H is for Hawk

3.5/5

In 1951 T.H. White wrote a book a book about goshawks, called, of course, The Goshawk. The book, while not a popular one from the author best known for The Once and Future King (1938), made a huge impression on MacDonald. H is for Hawk settles into being a very boring and very wordy book report on White's book. It took me three days to get to page 34. So here I am admitting defeat.

pretty tough to get through. very technical writing with brief pretty moments.

After this book, I'm swearing off stories of women recovering from the death of a parent for a while. There was a lot of beauty in this book, and a lot of sadness in the author. Also a lot of T.H. White, which I didn't expect. I actually learned more about T.H. White in this book than I really wanted to know. :/ Anyway, the author works through her grief over the sudden death of her father by training a goshawk. She gets a little lost for a while, but then she gets better. And the hawk both hurts and helps. The parts with the hawk are pretty fascinating. I found her depictions of her grief and the total overthrow of her life at the death of her father (and some other changes that happened about the same time) pretty intense, and kind of uncomfortable reading. I had to listen to this in bits and pieces, because I'd start to feel overwhelmed from time to time. So. Much. FEELING. going on. But the writing's beautiful.

Nature, grief, a bit of literary history - this book had loads of elements I loved, and was very readable. The emotions were immediate and rang true. The will to become wild is for me part of grief and of depression. Some of the descriptions were concisely beautiful. I would have devoured it in one day if I didn't have things interrupting me. It completely transported me.

A powerful and intriguing tale of a woman finding herself and her passions through falconry. Reading this book was like watching the world from a hawk's point of view told through the words of the woman who knows the bird best. It is truly unique and will make you want to go scan the skies with fresh eyes.

Beautifully written. Very moving.

I found Helen’s writing style to be beautiful and loved hearing about the journey of grieving she went on while raising this Hawk. I found the described moments of grief to be deeply relatable for me and moving. And even cried at the very beginning of this book. What really knocked down the enjoyment of this book for me was all the parts about White. Honestly I found all that talk about his books and how badly he raised his Hawk to be pretty boring and weird. Especially all that talk about his tortured life and repressed sexual feelings. I’m not really sure what that had to do with the authors personal story of grief or of raising a goshawk. I had to fight myself to keep from skipping his parts every time they came up.

It was okay. All of the hawk-adjacent stuff was interesting, the rest was a little tedious.

I thought I was reading fiction. I thought I was reading beautiful fiction drenched with the authors heart and soul. I kept saying, "she has put her life in this fiction and it's not too cleverly disguised". Then I looked at a review of the book and saw that I was the silly one. A memoir. So much of the author is on these pages. If she held back, I don't know what it could possibly be. And do I want to hold a wild hawk and see it rip a small mammal to shreds? Yes. I want to consume the whole world of raptors. My friend and I bought each other a copy of The Goshawk to give the other for Christmas. There is some of my soul too.