H Is for Hawk

Macdonald, Helen. H Is for Hawk. New York: Grove. 2014. Print.

First Sentences:

Forty-five minutes north-east of Cambridge is a landscape I've come to love very much indeed.

It's where the wet fen gives way to parched same. It's a land of twisted pine trees, burned out cars, shotgun-peppered road signs and US Air Force base 

There are ghosts here: houses crumble inside numbered blocks or pine forestry. There are spaces built for air-delivered nukes inside grassy tumuli behind twelve-foot fences, tattoo parlours and US Air Force golf courses.

Description:

People deal with loss, sadness, and loneliness in different ways. For Helen Macdonald, the death of her father was a traumatic experience that she addresses by acquiring a goshawk and trying to train this huge hunting bird. H Is for Hawk tells Macdonald's story of her successes and failures in this experience.

While I know next to nothing about goshawks or any other birds of prey beyond reading about falcons in My Side of the Mountain and the Animorphs Young Adult sci-fi series (one teen boy turns into a peregrine falcon to fight evil aliens set to take over the world), one doesn't need my extensive background with birds of prey to be fascinated by Macdonald's descriptions of these huge birds.

The falcon. There he was, an impossibly beautiful creature the colour of split flint and chalk, wings crossed sharp over his back, his dark, hooded face turned up to the sky. 

An experienced falconer by the time of her father's death, Macdonald had been obsessed with falcons, goshawks, and other hunting birds from a very early age. Drawing pictures, reading everything about these birds, and accompanying experienced falconers shaped her early life. 

In reading every book available about these birds and their training, she stumbled upon T. H. White's The Goshawk about his own personal depression and grief, and his decision to acquire a goshawk. His book told of his hapless experiences training his goshawk, a very personal account so different from his more famous books, The Sword in the Stone and The Once and Future King. It is this book that convinces her to acquire her own bird in an attempt to recover from her own overpowering sense of grief.

Macdonald strongly identifies with White, referring to his experiences throughout H Is for Hawk as she tries to train her very difficult goshawk, Mabel. Interspersed among her own trials, she explores White's sad life that lead up to his acquisition and misguided training of Gos, as well as his desire to change his own life and become "feral," free, and away from his hated teaching responsibilities and people in general. 

While this may seem a tangent to her primary story of her own training memories, her descriptions of who White is and what he experiences as a school teacher and later as a goshawk trainer are highly relevant and fascinating. 

White looked a little like Byron. He was tall, with full lips and very pale blue eyes, a trim red moustache, and dark, unruly hair. He did all the right things: flew aeroplanes, shot, fished for salmon, hunted, and even better, all the wrong things: kept grass snakes in his room, rode his horse up the school steps on match days, and best of all, published racy novels under the pseudonym James Aston

Macdonald's writing style is quietly introspective, letting her detailed thoughts seamlessly range from White to Mabel to her own struggles. Each reflection plays a part in her work and bonding with Mabel as well as her recovery process. During a falcon hunt as a child she noticed an unusual behavior from the men's hawks:

One by one their hawks had decided they wanted no more of proceedings, saw no good reason to return to their handlers, and instead sat in trees staring out over acres of fading pasture and wood, fluffed and implacable....But it wasn't unsociable. It was something much stronger. It seemed that the hawks couldn't see us at all, that they'd slipped out of our world entirely and moved into another, wilder world from which humans had been utterly erased.

This is not a how-to book for would-be goshawk trainers (although it probably could be used that way). Instead, it is a solid testament to the elements that make up a great book regardless of topic: passionate writing, keen perceptions, the universal challenges of sadness, loneliness, and frustration, and the healing power of setting goals, patience, and understanding of another being's personality.

The first few days with a wild new hawk are a delicate, reflexive dance of manner. To judge when to scratch your nose without offense, when to walk and when to sit, when to retreat and when to come close, you must read your hawk's state of mind. You do this by watching her posture and her feathers, the workings of which turn the bird's shape into an exquisitely controlled barometer of mood.

Maybe it is more information about goshawks and training than you think you need to read about, but trust me, the depth of Macdonald's mind and the roads she follows in coping with grief (in this case, training a bird of prey) are well worth your time. She immerses herself and you in this struggle until you become one with her on her journey, an unmatched experience.

I had a fixed idea of what a goshawk was, just as those Victorian falconers had, and it was not big enough to hold what goshawks are. No one had ever told me goshawks played...I wondered if it was because no one had ever played with them. The thought made me terribly sad.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Mowat, Farley. Never Cry Wolf

True, humorous reflections of a nature observer assigned to follow and understand Canadian timber wolves. Wonderful writing and insights into the animals and their world. One of my favorite books of all time. (previously reviewed here)