H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

ISBN: 978-0-670-06955-2

Where to begin...

It has been some time since, while reading a book, I have wondered: is this the best book I have ever read? It certainly has never happened with a work of non-fiction. I guess there really is a first time for everything.

H is for Hawk is a masterpiece. There, I said it. Now I can get on with it.

A passing in the family is never easy--especially when it is a parent that you looked up to. Fortunately, I haven't yet had to cope with such a loss and I'm obviously not looking forward to the day that I will. When Helen Macdonald's father died, she essentially lost a part of her. In H is for Hawk, she tries to find a way to get it back.

Macdonald's primary interest has been in falconry since she was a child. She has trained hawks before, but never a goshawk: widely known as the most erratic, blood-thirsty species. And so she buys one and names her Mabel. She puts everything aside--she becomes a bit of a recluse, she turns down a teaching job in Germany--all to commit herself entirely to training her hawk.

I had to laugh when she described the distraction of passing people on the streets. As she is trying to get Mabel to focus, people stop and stare in amazement. She wishes they would all just disappear. I have felt the exact same way when walking my puppy. Obviously a puppy and a goshawk are not the same at all. It's just very frustrating to get an animal to do what you want it to without anyone around, let alone with. The rational emotion is not anger, though, and that is the one that Macdonald and I shared. 

I don't know anything about falconry. To be completely honest, before I read this book, I didn't know it still existed. Being a vegetarian, it isn't something that I have an interest in doing--especially after reading Macdonald's description of Mabel's prey's last moments on Earth. But the training of this wild bird--the steps Macdonald has to take to ostensibly make the goshawk an extension of herself--is compelling to say the least. Mabel becomes her "spirit animal": she mentions Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials and how the children in the series have "daemons" and likens it to her own situation with Mabel.

She also finds a parralel with TH White, the author of the Arthurian epic The Once and Future King. White also became an austringer (albeit an unsuccessful one) and wrote about it in The Goshawk. White was a very sad--bordering on pathetic--character. He was gay in a time that it really wasn't accepted and was struggling to fit in. He did his best to find an "appropriate" love, but when he couldn't, embarked on the training of a goshawk. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to and ended up losing his bird, Gos. 

Macdonald did not want to have a similar fate. Although she had more experience than White, there was always the possibility that Mabel would just fly away. Being in a very sensitive state, that is not something that she thought she could handle.

Helen Macdonald is a wonderful writer: it's hard to find flaws in her prose. Her accounts of White are written in an omniscient third-person narration that read the same as a narration of a novel. It is unique. Really good stuff.

H is for Hawk is an honest account of a terrible time in someone's life and of how they pick up the pieces. The author, thankfully, gives the reader a window into her mind when she was struggling and shows how she overcame it with a predatory bird on her fist.

I'm so glad I read this book and I recommend that everyone does the same: no matter what your general interest, I'm sure you'll be able to find something in it that captivates you. There's just so much to it--I can't say enough good things. 

Must-read. So go read it.

The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks

ISBN: 978-0-385-68284-8

I'm a city boy. Very much so, in fact. I never went to camp when I was younger, I've never been all that fond of going camping or anything of that nature...in nature. So when I received a copy of James Rebanks' The Shepherd's Life, I really didn't know what to expect. I've actually never thought twice about what it takes to be a shepherd. To be honest, I never really cared. Thankfully, I was taught many years ago to try everything at least once. I guess the more appropriate adage here is "Never judge a book by its cover" (especially given that it is an ARC with no cover art.)

The Shepherd's Life is unique. Rebanks explains his day-to-day routines in great detail, blood and guts sometimes included. He takes you into England's Lake District: an area that because of its natural beauty (and because of famous residents like William Wordsworth,) is swarmed by guide-wielding tourists as well as sheep on its fells.

Rebanks does a wonderful job telling the reader about not only herding, shearing, lambing, shopping, feeding and showing, but about his personal life and influences. He makes it abundantly clear that he would not be the man he is today if not for the guidance of his grandfather and the support--and sometimes tough love--of his father.

Growing up, Rebanks was not a good student. He explains that he didn't care about most of the things being taught in school. His mind was on the farm and on the subject matter he decided to focus on with the books he read (voraciously.) And so he failed his GCSEs (thus never graduating from high school.) He describes his life with his friends in the pub as being similar to the movie Good Will Hunting. He had all the tools to be a scholar but was very rough around the edges. He was a shepherd, after all! His wits did not go unnoticed, though, and in his early twenties he was persuaded to retake the GCSE and apply to university: more specifically Oxford. Any guess how that turned out? If you have seen Good Will Hunting, you already know.

This book is not about overcoming obstacles, although there are some. It's not a feel good story either. Its real purpose is just to let the reader know what it's like to live as a shepherd on a farm: something that most folks take for granted. As much as I now appreciate the difficulty, the hard work, the beauty of it all, the best part of the book to me is Rebanks' writing. There is a certain poetic feeling about it. Maybe it's in the landscape and that's what influenced Wordsworth, but it is not something you would expect coming from a farmer and I don't think it is something that can be taught--even at Oxford. Here he is explaining the end of winter:

"These are the days that winter shows it is passing: the creeping out of the daylight each day, the warmth of the sun increasing, the bite of the wind easing, the grass greening. But the ravens honking above the fells speak of carrion from worn-out ewes and the fieldfares flashing out of the hedges are reminders that winter still holds the far North. Foxes steal withered-up moles from the barbed wire where the mole-catcher has left them, telling of the hunger that once would have tested men here as well as animals. The carrion crows still lord it over the valley, cawing from the tops of thorn bushes or trees. We know that without warning winter can grab hold of the land again."

He makes something as macabre as carrion seem beautiful as only a poet could.

The Shepherd's Life is something that every city slicker should read. Take time out of your daily grind to learn what it's like on a farm from someone who can write about it introspectively and beautifully. Not that a shepherd's life isn't a daily grind: it is hard work, but you already knew that. I just meant...you know what I meant, right?

You can also follow James Rebanks on Twitter (@herdyshepherd1). He posts lovely photos of his sheep and gives you a better idea of how pretty the Lake District is.

The Shepherd's Life will be available on April 7th.