H is for Hawk

About six months ago I saw Helen MacDonald's book H is for Hawk listed on The New York Times best seller list, and made a mental note to put it on my own reading list. For a number of months I checked with my library for the book, but all the copies were out and there was a long list of "holds" already in place. Even the ebook had a waiting list of over fifty people. But last week there it was on the shelf of my small local library, a drawing of a proud hawk on its brown front cover. It reminded me a of a tarot card. There's that wonderful feeling of finally beholding something after so may months of searching, like an ornothologist who spots a rare species. I took my find home hoping it lived up to expectations.

Wow! What a delightful and insightful read. The premise is as unusual as Ms. MacDonald's life. After the death of her father (a famed press photographer) she decides to train a goshawk to deal with the grief. In the process of recounting her emotional ups and downs with both her bird and the memories of her father, she also provides a literary insight into T.H. White, the man who wrote The Sword and the Stone. He had also written The Goshawk, published in 1951, a sad and complicated story about his experiences of training such a bird.

There is magic in Ms MacDonald's writing and her view point, not to mention her many references to books from five hundred years ago. She becomes acutley aware of objects and emotions as if she was a hawk. In fact, that is how she understands what is going on - she is the hawk, a bird she has named Mabel. And Mabel is her. There is literary sorcery here. Not just in the words and the style, but of identifying with the natural world: landscapes, animals, the weather. Ms. MacDonald casts a spell with her story telling...and in the process she not only releases her grief, but Mabel's power, and T.H.White's dark history.

This work is a force of nature. It takes flight and carries the reader as well. Loved it. (KCC May 2016)

I agree, I agree, I agree!
I picked the book up at the bookstore for no other reason than I really liked the cover art!
I had no real intention of reading it as introspective self-absorbed semi-autobiographical literature is near the bottom of my reading list. But, I took a stab at it, read one chapter then the next and was hooked by Ms MacDonald's comfortable prose and literary references. I would not even consider H is for Hawk a particularly literate book, there are much better writers who have a magic with words, but few who can marry metaphysics and nature in such a tangible and accessible way.

Aye, Aye. I think I responded to one or two other people here who mentioned it, in addition to having recommended it separately myself. Your description force of Nature is perfect. As it happens, I'm just listening to T.H. White's The Goshawk now, the other work of his Macdonald draws from.

Thanks Iain Sparrow. Yes, part of the magic of the book is that once you start reading it grabs a hold of you.

Force of Nature indeed.