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    Grief Is the Thing with Feathers: A Novel
    Grief Is the Thing with Feathers: A Novel
    Grief Is the Thing with Feathers: A Novel
    Audiobook1 hour

    Grief Is the Thing with Feathers: A Novel

    Written by Max Porter

    Narrated by Jot Davies

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Here he is, husband and father, scruffy romantic, a shambolic scholar-a man adrift in the wake of his wife's sudden, accidental death. And there are his two sons who like him struggle in their London apartment to face the unbearable sadness that has engulfed them. The father imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness, while the boys wander, savage and unsupervised.

    In this moment of violent despair they are visited by Crow-antagonist, trickster, goad, protector, therapist, and babysitter. This self-described "sentimental bird," at once wild and tender, who "finds humans dull except in grief," threatens to stay with the wounded family until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and the pain of loss lessens with the balm of memories, Crow's efforts are rewarded and the little unit of three begins to recover: Dad resumes his book about the poet Ted Hughes; the boys get on with it, grow up.

    Part novella, part polyphonic fable, part essay on grief, Max Porter's extraordinary debut combines compassion and bravura style to dazzling effect. Full of angular wit and profound truths, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers is a startlingly original and haunting debut by a significant new talent.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateOct 31, 2017
    ISBN9781541482678
    Grief Is the Thing with Feathers: A Novel
    Author

    Max Porter

    Max Porter is the author of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, which won the International Dylan Thomas Prize and The Sunday Times/PFD Young Writer of the Year Award and was short-listed for The Guardian First Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize.

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    Reviews for Grief Is the Thing with Feathers

    4/5

    647 ratings53 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This is the second time I’ve read this. It’s amazing, and listening to it this time added even more to it. The narrator is perfect.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This is a beautiful howl of grief. Amazing in the writing, flawless in the voice performance.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This is what grief feels like. Weirdly brilliant, I felt transported back to my own grief several times. I dont know if I can recommend it. If you "get" it, you will find it wrenching, if you dont then I suspect you will just find it very weird.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I love this book. I also loved Lanny. Max Porter is my new favourite writer.
    • 5/5
      A beautiful, powerful work, full of wit and pain, and beautifully read as well.
    • 3/5
      ⭐️⭐️✨

      Plot: Two boys are left bereft after the loss of their mother. Similarly, their father is left barely coping with the grief that permeates every bit of his existence. Then, a crow comes to visit them...

      Genre: Death, grief, bereavement, family & relationships, literary fiction.

      ----------

      Thoughts While Reading:
      Thoughts at 100%:
      1. I realised soon after I started this book that I had read it before. I think it was years ago when I was doing a grief and loss course to be able to volunteer with an organisation that supports children through the same. Despite having realised that I've read this before, my compulsion to complete anything I start reading kicked in, and here I am.
      2. The first time I consumed this book, I physically read it. This time, I'm listening to the audiobook version. The audiobook narrator does a great job of increasing the effect of the words; his at times frantic reading pace really does add to the generally claustrophobic feeling that his book evokes.

      ----------

      Conclusion and Recommendation:
      I'm going to give this book 2.5 stars rounded up to 3. Look, I get the point that this book was written to have an emotional effect on the reader; that it was meant to portray grief and loss in a way that for a brief moment, you (as the reader) feel it too. But... Sigh. I have lost people, I didn't Iike the way this book made me feel. Yes, it is 100% successful in what it set out to do. Despite this, it made me feel so sad and depressed and claustrophobic that a 2.5 rounded up to 3 is the best I can do. Sorry if other people review books based on different criteria, but how a book makes me feel is relevant to me.
      I don't know if I would ever recommend this to anyone to read. Maybe someone who has never experienced grief or losing someone might like to experience this book to see what it's like? I don't know, I doubt it though.
    • 4/5
      This poetically written slim novel is a profound meditation on grief through the point of view of a man and his twin sons suffering from the loss of a wife and mother. A crow becomes a “grief counselor” of sorts, serving as an outlet for the wide-ranging emotions that accompany a devastating loss. It is a patchwork quilt of prose, poetry, and fairytale. I found it creative, poignant, and comforting.
    • 5/5
      Enjoyed this author to the fullest. Recommended! Time Well Spent!
    • 2/5

