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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
slow-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Helen MacDonald is an English teacher and experienced falconer, but takes on a bold new adventure in adopting and training a fierce and complex goshawk, which is a wild and temperamental creature compared to falcons. She names the hawk Mabel, and developing a relationship with the hawk is Helen’s way of coping with her father’s recent death and processing her own bereavement.
Helen is forced to put herself “in the hawk’s wild mind” to tame her and understand her. Through interactions with Mabel, Helen becomes aware of her own myriad of emotions – grief, frustration, rage, incredulity, and sadness. Mabel is just a child, and Helen mourns her own childhood. “Children go through states of mind comparable to mourning, and this early-mourning is revived whenever grief is experienced later in life.” The hawk’s hunting reveals death and helps her cope with sacrifice and loss. Helen is forced to ask herself, “Can you contain a hawk without breaking its natural spirit?”
“The hawk is everything I wanted to be: solitary, self-possessed, free from grief, and numb to the hurts of human life.”
While this story is deep, symbolic and heart-wrenching at times, I have to admit that it was also boring. I struggled to relate to Helen and felt mostly unmoved by the story. Many other reviewers gave this book high ratings, but it just wasn’t for me.
Helen is forced to put herself “in the hawk’s wild mind” to tame her and understand her. Through interactions with Mabel, Helen becomes aware of her own myriad of emotions – grief, frustration, rage, incredulity, and sadness. Mabel is just a child, and Helen mourns her own childhood. “Children go through states of mind comparable to mourning, and this early-mourning is revived whenever grief is experienced later in life.” The hawk’s hunting reveals death and helps her cope with sacrifice and loss. Helen is forced to ask herself, “Can you contain a hawk without breaking its natural spirit?”
“The hawk is everything I wanted to be: solitary, self-possessed, free from grief, and numb to the hurts of human life.”
While this story is deep, symbolic and heart-wrenching at times, I have to admit that it was also boring. I struggled to relate to Helen and felt mostly unmoved by the story. Many other reviewers gave this book high ratings, but it just wasn’t for me.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
an important book to read for anyone grieving something
I was hoping this would be more about the hawk taming not about the book she read about it. I was yearning for nature and the wilderness and it was just missing for me.
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
adventurous
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
A wonderful and touching story of how to be human, and embrace the wilds. Read it if only for the descriptions of nature, or for the tightrope Macdonald walks to make you love Mabel the hawk while not personifying her.