Before I started writing this blog, my aim was simple: one book a week. Third book in and I have failed miserably. There are reasons for this, of course, but failing this early is not something I had on my list of things I wanted to happen in May. It was a simple list of three:
1/. To watch my beloved Aston Villa win the FA Cup.
I suppose it could be argued that this was out of my control. I had queued outside Villa Park From 3.55am for tickets for the final and I knew it'd be worth it because it was Villa's year. The week building up to the final was consumed by excitement and feverish nerves about how it would be the first time since 1957 that we won the cup.
We didn't win the cup and I am still licking my wounds and wondering why bad things happen to good people.
2/. Do something to the house.
This is possibly more what Penny wanted to get done in May more than what I wanted to do. It was half term and I wanted to put all of my efforts into preparing for a trip to London. However, the conservatory in the new(ish) house was sadly lacking anything that could be described as a floor and we needed to get it done.
We got it done - finishing at 12-something am, woke up and realised we had to do it all over again. Several coffees, a couple of arguments and lots of painful limbs later and it's done. Woohoo.
3/. Read the bloody book.
For some reason, this was a struggle. It wasn't that I didn't like the book - there's a lot of things that I loved about the book: I think that it's simply that my mind was in a few different places whilst reading it. I'd had a torrid time at work over the last few months which were probably enough to make a monk swear and I was exhausted. Half term, a gruelling cup final and a newly finished floor gave me fresh vigour though, and I finally finished it.
The book won the Costa Book of the Year and the Samuel Johnson Prize and it is very easy to see why. It intertwines Macdonald's very personal account of the struggle to come to terms with her father's death, a biographical account of T.H. White (writer of The Sword in the Stone and goshawker) and, of course, account of Macdonald's purchase and training of a goshawk called Mabel.
I watched an interview with Macdonald where she talked about the personal nature of her account and she said that she had tried avoiding writing about the her grief in such detail when she first started writing it, but it simply did not work. She eloquently describes her feeling of desolation several times through the book, even down to the etymology of 'bereavement': “Here’s a word. Bereavement. Or, Bereaved. Bereft. It’s from the Old English bereafian, meaning ‘to deprive of, take away, seize, rob’. Robbed. Seized. It happens to everyone. But you feel it alone. Shocking loss isn’t to be shared, no matter how hard you try.”
This isn't to say that H is for Hawk is a purely a cathartic experience. There are parts which make me laugh; there are parts that stir a fascination in the goshawk and there are others that conjure vivid images. I quite enjoyed imagining a lady walking round Cambridge with a hawk on her wrist swearing at joggers.
Macdonald's account is not an easy read. It is dense and thorough with descriptions and requires a degree of patience. If that sounds like a negative review, it is not. It is ultimately a rewarding read exploring a woman's struggle and addiction. I can associate and empathise with her on the addiction front. She reminisces about her childhood where she collects any literature she possibly can on goshawks and falcons and talks about the birds with her parents to the point of tedium. I did the same by banging on about football to my parents, friends, sisters. Macdonald writes:
"What I had just done (hunting with Mabel) was nothing like birdwatching. It was more like gambling, though the stakes were infintely bloodier. At its heart was a willed loss of control. You pour your heart, your skill, your very soul into a thing - into training a hawk, learning the form in racing or the numbers in cards - then relinquish control over it. This is the hook. Once the dice rolls, the horse runs, the hawk leaves the fist, you open yourself to luck and you cannot control the outcome. Yet everything you have done until that moment persuades you that you might be lucky... That little space of irresolution is a strange place to be. You feel safe because you are entirely at the world''s mercy. It is a rush. You lose yourself in it. And so you run towards those little shots of fate, where the world turns. That is the lure: that is why we lose ourselves, when powerless from hurt and grief, in drugs or gambling or drink; in addictions that collar the broken soul and shake it like a dog. I had found my addiction on that day out with Mabel. It was as ruinous, in a way, as if I'd taken a needle and shot myself with heroin. I had taken flight to a place from which I didn't want to ever return."
There is, one key difference between my addiction and Helen Macdonald's. Walking down those steps at Wembley at 7.45pm on Saturday, I felt as if I didn't ever want to return to watching Villa: I was drained. Maybe I should get myself a hawk.
Other thoughts
- There were a couple of passages about gender and sexuality and their relation to nature. Is hawking a 'man' sport? Are books written about nature primarily written by homosexual authors? What is clear is that animal companionship is often a cure for loneliness and a metaphorical bandage for a number of wounds.
- Very few pages went without the leitmotif of birds. Robins, rooks, owls, sparrows, robins. You name it. The book practically flutters as you read it.
- The cover of this book is a thing of beauty. Definitely one of my favourites.
- I like Helen Macdonald: she favourited a Tweet of mine.
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