Book talk

I have just finished H is for Hawk by Heleln Macdonald. It is a memoir of grief that does not grieve; rather it keeps up a running analysis of one path through grief; finding touchstones in both falconry and a fearless comparison to the difficult and clotted path through life of author/falconer T. H. White.

It is not a sad book or a triumphant one. It’s power for me is the power of reflection; taking the occurences of each day and holding them up to the the insights of literature, emotion, and memory to bravely fashion meaning in a world that sometime looks bereft of context.

And it is, at times, painfully poignant and lovely:

"There is a time in life when you expect the world to be always full of new things.  And then comes a day when you realise that is not how it will be at all. You see that life will become a thing made of holes. Absences. Losses. Things there are no longer. And you realize, too, that you have to grow around and between the gaps, though you can put your hand out to where things were and feel the tense, shining dullness of the space where memories are."