      I’m going to be completely honest I stumbled upon this after I lost a loved one and wanted to read some thing that would relate to my grief. But to be blunt I really don’t understand the point of this book. It’s told in three perspectives and it’s about a man and his kids and a crow that follows them?. I was debating whether or not to DNF this book but I finished it because it took me over two weeks just to read and I had to take breaks in between so I wouldn’t fall asleep. Maybe someone else will enjoy this book but I unfortunately did not.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book. Max Porter's obtuse perspective on such a complex subject, allowed the listener to digest the emotion. I liked also that the juxtaposition of the "boys" and the "father " are interwoven. It is so easy to get wrapped in our own grief, and perhaps, knowing that we are not alone, and on the same timeline, might make the pain more bearable. I would definitely recommend this book
    • 3/5
      A story in verse about the loss of a wife and a mother, and above all else, a story about grief.

      Poetry and poetic prose are things that usually go over my head, and a lot of that applies to this little book. I did enjoy the underlying story and the rhythm of the writing, but in the end this didn't really leave any lasting impact on me.
    • 5/5
      I read this book a while ago, and it’s beautiful. I loved the lyrical writing, I loved the rawness, I loved the complicated relationships between the characters, the dad, the sons, and the grief itself. It manages to give us a beautiful outside perspective on grieving while simultaneously being intensely personal. I adored this story and still come back sometimes. It moved me greatly and I highly recommend it.
    • 4/5
      Well read and moving little book that deals with how one handles death. It has been turned into a play in London.
    • 5/5
      An amazing, awesome, little book, that touched me deep down, a huge issues treated with mastery. In spite of the difficult subject I totally enjoyed the reading and the emotions I was lead through. Highly recommend it.
    • 5/5
      Highly recommend the experience this book brings you on as a reader. It makes you consider value and person.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed listening about this journey of grief. Nothing seemed forced or fake, completely real.
    • 5/5
      Such a compact novella, and yet Max Porter managed to convey so much poetic depth.
    • 5/5
      A poignant and poetically written novel/novella about a father and two son's grief at the loss of a wife and mother. Crow acts as the physical manifestation of their grief and is inspired by Ted Hughes' poetry collection of that name. Written from three perspectives it is intricately and beautifully written.
    • 5/5
      The story was written in three parts, the dad who lost his wife, the boys who lost his mother and the fictional mystical character of Crow who appears after the mother's death, who happen to be the creature who always appear with death but not death itself. Each parties have their way to deal with grief and how to manage the loneliness of being alive. Grief presented by the three of them is maddening and charming at the same time. When the Crow finally disappear, it is not when the Dad finally moves on or the children is ready to be an adult.
      "Moving on, as a concept, is for stupid people, because any sensible person knows grief is a long-term project. I refuse to rush. The pain that is thrust upon us let no man slow or speed or fix."
      When people said time can heal everything, it is not time that heals you, we borrow time to deal with it. No one is ever ready for anything, they need time to make up for their immediate reaction, to forgive themselves, to smooth the sharp edges until we accustomed to it and then we get what we called experiences. In this story about a sudden death of a mother and wife, they were borrowing the time to arrange how they would like to part ways with their concession, not in the way they have it on the first place, to deliberately say goodbye while in deep sorrow of accepting life as it is in grief.
      Most of the time, it is not the event that is crucial, it is how we react upon it and how we would like to be in it or how it goes because as we know most people are failed to be ready for lots of life changing events. We are too stunned to what life throw at us because it just happens. We take the time to make up for the unreadiness and deal with it when we are finally ready. And that's when the Crow finally gone. Making place for a forgiving, ever tender treasuring the precious memories without ever entirely healing.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Absolutely brilliant!! Sad, dark, visceral, funny & heart wrenching all within this short work. I felt as if I had gone through the process of grief along with the family, at times I could feel the physical weight of it on my chest. This audio book version is brilliantly done & I will definitely be getting a physical copy of this work to add to my collection very soon.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      More poetry than fiction, really. I might have liked it more if I disliked Ted Hughes less.
    • 5/5
      I give this 5 stars because the main character is not just a crow, but the crow from Ted Hughes or at least the spirit of the crow that Ted Hughes got close to. This book does that too.

      I also give it 5 stars because it deals with death and loss in a real and meaningful way.

      It is short and can be read quickly. I'd recommend savouring it and only at night when you are in bed and don't have to be anywhere else.

