The striking cover shows a goshawk, one of the birds used for falconry. The sport, and food-hunting, carried out by falconers is many centuries old but still thrives, with ownership of the large birds regulated in most countries. Helen Macdonald in Britain wanted to be a falconer since childhood. H IS FOR HAWK shows what happened when she finally got the chance to put her studies into practice.
Goshawks in the wild live in deep woodland and are seldom seen compared to the sparrowhawk. They were persecuted by gamekeepers and made extinct in Britain. Enthusiasts brought them back by releasing European birds in recent decades, and there are now about 450 pairs. Helen tells us that the news of her father's death tilted her world sideways. She had flown peregrine falcons, which were owned by the privileged because they needed open space like grouse moors, while hawks were sulky birds and wanted woods, sometimes not leaving the trees while their handlers waited. All her studies had told her that goshawks were hard to train, unrewarding. She decided that she needed the challenge to get her world back on track. Buying a young bird from a breeder, she began a year of isolation and dedication.
The memoir is penned by a literary-minded writer, with many references to The Goshawk by TH White, author of The Sword In The Stone among other works. Her paragraphs are lengthy and descriptive, with vivid imagery and powerful use of the senses. The telling however is intensely personal, as the author's reflects on her father, a news photographer, and their strong relationship. Like the hawk, at this time she does not want to see people. Her loss and loneliness become depression. The language of falconers includes jesses, bells, mantling, tiercel (the male which is a third smaller than the female) and more. Now, webcams show live feed from goshawk nests, but the craft of falconers is still much as it was in medieval times. From history - Frankish knights learned how to use hoods from Arab falconers during the Crusades - we fall in awe, then in love, with the majestic goshawk. I loved the moment when the young hawk first sees a pigeon fly into a city lime tree - and suddenly all her weapons systems are engaged, as Helen Macdonald puts it. H IS FOR HAWK is a rewarding read for anyone who enjoys memoirs, nature or countryside history.
When Helen Macdonald's father died suddenly on a London
street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer—Helen
had been captivated by hawks since childhood—she'd never
before been tempted to train one of the most vicious
predators, the goshawk. But in her grief, she saw that the
goshawk's fierce and feral temperament mirrored her own.
Resolving to purchase and raise the deadly creature as a
means to cope with her loss, she adopted Mabel, and turned
to the guidance of The Once and Future King author T.H.
White's chronicle The Goshawk to begin her challenging
endeavor. Projecting herself "in the hawk's wild mind to
tame her" tested the limits of Macdonald's humanity and
changed her life.
Heart-wrenching and humorous, this book is an unflinching
account of bereavement and a unique look at the magnetism
of an extraordinary beast, with a parallel examination of
a legendary writer's eccentric falconry. Obsession,
madness, memory, myth, and history combine to achieve a
distinctive blend of nature writing and memoir from an
outstanding literary innovator.
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