I have finished reading T.H. White’s book “The Goshawk” written during 1938 but not published until 1951. Its description of the author’s attempts to train a Goshawk using techniques primitive even at the time is not so much a book about the bird as about his own psychological desire to tame the animal and also his respect for the wildness of it. This contradiction and some of the psychological factors underlying it are nicely observed in the introduction by Marie Winn especially if you are fond of Freudian interpretation.
The storyline is quite attention grabbing and you are soon caught up in the ups and downs of his attempt to bend the animal to his will. It does have a fairly unsatisfying ending -but is at least true to events and does not over-romanticise to please the reader. Whilst you do not learn a great deal about Goshawks it is still full of lyrical descriptions of the relationship between him and the animal so if this is how you like your nature writing you will enjoy it. I don’t quite go for this type of writing exactly but it wasn’t mawkish and was actually quite a good read and certainly worth its place in the history of “bird books”.
The Goshawk (New York Review Books 5 Nov 2007) [Paperback], T.H.White , ISBN-10: 1590172493, ISBN-13: 978-1590172490