      Can't say enough good things and don’t want to dilute my thoughts either so just read it.
    • 1/5
      forget the hypethis is tripei paid my whack now i want it back
    • 5/5
      First off, let me extend my sincerest apologies to the author of this little book. It was his first book and I can only imagine how difficult writing, editing, publishing and then holding you breath that your first ‘baby” can stand not only the hoped for praise but also the expected criticism of the reader. That said…I don’t intend to criticize. On the contrary…I want to just UNDERSTAND. I have read since I was 3 years old and read and reread until the pages fell out…“The Fuzzy Wuzzy Puppy” . I understood it. I have read thousands of books in the years since that little treasure. Some I liked immensely…some I disliked with varying degrees of dislike…some I was just indifferent to…but the one thing they all had in common was that I understood what the author was trying to say. What they hoped the reader would take away from the book when the cover closed. Try as I might…and I actually read the 114 pages of this twice…so I did try. I just don’t understand it. I would like to…as it really bothers me that a college graduate with a degree in conservation biology and early childhood education can not for the life of me understand what this book is trying to tell me. I read the reviews and now I really feel like a total idiot… since according to Amazon 58% of my fellow readers seemed to have no problem with it. Heaven only knows what the other 42% are doing. Go figure! If any of those 58% fellow readers…or the author himself, would care to enlighten me…I would be forever in your debt.
    • 4/5
      Grief is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter is a poetic story about a father and two boys who have lost their wife/mother and the crow that injects himself in their life while grieving. While experimental in it's approach, and i definitely didn't understand all that the offer was trying to convey, he definitely captures the grief one feels at the loss of someone you truly loved. "Moving on, as a concept, is for stupid people, because any sensible person knows that grief is a long-term project." I do believe greater understanding of this short book could be had if you read Ted Hughes' poetry, particularly Crow.
    • 3/5
      A family is left bereft after the death of a mother; two small boys face a future with no joy and their father, a poet and scholar sees only a hollow life populated with well-meaning people. Into this emptiness comes the crow. He threatens to stay until they no longer need him, acting as a focus for their grief and becoming part of the family as healer and babysitter. With the crow as their antagonist, tormenting as much as assisting them, the physical effects of their loss slowly ebb away.

      ‘The life and song of their mother. Unfinished. Beautiful. Everything’

      Porter’s mix of styles and short punchy text make this a fast read, but it is raw, spiky and emotional. It is cleverly done, especially writing about such an emotive subject as death. It is told from three perspectives, the father, the boys and the crow and he even manages to inject a little humour into the prose, whilst capturing the highs and very deep lows of anguish at their loss. 3.5 stars overall.
    • 1/5
      Max Porter's version of grief is a foul-mouthed crow that talks in riddles, and which gets less foul-mouthed as time moves on.

      I started reading Grief is a Thing with Feathers the day after I had suffered a loss, thinking perhaps it would help me, provide some solace.

      It didn't. I got through a few pages and thought it was absolute tosh.

      I put it to one side, got on with life, read a bit of escapist trash, read a couple of books for my monthly club, and then came back to this. Would it make more sense, almost two months on?

      No, not really. It was still mostly tosh. The crow is still annoying (perhaps if I had read Ted Hughes' book I'd understand it more).

      There are some really lovely passages in this book (mostly under the Boys' heading), but only maybe a dozen pages out of the 128 pages of the book. I know for some people, the Crow is a great illustration of grief that they have experienced, but it just didn't work for me.
    • 5/5
      So different from anything I’ve ever read. Grief from a crow's point of view. Glad I read this strange, wonderful story.
    • 4/5
      Not really my cup of tea, although I appreciated the inventiveness and free-form wordplay. A man and his young sons grieving the sudden death of wife and mother are visited by the trickster spirit Crow, who refuses to leave until they ask him to. It didn't move me in any special way but as a connoisseur of delicious sound and word play I was able to appreciate it on a intellectual level if not an emotional one.
    • 5/5
      A father and his two sons mourn the loss of their wife and mother, respectively. How is grief even survivable? It’s like a garrulous, wild thing, ripping out viscera, playing with crisp packets, stomping on fingers and eyes, crying out in its guttural native tongue, “Oi, stab it!” Yes, grief is like Ted Hughes’ Crow. An elemental thing. A somewhat friend that comes and lives with you when the balance in your life has been tipped.Max Porter’s pressingly immediate prose brings Crow to life: friend, confidant, baby-sitter, and bad egg. It is a remarkable achievement that something so outside the ordinary can nonetheless be utterly gripping, with a ring of truth.Highly recommended.