The Goshawk, T. H. White
The Goshawk, T. H. White
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The Goshawk

Author: T. H. White

Narrator: Simon Vance

Unabridged: 4 hr 58 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/16/2015


Synopsis

The predecessor to Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk, T. H. White’s nature-writing classic, The Goshawk, asks the age-old question: What is it that binds human beings to other animals? White, author of The Once and Future King and Mistress Masham’s Repose, was a young writer who found himself rifling through old handbooks of falconry. A particular sentence—“the bird reverted to a feral state”—seized his imagination, and, White later wrote, “A longing came to my mind that I should be able to do this myself. The word ‘feral’ has a kind of magical potency which allied itself to two other words, ‘ferocious’ and ‘free.’” Immediately White wrote to Germany to acquire a young goshawk. Gos, as White named the bird, was ferocious and Gos was free, and White had no idea how to break him in beyond the ancient (and, as it happened, long superseded) practice of depriving him of sleep, which meant that he, White, also went without rest. Slowly man and bird entered a state of delirium and intoxication, of attraction and repulsion that looks very much like love.White kept a daybook describing his volatile relationship with Gos—at once a tale of obsession, a comedy of errors, and a hymn to the hawk. It was this that became The Goshawk, one of modern literature’s most memorable and surprising encounters with the wilderness—as it exists both within us and without.

About T. H. White

T. H. White (1906–1964) is the author of the classic Arthurian fantasy The Once and Future King, among other works. He was born in Mumbai, India, to English parents and educated at Queen’s College, Cambridge. His writings have had a strong influence on both J. K. Rowling and Neil Gaiman.

About Simon Vance

Simon Vance is an award-winning actor and an AudioFile Golden Voice with over fifty Earphones Awards and thirteen prestigious Audie Awards. He was named Booklist’s very first Voice of Choice in 2008 and an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Karen on June 26, 2015

Went there after reading H is for Hawk, stayed for the pure pleasure of T. H. White's writing, which totally outweighed Helen Macdonald's retelling of the entire story within her recent book.......more

Goodreads review by Lizzie on January 24, 2015

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. Somehow, it tears your heart out with just a word. Just right out. Because, this book is as much about what lies beneath T.H. White's words as what his words say. His words are......more

Goodreads review by Lance on March 15, 2016

This was one of the books that I had to read for O-Level English literature, and it was the only really interesting one out of the set. (These were the UK school exams for 16 year-olds back in the early '70s). This is a role model for those who would practice the craft of writing great literature. Th......more

Goodreads review by Bfisher on September 25, 2015

I had read Helen Macdonald’s “H is for Hawk”, and was fascinated by her discussion of T.H.White and of his book “The Goshawk”. I think that my response to The Goshawk was greatly influenced by Macdonald’s book. As one reads The Goshawk, one becomes aware of the struggles within White, even as he stru......more


Quotes

“The book chronicles the ambivalent relationship between White, author of The Once and Future King, and the hawk he trained. Their battle of wills ‘gives the book its peculiar charm.’” New York Times

“[A] wonderful, classic account of training a bird of prey.” Daily Mail (London)

“This is a nature classic, conceived against the background of the Second World War…A warm and instructive story.” Sunday Times (London)

“The arduous experience of training a falcon to accept a person as a perch forms the character both of the bird and its keeper. The experience has been vividly described by T. H. White in The Goshawk.” Guardian (London)

“It is comic; it is tragic; it is as primal and original as a great wind…it must be ranked as a masterpiece.” Daily Telegraph (London)

“A classic.” Buffalo News (New York)

“British narrator Simon Vance is the perfect voice for this very British book…Vance’s performance is appropriately donnish, literate, and articulate. He conveys his appreciation for White’s marvelous language with perfect pacing and unflagging attention.” AudioFile

“This is…the best book on falconry, its feel, its emotions, and its flavor, ever written.” Stephen J. Bodio, renowned author and naturalist