautifully written book. It's a remarkable book. Highly recommended.