You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion

TejasJanet, Cherie, Joan and Trudy will be reading H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. Anyone care to join us? Start date will possibly be sometime in March, though we all seem to be flexible if that doesn't work for someone.

Thanks for setting up the thread TrudyAn

Some time in March sounds good to me, but I'm definitely flexible about the start time. I think this will be a good book to read together. Looking forward to it.

I would like to join in :)

Glad you're joining us, Lisa! Does a Mar 20 start work for everyone?

TrudyAn wrote: "Glad you're joining us, Lisa! Does a Mar 20 start work for everyone?"

That works for me. I can also be flexible if it doesn't suit someone.

March 20 is fine for me.

Sure - March 20 is good for me too.

I'm adding it to my calendar.

Looks like we are all able to start on Mar 20. That will allow time to get the monthly reads mostly out of the way first.

I will be starting this book tonight.

I am just starting this now :)

I have read up to Chapter 4, Part 1 (Mr White).

I quite like it so far, although it took a chapter or two to get into it. The first chapters felt slightly muddled to me but I'm wondering if it was written that way to reflect (view spoiler)[the emotional turmoil that she was going through following the loss of her dad (hide spoiler)]. I can really relate to Helen Macdonald in terms of her love for birds of prey. I absolutely love them as well and have done since I was really young and I once wanted to become a falconer, just like Helen. I'm particularly enjoying the descriptions of the Cambridgeshire countryside. I am not from there but I have been there a number of times over the years because my family are huge nature lovers and there are lots of nice reserves and places of natural interest there, so I can picture the landscape pretty well.

Do any of you have a favourite species of bird of prey? I like owls most of all, the Great Grey Owl being my absolute favourite, but I also really like the Merlin which is the smallest bird of prey we get here in the UK.

I was able to read only two chapters last night. I think I will quite like this book. This writing is quite descriptive, and I will be learning a lot about birds of prey!

I have always loved birds, and at one time considered taking up birdwatching, but never have gotten around to it. The most common raptor in the area where I live is the bald eagle. I see the occasional hawk, and am sure others are present, but elusive. The bald eagle is such a majestic creature. I'm not at all familiar with the Merlin - had to google to remind me what they look like. Some look to be quite blue - how beautiful!

I'm starting tonight - sorry for lagging but I was binging on "The Sound of Music" : )

I am on my way home from work now, and I will start tonight too.
I have been guilty with movies lately too. I watched all three of the Lord of the Rings - Extended versions with my grandson last weekend and then two Chinese movies about The Monkey King with my granddaughter the last two nights.

Honestly, Joan, I can binge on The Sound of Music at the drop of a dime! I love it.

I'm also just starting tonight : )

I think after The Wizard of Oz that The Sound of Music is the movie I've re-watched the most times. Two non-musicals that I can watch repeatedly are Groundhog Day and The Big Lebowski.

I'm not much of a movie watcher, and am a bit embarrassed to admit that I have never seen The Sound of Music.

I love old movies, but really don't watch much any more. The movie weekend with my grandson was exceptional because he asked me to watch them with him. He was never interested in them before. I was amazed at the extra scenes that were in them that had been cut out of the original movies.

TrudyAn- It really is a beautiful movie. The music is wonderful!

I read the prologue and the first three chapters. Very easy to read. It felt like it jumps all over the place though. Not bad, just jerky. I've a list of words and things to look up before continuing tomorrow.

I feel like I might have read T.H. White's book about the goshawk many, many years ago.

Cherie wrote: "I read the prologue and the first three chapters. Very easy to read. It felt like it jumps all over the place though. Not bad, just jerky. I've a list of words and things to look up before continui..."

That's what I felt about the first couple of chapters too, Cherie. They jumped around so much that it felt a bit muddled and it was a bit difficult to get a handle on what was going on and when.

I haven't read T.H. White's book about his experiences with training a goshawk, but I probably will now. I have also added his The Once and Future King to my TBR. I have heard of it before but haven't really paid much attention to it up till now. It sounds great!

