Thursday, February 15, 2018

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald - My Review






So, I picked up this book not really knowing what to expect..


After the first chapter, I honestly thought this was going to end up in my abandoned book shelf. I'm so glad I continued on.

While the book is, in fact, a narrative of the author's experience training a goshawk; it is so much more. It is a tale of her grief in the midst of her greatest loss. How she entered into a depression so big, she retreated as so many do. But during this grief, she entered the wild with her hawk, Mabel and started to see the world as Mabel did.

The book is also a parallel history into the world of grief of a different kind in a different time of famous author TH White, who wrote The Sword and the Stone. I found the parallels to be fascinating. Also, note, White also wrote The Goshawk, his not so favorable adventures trying to train his goshawk, Gos. 

This book was a great blend of Falconry, which I believe to be fascinating, historical commentary, and human development and self-realization.

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