{"id":7451,"date":"2025-10-03T13:25:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T13:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/?p=7451"},"modified":"2025-10-03T13:41:48","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T13:41:48","slug":"h-is-for-hawk-helen-macdonald","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/2025\/10\/03\/h-is-for-hawk-helen-macdonald\/","title":{"rendered":"H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-purple-color\">October 2025<\/mark><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-light-blue ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/2025\/10\/03\/h-is-for-hawk-helen-macdonald\/#About_the_book\" >About the book<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/2025\/10\/03\/h-is-for-hawk-helen-macdonald\/#Phrase_and_Passages_I_Like\" >Phrase and Passages I Like<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/2025\/10\/03\/h-is-for-hawk-helen-macdonald\/#A_lovely_word\" >A lovely word<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"About_the_book\"><\/span>About the book<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I read Macdonald\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Vesper Flights<\/em>&nbsp;early this year when we were in Hawaii.&nbsp;<em>Flights<\/em>&nbsp;is a book of essays mostly about natural history and mostly about birds \u2013 though, true to the original meaning of essay, \u201cabout\u201d covers a lot of ground. The writing was beautiful, and I not only read the book but studied it to improve my own writing. I&#8217;d expected much the same from&nbsp;<em>Hawk.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But&nbsp;<em>Hawk&nbsp;<\/em>is a very different book. To be sure, the writing is beautiful, and it will repay study, but it is a single-track narrative rather than a series of essays.&nbsp;<em>Hawk<\/em>&nbsp;traces out two central narratives: one is an account of her training a goshawk and her experiences training, living and hunting with it; intertwined with this narrative is an account of coming to terms with her father\u2019s death, and the period of isolation, depression, and gradual recovery that ensured. Though as I write this, I note that the \u2018coming-to-terms\u2019 narrative is really itself a braid that includes childhood memories and an account of the life of T. H. White.&nbsp;<em>Hawk<\/em> was published in 2014 \u2013 I believe it to be her first book, possibly excepting poetry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am not going to provide a chapter by chapter account. Rather, my aim here, is just to record the phrases and passages that struck me.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Phrase_and_Passages_I_Like\"><\/span>Phrase and Passages I Like<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A forest washed pewter with frost (p 5)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But they were loving the space between them, carving it into all sorts of beautiful concentric chords and distances (p 9)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Time passed. The wavelength of light around me shortened. The day built itself. (p 9)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It happens to everyone. But you feel it alone. (p 13)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Time didn\u2019t run forward anymore. It was a solid thing; you could press yourself against it and feel it push back; it&nbsp;&nbsp;was a thick fluid, half air, half glass, that flowed both ways and sent ripples of recollection forward and new events backwards\u2026 (p 16)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My eyes slipped to the white panels of cut light in the branches behind them (p 21)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But at night, as rain pricked points of orange light against the windows\u2026 (p 24)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I drove and drove, and the roads slipped by and the sky annealed into slews of the hardest white and blue. (p 58)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The hawk had filled the house with wildness as a bowl of lilies fills a house with scent. (p 65)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The feathers down her front are the colour of sunned news-print, of tea-stained paper, and each is marked darkly towards its tip with a leaf-bladed spearhead, so from her throat to her feet she is patterned with a shower of falling raindrops. Her wings are the colour of stained oak, their covert feathers edged in palest teak, barred flight-feathers folded quietly beneath. And there&#8217;s a strange grey tint to her that is felt, rather than seen, a kind of silvery light like a rainy sky reflected from the surface of a river.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(p 82)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ash trees rise in lacy fists (p 104)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The far sky towards Buckingham builds towards dusk in dinted pewter clouds. (p 120)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The sun falls in pale planes on ancient walls\u2026 (p 128)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I feel hollow and unhoused, an airy, empty wasps\u2019 nest, a thing made of chewed paper after the frosts have murdered the life within. (p 130)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026there\u2019s a torn-paper whiteness behind the sun that speaks of frost to come. (p 147)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026the quivering silk runs like light on water all the way to my feet. (p 148)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The train curved and sunlight fell against the window, obscuring the passing fields with a mesh of silver light. I closed my eyes against the glare and remembered the spider silk. (p 150)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026a being whose world is drawn in plots and vectors that pull her towards\u2019 lives\u2019 ends. (p 189)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The archeology&nbsp;&nbsp;of grief is not ordered. It is more like earth under a spade, turning up things you had forgotten. Surprising things come to light: not simply memories, but states of minds, emotions, older ways of seeing the world. (p 199)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026a brumous pewter light outside, as if someone had stuck tracing paper against the glass. (p 208)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Clouds of linnets bounce, half midges, half musical notation. (p 258)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"A_lovely_word\"><\/span>A lovely word<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>brumous<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Foggy; misty.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/duckduckgo.com\/?q=Foggy+definition&amp;ia=definition\">Foggy<\/a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/duckduckgo.com\/?q=misty+definition&amp;ia=definition\">misty<\/a>;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/duckduckgo.com\/?q=wintry+definition&amp;ia=definition\">wintry<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Filled or abounding with fog or mist.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n<p>Views: 28<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>October 2025 About the book I read Macdonald\u2019s&nbsp;Vesper Flights&nbsp;early this year when we were in Hawaii.&nbsp;Flights&nbsp;is a book of essays mostly about natural history and mostly about birds \u2013 though, true to the original meaning of essay, \u201cabout\u201d covers a lot of ground. The writing was beautiful, and I not only read the book but &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/2025\/10\/03\/h-is-for-hawk-helen-macdonald\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,41,39,76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-notes","category-essays","category-craft-of-writing","category-landscape-essays-project"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7451"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7456,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7451\/revisions\/7456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}