This is a book first about death. And then about life, or a life regained.
As of the second chapter of this incredible memoir, Helen
Macdonald’s father has died, unexpectedly and too soon, as with most deaths of
loved ones. A professional photographer as an adult, as a child he’d been an
amateur plane spotter, watching and photographing as World War II fighters flew
over England. He seemed to spend his life looking upwards, and Macdonald
believes he was likely the inspiration for her own addiction to watching—in her
case birds rather than “aeroplanes.”
Additionally, it’s a book about a goshawk, an emblem of
wildness and predatory expertise, who is restrained and tamed by Macdonald. The
hawk’s beauty and humor are admirable, and yet as Macdonald reminds herself,
her reason for being is hunting. She is,
Macdonald writes, “thirty ounces of death in a feathered jacket.”
Helen Macdonald became fascinated with hawks and falconry as
a child, reading T. H. White’s The Sword
and the Stone wherein King Arthur as the Wart takes on the form of a hawk
as part of his instruction under Merlyn. And then she read White’s The Goshawk, and the seed for her possession
of what is considered to be the least tamable of hawks was planted.
It took her father’s death and her spiral into despair to
prompt her towards actual acquisition of a goshawk. She was already an
accomplished falconer, and had studied and taught about this ancient and
masculine sport for a few years. But the goshawk presented some unique problems
that nearly undermined what stability she had left, as she teetered toward
full-scale depression in her grief.
So much of this book explores T. H. White’s eccentricity and
the reasons behind his determination to manage the goshawk in his care, as well
as his utter incapability to do just that. Macdonald’s own emotional upheaval
alternates with her exploration of White’s life and writing in a strangely
relevant circular dance. The result is something truly brilliant. Macdonald
launches her hawk and her reader together up into a soaring feathery ride that
you will not forget. A magnificent book by a poet, naturalist, philosopher, and
artist.
For more information on how to purchase this book, go to: http://booksforanimallovers.com/new-releases/396-h-is-for-hawk.html
