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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
Helen Macdonald is a devastating wordsmith. There's the cliche, "I would read that author's grocery list." I would read Macdonald's grocery list because of the way they find adjectives and incidents that upend a scene, making connections that, for this reader, felt like the literary equivalent of electrocution. An example:
This is how Macdonald explores grieving while hawking, but that's too simple a summary. While the loss of her father is a thread throughout the book, it's explored intermittently. H is for Hawk is really about connection broadly: connection among family and friends, between humans and animals, and through literature. The book is a stunning account of that I'm-fine phase of bereavement when we retreat from our people into a world we build with an illusion of control and a risk of further loss.
I start singing on the way home. I serenade my hawk with 'My Favourite Things', with whiskers and kittens and brown paper packages tied up with string. It strikes me that this must be happiness. That I have remembered what it is, and how it can be done. But watching television from the sofa later that evening I notice tears running from my eyes and dropping into my mug of tea. Odd, I think. I put it down to tiredness. Perhaps I am getting a cold. Perhaps I am allergic to something. I wipe the tears away and go to make more tea in the kitchen, where a dead white rabbit is defrosting like a soft toy in an evidence bag, and the striplight flickers ominously, undecided whether to illuminate the room or cease working entirely.
This is how Macdonald explores grieving while hawking, but that's too simple a summary. While the loss of her father is a thread throughout the book, it's explored intermittently. H is for Hawk is really about connection broadly: connection among family and friends, between humans and animals, and through literature. The book is a stunning account of that I'm-fine phase of bereavement when we retreat from our people into a world we build with an illusion of control and a risk of further loss.
Some great turns of phrases in this book. Learned a lot about hawks and White. Another reminder on the progression and evolution of grief and connection.
Real score 6.25. Isn’t taste a bizarre thing? I have been raving about this book through my whole read; I have rarely sat for a session of reading it without tears for my perceived beauty of it, and yet it’s average is so low. I rarely pay attention to a book’s GR average prior to starting it. Of the three reviews on the main page of the app, two rate it highly and one gives it a two: its emotion seems forced, the references to White, odd. To me the emotion was raw, so full of pain and love; the interplay with White masterly, fascinating. I’m going to end with hyperbole: This is one of the best books I’ve ever read! That’s taste for you.
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
this is a beautifully written book. while the overarching theme of the book is grief, i think this book is also about the deep, emotional and psychological bonds that can form between humans and animals - at several points throughout the book helen feels as if she's "becoming" a hawk; that the boundaries between her and mabel, civilization and wildness, are blurry. the arc of how helen copes with her father's death, and the deep sadness, self-destruction, and occasional selfishness that it brings, is honestly, painfully portrayed. the parallel with TH White, while interesting at first, got a bit old/boring after a while. also, i knew nothing about falconry before reading this book, and it is fascinating!
I was interested in falconry before I read this book. Now, I am obsessed with it.
I had heard so many great things about this book, but it took me a while to start it because I just couldn't understand that I would like it. Almost immediately, I was completely drawn in and tried to read it slowly so it would last longer. Every part of the book is fascinating even for someone with little or no background in falconry, TH White, grief, England, etc. I will be recommending it to many.
I personally don’t like rating memoirs, so I will not be putting a star rating for me.
This memoir was confusing to me. I had no idea who Helen MacDonald was, this was a required reading for an English lit course and I was bored and slightly confused. I could not see the correlation of MacDonald losing her dad and training her Gohawk and researching about gohawks. I found myself quite bored a lot of the time and some of the stories I found interesting would just end and she would jump to compare to White’s book on Gohawks or just in time.
This memoir was confusing to me. I had no idea who Helen MacDonald was, this was a required reading for an English lit course and I was bored and slightly confused. I could not see the correlation of MacDonald losing her dad and training her Gohawk and researching about gohawks. I found myself quite bored a lot of the time and some of the stories I found interesting would just end and she would jump to compare to White’s book on Gohawks or just in time.
dark
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
We carry the lives we've imagined as we carry the lives we have, and sometimes a reckoning comes of all of the lives we have lost.