In Libreria
Sinossi
Nelle prime pagine del libro Helen Macdonald riceve una telefonata: il padre, celebre fotoreporter, è morto all'improvviso d'infarto. Priva di legami e di un lavoro stabile (è ricercatrice associata part-time all'università di Cambridge), Helen si accorge bruscamente di non avere nulla che possa distrarla dal lutto e sprofonda in una violenta depressione. Passano i mesi: instaura una relazione sentimentale e poi la sabota, legge testi sul lutto, si isola, si trascina. Poi, d'improvviso, un sogno ricorrente sui falchi fa scattare in lei una sorta di epifania: per uscire dal gorgo che la soffoca addestrerà un falco, ma non un falco qualsiasi, piuttosto un astore, uno dei piú grossi e feroci rapaci che esistano, un animale del sottobosco, sanguinario e predatore. Cosí entra in scena Mabel, "un rettile. Un angelo caduto. Un grifone uscito dalle pagine miniate di un bestiario". Helen si ritira dalla comunità per dedicarsi esclusivamente all'addestramento dell'animale, in un isolamento ossessivo. Il racconto dell'addestramento, dell'osservazione del comportamento della giovane Mabel, della paura, della fascinazione e della strana tenerezza che prova per l'animale, s'intreccia con la rilettura del libro "The Goshawk" di T. S. White e quindi con la rievocazione della biografia di questo scrittore, autore tra le altre cose di un libro su Artú poi ripreso dalla Disney in La spada nella roccia...
- ISBN:
- Casa Editrice:
- Pagine: 292
- Data di uscita: 26-01-2016
Recensioni
H is for Hawk This is Mabel. She is a goshawk. I didn’t know what a goshawk was before I started to read this book. I wasn’t actually sure I knew what a hawk was either. “Seriously, Greg? You are forty years old and you don’t know what a hawk is?” Well, sort of. I knew that it is a bird and that it is Leggi tutto
The archaeology 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 mind, emotions, older ways of seeing the world. Helen MacDonald had suffered a great loss. In Anna Karenina , Tolst
A is for Ascendant Prose to sweep you away B is for Birds With a passion for prey C is for Cambridge She’s one of their scholars D is for Dinero Nice royalty dollars E is for Elegiac So sad when her dad died F is for Flying Bird and soul, side by side G is for Grateful Susan, you pointed the way H is for Hawk A gr Leggi tutto
Before starting in on my review, I took a quick look at what my fellow Goodreaders thought. I don’t always do that, but I was really curious this time. I am thinking I am in the minority in my feelings about this one. Which is all good - I just didn’t care for it. Usually when reading non-fiction, ev Leggi tutto
3.5
I certainly would not want to dissuade anyone from reading H is for Hawk , Cambridge professor Helen Macdonald's moving memoir of coping with the loss of her photojournalist father. Her twin academic disciplines of English and ornithology (specifically, falconry) provide the source of her occasionall Leggi tutto
Here’s a word. Bereavement. Or Bereaved. Bereft. It’s from the Old English bereafian, meaning ‘to deprive of, take away, seize, rob’.Here’s another word: raptor, meaning ‘bird of prey’. From the Latin raptor, meaning ‘robber,’ from rapere meaning ‘seize’. Rob. Seize. Here’s another word: Captivating. Leggi tutto
Nope. Praised by many but not a book for me. Should have known, though. Celebrating the caging/drilling of animals always makes me cringe; why you would want to 'train' (quite the euphemism, by the way) a wild bird for your own pleasure is simply beyond me. It just seems archaic and cruel. And the w Leggi tutto
"The archeology of grief is not ordered." Helen Macdonald’s book-length nonfiction is so many things at once: a eulogy, an elegy, a biography, a memoir, a training manual, a journey. It is a conversation about death, and community. It is so filled with passion and pain that one reads, breath bated, t Leggi tutto
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