I definitely remember reading The Once and Future King. I read them all, over and over when I was a teen. I tried to get my grandson to read them, but he preferred the T.A. Barron books.

re the early chapters and prologue (view spoiler)[I thought the author's discussion of her grief was well written. I understand it on the surface and how she expressed it was sanguine. What was hard to track was when she kept introducing her child self into the discussion. It seems like I have read so many books lately where people have lost parents or husbands and were so devastated. Their reactions and grief were similar, but how they reacted to others telling them that they must "get over it" or "it would be better soon" were different. This author kept telling herself that it would be better soon. She is trying to work herself out of her grief by deciding to acquire and train a goshawk, which she has always been opposed to. I thought it was interesting and I am looking forward to see how it goes. (hide spoiler)]

I got only to the end of chapter 4 last night. I am often impressed by (view spoiler)[ people who develop a passion for something (be it arts, sports, raptors) at a very early age, and carry that passion throughout adulthood. I don't think obsession is too strong a word. It is interesting to ponder why that might come about for some people, and not in others. Helen MacDonald became fascinated with birds of prey at age six, even trying to sleep like a bird, trying to fold her arms like wings. At that age, I was claiming and abandoning a couple of obsessions a year!

Interesting comments about her approach to addressing grief, Cherie. (hide spoiler)]

Oh my! I've just started - her writing is so exciting, even though the subject of the first few pages is gruesome.

Sorry, I have no idea where I thought I read a Prologue for this book. It must have been in the Wyoming memoir I had just finished.

I have been watching some videos of goshawks and looking up the birds mentioned (fieldfares).

I am going to read Chapter 4 and call it a night. It was a long day at work today and I have to go in early tomorrow.

Chapter 4. (view spoiler)[I think that is more than I wanted to know about T. H. White, but I guess it was needed to set us up for what she is going to write about her experiences. I felt bad for him. I thought the part about gay writers being able to write great stories about animals was pretty interesting though. (hide spoiler)]

I think I am not in a hurry to rush through this one.

Finally really started today. I delayed because I got on a roll with my back burner book (Blue Highways). Decided to not interfere with that so I could knock that one off.

Enjoying the book so far - prologue and first chapter completed. Taking notes as I go. Back tomorrow to discuss.

Chapter 2,
"I bought books...I thought books were for answers...I wanted to taxonomise the process, order it, make it sensible"
I feel like she is writing EXACTLY how I felt at a similar time in my life.
The simile of all the family in a room...may have horrified her friends but it made perfect sense to me.

I've finished chapter 5. I really liked the first 4 chapters, probably because I could understand her feelings. Chapter 5, I found disturbing, (view spoiler)[ I feel so sorry for the hawk she says White mistreated and the poor scared hawks at the ferry dock. (hide spoiler)]

Tejas Janet wrote: "Finally really started today. I delayed because I got on a roll with my back burner book (Blue Highways). Decided to not interfere with that so I could knock that one off.

Enjoying t..."

I enjoyed Blue Highways, I hope you do, too. ( it did drag a bit in parts)

Thoughts about Chapter 1-2:

I thought the author made a really good choice of framing her story with reference to "The Brecklands - the broken lands," which struck me (view spoiler)[as so fitting given how devastated by loss she is at her father's death - she is herself in a sense broken inside with utter bereavement. And it's also the morning 3 weeks before his coming death, unknown and unexpected to her then, when she did actually see a pair of goshawks, and took a bit of reindeer moss as a tiny memento of that day, which she was then looking at when her mother gave her the news about her father (hide spoiler)]. Such oddly synchronous coincidences, like coincidences have a way of being fairly often.

I like the way she weaves history into her story, like (view spoiler)[giving the detail about the pond at Lakenheath being a crater formed by a bomb dropped by a German bomber in the war (II) (hide spoiler)]. Or like the reference to (view spoiler)["shards knocked from flint cores by Neolithic craftsmen" that she notes "on wet mornings you can pick up." I liked learning that this area was the "centre of the flint industry in Neolithic times. And then there's the history about rabbits in the area and then the ensuing disaster resulting in the Traveling Sands (hide spoiler)]. And then there's the history about Goshawks in the British Isles. All really interesting. Really pretty writing also.

