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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
4.5 rounded down because I think it’s only a 5 for folks with particular interest in birds, grief, and Arthurian academics (which I kinda do).
I did the audio which I considered to incredibly high quality. Beautifully written and read. I loved this. I will look for more by her... but see previous note about birds, grief, etc. Maybe not for everyone.
I did the audio which I considered to incredibly high quality. Beautifully written and read. I loved this. I will look for more by her... but see previous note about birds, grief, etc. Maybe not for everyone.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Unclassifiable and gloriously readable.
It may make a difference that I adore raptors, and TH White's 'The Once & Future King' was a childhood favourite
It may make a difference that I adore raptors, and TH White's 'The Once & Future King' was a childhood favourite
I've wanted to read this book because I constantly see beautiful quotations from it floating around social media. And when I first began reading it, I was sucked into this world, loving every bit of it.
But somewhere along the way I started losing interest. The story is trifold: taming a goshawk, the grief of losing a father, and the hawking attempts of T. H. White. Afterall, I don't have much interest in hawking, I know nothing for goshawks, and I always find books about people grieving for their loved ones hard because I'm not familiar with that kind of pain. I also don't want to imagine it. I don't want to put myself into the shoes of someone who lost their father because I've just started coming to terms with the idea of my parents' mortality and the fact that I may be running out of time with them and it terrifies me, I'm not ready to accept it. I don't want to. Macdonald also brings up the life of T.H. White and his hawking attempts and while I've heard of him, I don't know him, and I honestly didn't care to hear about his life story.
I switched to audiobook to help me along, because it is interesting, and I knew if I would put it down, I'd probably never get back to it again. Or not for months or years, and I've been doing that -- abandoning books halfway through -- too much lately.
But now that I'm done, I know I haven't given this book a proper chance, so this review is kind of moot. I'll get back to it one day when I'm ready to give it the attention it deserves.
But somewhere along the way I started losing interest. The story is trifold: taming a goshawk, the grief of losing a father, and the hawking attempts of T. H. White. Afterall, I don't have much interest in hawking, I know nothing for goshawks, and I always find books about people grieving for their loved ones hard because I'm not familiar with that kind of pain. I also don't want to imagine it. I don't want to put myself into the shoes of someone who lost their father because I've just started coming to terms with the idea of my parents' mortality and the fact that I may be running out of time with them and it terrifies me, I'm not ready to accept it. I don't want to. Macdonald also brings up the life of T.H. White and his hawking attempts and while I've heard of him, I don't know him, and I honestly didn't care to hear about his life story.
I switched to audiobook to help me along, because it is interesting, and I knew if I would put it down, I'd probably never get back to it again. Or not for months or years, and I've been doing that -- abandoning books halfway through -- too much lately.
But now that I'm done, I know I haven't given this book a proper chance, so this review is kind of moot. I'll get back to it one day when I'm ready to give it the attention it deserves.
Memoir on grief and falconry. Many things I knew next to nothing about (outside watching The Eagle Huntress), including but not limited to training a goshawk, retrieving it from a tree when it’s fat and grumpy, how to play with a hawk, how to put an injured bunny out of its misery, the English “chalk cult” (which is something akin to “the Founding Fathers,” seems like), and various sundry other things about England, birds, and TH White. Writing is lovely and it’s a nice meandering dirge that becomes a mild major key by the end.
struggling between a 2 and a 3 here. the writing and the language is beautiful, but the story more a falconry history and manual than it was a memoir.
H is for Hawk is one of the most interesting books I've read in quite some time - it's a piece of non-fiction that is so many genres all at once: memoir, self-help book on how (and how not) to deal with grief, naturalist's diary, literary biography, and literary critique. Helen McDonald weaves a moving tale as brisk as fiction and as poignant as the sappiest novel but with all the trappings of reality that give the book an earnest, introspective core.
By offering TH White's experience teaching his hawk Gos as a foil for McDonald's own parallel experience, we are able to gain insight not just into White and his novice approach to the sport but also a great look at what it means to lose yourself, how we so often project our own world onto the things around us, and how that is especially true when we are trying to cope with the tragedy around us. This book is ultimately so moving because it is able to provide numerous windows into the darkness with the benefit and distance of self-reflection while somehow maintaining that connection.
The writing is occurring on so many different levels, and it allows the author to reach different depths: the benefit of hindsight allows her to write about herself; the unsure footing that explored her history with her family; the benefit of her parallel track with greater experience in falconry allows her to offer insight into White's missteps, which then provide insight into his character; the historian element is able to make the literary parallel with White's life and what he was trying to do shine; and her ability to lose herself in the hawk gives a depth to the natural scenes set that make you feel all of these levels of emotion at once. It's really quite amazing.
I definitely thought I'd made a mistake initially reading a memoir on grief because she absolutely admits throughout the book how messed up she was, but I was completely entranced with both her story, that of White, and even that of the hawks. I fully recommend this novel, both for the writing that is able to weave something cohesive out of so many jumbled possibilities and ultimately the realization of the process in the end. It was fulfilling in a way that is often hard to capture without feeling schmaltzy, and she does it magnificently.
By offering TH White's experience teaching his hawk Gos as a foil for McDonald's own parallel experience, we are able to gain insight not just into White and his novice approach to the sport but also a great look at what it means to lose yourself, how we so often project our own world onto the things around us, and how that is especially true when we are trying to cope with the tragedy around us. This book is ultimately so moving because it is able to provide numerous windows into the darkness with the benefit and distance of self-reflection while somehow maintaining that connection.
The writing is occurring on so many different levels, and it allows the author to reach different depths: the benefit of hindsight allows her to write about herself; the unsure footing that explored her history with her family; the benefit of her parallel track with greater experience in falconry allows her to offer insight into White's missteps, which then provide insight into his character; the historian element is able to make the literary parallel with White's life and what he was trying to do shine; and her ability to lose herself in the hawk gives a depth to the natural scenes set that make you feel all of these levels of emotion at once. It's really quite amazing.
I definitely thought I'd made a mistake initially reading a memoir on grief because she absolutely admits throughout the book how messed up she was, but I was completely entranced with both her story, that of White, and even that of the hawks. I fully recommend this novel, both for the writing that is able to weave something cohesive out of so many jumbled possibilities and ultimately the realization of the process in the end. It was fulfilling in a way that is often hard to capture without feeling schmaltzy, and she does it magnificently.
Eh. This book was hard to finish. I just didn't care. There was lots of hawk stuff in there, which was neat to learn about, and I suppose it was well written. But otherwise, it just was. It wasn't exciting, it wasn't amazing or incredible and it didn't generate any feeling with me. It was just a book. An ok book.
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced