9.29.2016

finally finished

I tried three times to get into and finish this book. I was determined to get through it. I didn't enjoy it. I should have realized I wouldn't because I don't like birds. So I couldn't connect with a woman who works through grief by training a goshawk. I thought it would be more about her grief process. But it is more like a book about birds. Blah. I finished it! Why, oh why did it win so much praise?

From the publisher:
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.

2 comments:

Paula said...

I don't think I'll read this one!!

Cat. said...

I don't get it either. But I feel that way about a lot of books that get tons of press: whyyy?? It's why I tend to avoid those books until someone I know--and trust--actually reads 'em and tells me they're good.