I thought her descriptions were amazing in chapter two (view spoiler)[describing her intense grief following her father's death. Like, "For weeks I felt I was made of dully burning metal... so much so that I was convinced... that if you'd put me on a bed or chair I would have burned right through."

And "It was about this time a kind of madness drifted in....
It was quiet, and very, very dangerous. It was a madness designed to keep me sane... Things of no import burst into extraordinary significance... Huge bouts of deja vu. Coincidences. Memories of things that hadn't happened yet. Time didn't run forwards any more... These were the normal madnesses of grief.(my emphasis) (hide spoiler)]

And then when she starts (view spoiler)[dreaming about hawks all the time, you can see the path she has carefully shared with us that has brought her to this point where she feels utterly compelled to get a hawk of her very own to raise, train, and hunt with (hide spoiler)], and I really began to have a feeling of some understanding for where she's coming from.

I've read thru chapter 4, but don't have time to post more now.

Joan wrote: "Tejas Janet wrote: "Finally really started today. I delayed because I got on a roll with my back burner book (Blue Highways). Decided to not interfere with that so I could knock that o..."

I did enjoy it, Joan. It's remarkably detailed. Really takes you along on his trip pretty much day-by-day, place-by-place. It does drag in some places, but that's realistic, too, for being on a long road trip, as anyone who's been on one can attest to, I think.

I have decided to pull out of this buddy read. I really have to be in the mood for non-fiction and biographies and I am just not in that mood right now. I hope the rest of you enjoy it :)

I'm not sure how she does it, but I feel like she is controlling my reading pace through her phrasing.
At the opening of chapter 9, I found myself slowing/easing into her descriptions, and then something shifted and tension started to build.

I loved this passage from Chapter 9 (view spoiler)[
"...I sit on the sofa watching a tired hawk go to sleep. The leading edges of her wings drop and rest against the glove. One downy grey eyelid slides up to cover an eye, then the other. Her shoulders fall; her head wobbles"
(hide spoiler)]
I loved that bit; It felt like I was seeing it myself.
Sometimes, though her cliches annoy me, like "swifts ascend on flickering wings to bury themselves in the sky."

Chapter 11 She describes her interactions/reactions/impressions beautifully in this chapter. The sections about White & Gos on the other hand (the following comments may be disturbing) (view spoiler)[ remind me of a technique used in research on medicine for depression/anxiety. It's called the "learned helplessness model". The researcher exposes the animal to a scary or painful stimulus but prevents the animal from escaping. After awhile some animals stop trying to escape and they are treated to restore their mood. It's used to find effective antidepressants and mood altering medications. I know we need medications but I find these studies hard to read. It makes me wonder about the ethics of taming a hawk just for fun. (hide spoiler)] sorry about being such a downer : (

I am at the end of chapter 18. I am really enjoying this book! This is much more intriguing than I anticipated. I love (view spoiler)[ learning of hawk behaviour, and the training approaches used by Helen and White (and their comparative levels of success). Having White's experience interlaced with Helen's adds so much more to the story, and I find I am as interested in him and Gos as I am in Helen and Mabel.

There are many moving - sometimes heart stopping - passages. I can almost feel Mabel on my fist. The first time she flew without constraint, I could hardly read on for fear of what might occur. My favourite line so far (back in chapter 7, after Helen feels mocked by her friend's husband, "I rage my way home, heart bating wildly." Helen has become Hawk.

Joan, I too have been thinking a lot about the ethics of taming a hawk purely for one's enjoyment. Of course, that quickly spills over to the ethics of caging any bird for a persons' enjoyment.
(hide spoiler)].

I am in no rush to get to the end of this book. As you have mentioned, Joan, the writer seems to be setting the reading pace.

I read this last year and found it excellent! It set me off on a T.H. White reading spree that is still not complete.

