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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Read whilst grieving and found it to be very reassuring without being too triggering/on the nose. Learnt a lot about books. Her writing is beautiful and she really champions the feral girlies. Spends a lot of time being very muddy and covered in blood.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Grief
Moderate: Death of parent
Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Pedophilia, Xenophobia
Library loan lapsed, might pick it back up but not drawing me in
Expected this to be a profound exploration of grief, but it turned out to be bleak, neurotic and even annoying. I understand that noone should be expected to cope with loss gracefully, but a book about it requires much more work
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
In H is for Hawk the author takes up "manning" a goshawk to deal with the loss of her father and in the process flees the society. While that summarizes what the book is, it is hardly what the book is about. First and foremost, it is focused on loss and pain. On the surface it discusses the loss of the author's father and the hurt of T.H. White, but the heart of the book to me seems to me a meditation on the loss of wilderness and the wild in modern life. Macdonald says as much as she considers the California condor "I think of what wild animals are in our imaginations. And how they are disappearing - not just from the wild, but from people's everyday lives... The rarer they get, the fewer meanings animals can have. Eventually rarity is all they are made of." This might be the most important message a nature writing can deliver.
Of course, that's assuming that H Is for Hawk is a nature writing, which it is not. Or at least that's not all it is. It is a sprawling book of the best type. There are the main threads of Macdonald's experience with her hawk and White's battle with his, but there are also investigations into her departed father's childhood, the author's experience and battle with grief and depression, the history and terminology of falconry, falconry's significance in English and German history, and references to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Once and Future King. If one were to diagram the plot of this book, it would be one short line that swiftly branches into 24 different threads, but none of them feel out of place or superfluous.
Macdonald is a descriptive writer. Normally that is a pejorative term, but not in Macdonald's case. She is as adept at picking the perfect word(s) to describe a mood or place as she is at juggling and weaving plots. A true poet.
H Is for Hawk is much like its titular subject, the goshawk. It is a difficult, sometimes painful, and fierce read. It draws blood and moves in an ethereal and entirely inhuman way. It also soars to majestic heights.
Of course, that's assuming that H Is for Hawk is a nature writing, which it is not. Or at least that's not all it is. It is a sprawling book of the best type. There are the main threads of Macdonald's experience with her hawk and White's battle with his, but there are also investigations into her departed father's childhood, the author's experience and battle with grief and depression, the history and terminology of falconry, falconry's significance in English and German history, and references to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Once and Future King. If one were to diagram the plot of this book, it would be one short line that swiftly branches into 24 different threads, but none of them feel out of place or superfluous.
Macdonald is a descriptive writer. Normally that is a pejorative term, but not in Macdonald's case. She is as adept at picking the perfect word(s) to describe a mood or place as she is at juggling and weaving plots. A true poet.
H Is for Hawk is much like its titular subject, the goshawk. It is a difficult, sometimes painful, and fierce read. It draws blood and moves in an ethereal and entirely inhuman way. It also soars to majestic heights.
Incredible book. Erudite and achingly vulnerable at the same time. (And Macdonald has a dazzling vocabulary; I was reaching for my dictionary a lot.) I'll be thinking about this one for a long while.
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
relaxing
sad
emotional
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
This is a book of several simultaneous strands, some of which I found more interesting than others. I found the people more compelling than the wildlife. The hawk-training got somewhat repetitive. Helen's dad and TE White are the most interesting characters, though I'm not convinced their stories were concluded properly. All in all this is a good book, but I don't see how it's prize-winningly good.