The Goshawk (New York Review Books Classics)

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Perhaps it may trigger people to really observe birds, rather than tick them and put them on a list.

For there is little that is simple, or peaceful, or humane (and I say that due to how poorly White treats himself, for as he notices early on, mistreating a hawk is the easiest way to give up any idea of training it) about the hawking process that White undertakes, and if you're expecting a tale that rewards its readers with straightforward narration and rewarding closure, you won't get it.

Today The Goshawk is regarded as a literary classic, considered by [many] to be White’s finest work. Avendo per marito un cacciatore impenitente che in parte si duole per il mio completo disinteresse verso l'attività venatoria, quando mi sono illuminata alla vista dei rapaci, poco c'è mancato che me ne procurasse uno - non certo per farmi un regalo ma piuttosto sperando in un futuro supporto e diversivo nella caccia alla lepre. The language is so descriptive and captivating and really pulls the reader in to experience the emotions of the author. This is one of those marvelous books that is so small, yet written in a way so that each sentence carries the work of ten.

White is best known for his magnificent re-telling of the Arthurian saga in his Once and Future King tetralogy — The Sword in the Stone, The Queen of Air and Darkness, The Ill-Made Knight, and The Candle in the Wind. He endeavors to train a notoriously difficult-to-train hawk with no falconry experience and with very limited teaching books to aid him. White's project moved me in the way that Wild did, the obstinacy of having no right to try this thing that they find they simply must, must do. Sarà che di storie di cacciagione ne ho già sentite talmente tante da averne sopra la cima dei capelli… finisco per togliergli una mezza stellina.All those elements of himself that he’d pushed away, his sexuality, his desire for cruelty, for mastery: all these were suddenly there in the figure of the hawk. Conor’s cultured writing and enthusiasm for the natural world and the people, like him, who care about it, will carry you along through the chapters. Though I'd say it's written like a memoir, and contains allegory, it gets into detail about what to do with a goshawk.

H. White, published by the New York Review of Books, copyright 1951, 215 pages, introduction by Marie Winn. The author goes on to train multiple other birds, but in closing, sadly quotes the old proverb, “When your first wife dies, she makes such a hole in your heart that all the rest slip through”. They show White bouncing ideas off of Cockerell for the tale that became The Once and Future King, seeking advice on how to sell an expensive watch, and requesting and receiving information on hawks and hawking, on armor, and on heraldry.

In a remarkable passage, Aldred watches a parent bird brings its chicks the decapitated head of a week-old robin: ‘The goshawk – suddenly enormous, cold and strangely mechanical – grips it by the end of its lifeless beak… It’s a pitiful sight made all the more poignant from knowing that the chick would have instinctively reached up to beg for food as the hawk’s shadow fell across it… The rest of the robin’s soft blue body lies to one side, attracting flies.