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p_t_b's review against another edition
2.0
two stars feels kind of mean BUT i am not allowed to give it 2.75 stars. i am an easy grader and secretly every book is on a scale of 1-100 and you get 95 stars just for writing a book so this is really a 97 out of a 100 (i feel guilty being mean to books, especially ones with amazing moments that don't work overall)
points to tackle in this review:
1) i do not understand or especially appreciate the emotional metabolism of ultra-english people. warning signs you are dealing with ultra-english person: the adjective "exquisite," being the kind of person who writes a weirdly spastic memoir about being a falconer. obviously this point has as much to do with my class animosity as it does with english people but you know what i mean. i just don't get a charge out of heavy english manners
2) some parts of this book are really good
3) the breathless descriptions of A Time the Hawk Ate Some Meat get super old super fast
4) on a serious criticism note, the reason i threw this book out the window (by which i mean stopped listening to the audiobook 2/3rds of the way threw) was that the author hadn't earned the stakes she was trying to play at -- I didn't understand at all why she was so devastated by her father's death. that sounds harsh, but she reaaaaallly takes it hard. also, TH white didn't seem to be an especially interesting person, or even a writer who stands up well to modern ears/eyes; he's definitely not heavy enough to hold down his side of the book.
5) i think i am mad at this book because it was the only audiobook i had to listen to during a 1,500 mile road trip and i really wanted to like it but instead just kept trying to get myself to dig it, when after a couple hours/hundred pages I could tell that it is a thoughtful, at moments brilliant book that is not to my taste
6) i still feel guilty abotu the two stars
7) may have had too much coffee on the last leg of road trip
points to tackle in this review:
1) i do not understand or especially appreciate the emotional metabolism of ultra-english people. warning signs you are dealing with ultra-english person: the adjective "exquisite," being the kind of person who writes a weirdly spastic memoir about being a falconer. obviously this point has as much to do with my class animosity as it does with english people but you know what i mean. i just don't get a charge out of heavy english manners
2) some parts of this book are really good
3) the breathless descriptions of A Time the Hawk Ate Some Meat get super old super fast
4) on a serious criticism note, the reason i threw this book out the window (by which i mean stopped listening to the audiobook 2/3rds of the way threw) was that the author hadn't earned the stakes she was trying to play at -- I didn't understand at all why she was so devastated by her father's death. that sounds harsh, but she reaaaaallly takes it hard. also, TH white didn't seem to be an especially interesting person, or even a writer who stands up well to modern ears/eyes; he's definitely not heavy enough to hold down his side of the book.
5) i think i am mad at this book because it was the only audiobook i had to listen to during a 1,500 mile road trip and i really wanted to like it but instead just kept trying to get myself to dig it, when after a couple hours/hundred pages I could tell that it is a thoughtful, at moments brilliant book that is not to my taste
6) i still feel guilty abotu the two stars
7) may have had too much coffee on the last leg of road trip
carebears5's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
meaningful, i learned a lot through this book
branwynnemay's review against another edition
3.75
I love the prose. Gorgeous. I appreciated sharing her world and the way she experienced her grief, though I never felt compelled by White.
lalawoman416's review against another edition
4.0
So this book was not what I expected at all. I expected a traditional memoir of loss. Instead, I got three stories that didn't all necessarily seamlessly meld but interesting, all the same.
Helen MacDonald suddenly loses her father and so she throws herself head first into training a Goss Hawk. She's an experienced falconer, this isn't a whim, but she's never trained this particular type of hawk which is known to be one of the most difficult to train. But she needs the distraction and welcomes the challenge.
While she's training her hawk, she drifts into memories of reading T.H. White's book about training a Goss Hawk. This is where she lost a star from me. She, basically, writes a dissertation on T.H. White's book and his method in training his Goss. And although the dissertation itself is quite interesting, T.H. White is awful with the hawk. It made me hate him and I wanted nothing to do with him.
This book starts off quite slow, but it's prose just captures your attention and, next thing you know, you're 2/3 of the way through it. It took a year, but Helen gets there, and I'm glad I went on the journey with her.
Helen MacDonald suddenly loses her father and so she throws herself head first into training a Goss Hawk. She's an experienced falconer, this isn't a whim, but she's never trained this particular type of hawk which is known to be one of the most difficult to train. But she needs the distraction and welcomes the challenge.
While she's training her hawk, she drifts into memories of reading T.H. White's book about training a Goss Hawk. This is where she lost a star from me. She, basically, writes a dissertation on T.H. White's book and his method in training his Goss. And although the dissertation itself is quite interesting, T.H. White is awful with the hawk. It made me hate him and I wanted nothing to do with him.
This book starts off quite slow, but it's prose just captures your attention and, next thing you know, you're 2/3 of the way through it. It took a year, but Helen gets there, and I'm glad I went on the journey with her.
matthew_harrisa's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
will_meringue's review against another edition
4.0
Gos was still out there in the forest, the dark forest to which all things lost must go. I'd wanted to slip across world into that wood and thewk White lost. Some part of me that was very small and old had known this, some part of me that didn't work aldording to the everyday rules of the world but with the logic of myths and dreams. And that part of me had hoped, too, that somewhere in that other world was my father. His death had been so sudden. There had been no time to pre pare for it, no sense in it happening at all. He could only be lost. He was out there, still, somewhere out there in that tangled wood with all the rest of the lost and dead. I know now what those dreams in spring had meant, the ones of a hawk slipping through a rent in the air into another world. I'd wanted to fly with the hawk to find my father; find him and bring him home.
Not what was I expecting at all - a lot more about T.H. White than I realised! I think it shines brightest when she writes about her father, and about eliding (and re-finding) her humanity through her grief and kinship with Mabel. Somewhat repetitive but beautifully written, raw and wild.
Not what was I expecting at all - a lot more about T.H. White than I realised! I think it shines brightest when she writes about her father, and about eliding (and re-finding) her humanity through her grief and kinship with Mabel. Somewhat repetitive but beautifully written, raw and wild.
jonmartingale's review against another edition
4.0
A beautifully written exploration of loss, grief, mental wellbeing and falconry.