From chapter 12
"I once asked my friends if they'd ever held something that gave them a spooky sense of history" - ancient pots, roman coins, antique dancing shoes

How about you? Have you touched history?

I felt it when I climbed into a crypt in an iron-age hill fort in England. I could imagine people sheltering there.

I was thinking about this. I have touched arrowheads that were found on the farm where my mother grew up, but I was to young to appreciate the history they represented.

TrudyAn wrote: "I was thinking about this. I have touched arrowheads that were found on the farm where my mother grew up, but I was to young to appreciate the history they represented."

I think what we connect with is personal- so maybe arrowheads aren't your talisman.

Marcel Proust in The Way by Swann’s said
"I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and so effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognised their voice the spell is broken. We have delivered them: they have overcome death and return to share our life."
I love the notion

Joan wrote: "I think what we connect with is personal- so maybe arrowheads aren't your talisman."

Perhaps not, though I think it had more to do with my age. Yes, an interesting belief.

My husband grew up on a farm with arrowheads too - he said they were so common he didn't really think about the people who made the arrowheads.
Do you think the arrowheads would affect you more now?

Yes, definitely. I think of who made them, how they ended up where they were found, and the sheer volume of them. My ancestors were early settlers of western Canada, so it feels very personal (and more than a little shameful).

Cherie wrote: "Chapter 4. [spoilers removed]"

I had pretty much the same reaction to Chapter 4 as you, Cherie. And I shared the author's sentiments towards T.H. White's "The Goshawk" about feeling (view spoiler)[angry how he had caused his hawk to suffer in his botched training attempts, and his portrayal of falconry as a kind of battle between man and bird had been widely influential (hide spoiler)].

Chapter 4 also helped me better understand what the author meant when at the end of chapter 3, she had a realization that her motivations (view spoiler)[for wanting to train a hawk were "for reasons that weren't entirely my own. Partly they were his." Referring to T.H. White, whose quote in ch 4 about wanting to revert to a feral state seemed to be what Helen Macdonald was talking about. She realized that she shared this sentiment (hide spoiler)].

Joan wrote: "I've finished chapter 5. I really liked the first 4 chapters, probably because I could understand her feelings. Chapter 5, I found disturbing, [spoilers removed]"

I had the same reactions, Joan. I really wasn't sure what to make of her reaction in chapter 5 to (view spoiler)[the hawk that was supposed to be hers that she rejects in favor of the first, smaller hawk. I had conflicting feelings. I found myself questioning her process of buying the hawk, like she should have gathered more info before hand. Her reaction at the ferry seemed rather arbitrary and irrational, but on the other hand, I had to grant that I thought it was good that she spoke up, and didn't just ignore her instincts. I felt some apprehension about reading further, primarily because I'm afraid she may repeat some of T.H. White's errors in training, and I sure don't want that to happen (hide spoiler)]. But I suspect that it will work out alright. Will have to keep reading to see.

I'll probably be willing to pick up my pace some now that I've digested the early chapters. In reading a book, I often progress quite slowly at first, pausing to look up historical, geographical, or literary references. I do this more with some books than others - understandably enough since books vary in how much of this kind of content they contain. This is one I've been enjoying mulling over, but I'm feeling ready to get rolling with the story now.

Literally touching history.....many times in the UK....the crypt in Canterbury Cathedral....the standing stones at Avebury...Lots of other standing stones....finding fossils from the cliffs in Dorset...Tintagel in Cornwall.....places where you could just feel natural magic and the past, like Alderley Edge.....the Long Barrow in Witshire.

Those things I miss so much it makes my heart ache.

Deborah wrote: "Literally touching history.....many times in the UK....the crypt in Canterbury Cathedral....the standing stones at Avebury...Lots of other standing stones....finding fossils from the cliffs in Dors..."

The henge in Avebury, England is impressive, I've not been to the Canterbury or Tintagel.
For people in GR who have not been to Avebury: you can cross the ditches and wander among the stones. An ancient Cliff walk is nearby with a huge ancient drawing of a horse etched into the hilside.