Hamnet

What’s it about?

Maggie O’Farrell has taken a thin outline from the life of William Shakespeare and filled it in with her version of the story. And what an interesting version it is! Apparently, William Shakespeare and his wife had three children. Their only son, Hamnet, dies at the age of 11. Maggie O’Farrell fills in the story from there.

What did it make me think about?

Love, marriage, and grief in the time of Shakespeare.

Should I read it?

Oh, I so enjoyed this story! There is nothing like being taken away and transported to another time and place. This book takes you back to England in the 1500’s- to a world of Black Plague and superstition. Once I started this novel I kept wanting to return to Stratford to find out what was going on with these interesting characters. Any fan of historical fiction will appreciate this story. What took me so long to read it?

Quote-

“What is the word, Judith asks her mother, for someone who was a twin but is no longer a twin?

Her Mother, dipping a folded, doubled wick into heated tallow pauses, but doesn’t turn around.

If you were a wife, Judith continues, and your husband dies, then you are a widow. And if its parents die, a child becomes an orphan. But what is the word for what I am?”

I’m really not sure what to think about this book. I was an English major with a concentration in British literature, and taught Hamlet to high school seniors. It’s a well written story about life in Elizabethan England, a mother grieving over the loss of her child and the impact that has on her family. I don’t find the connection to William Shakespeare and his play Hamlet believable. There’s very little character development regarding Hamnet. William Shakespeare is a minor character. He disappears for most of Hamnet’s life, therefore I didn’t get a sense of his connection to his son and his family. I would’ve enjoyed this book more if it was called Agnes and it was the story of a woman living in Elizabethan England and raising children while her husband was absent.

I have almost no idea what the book was about when I reflect on my experience, but I felt like I was there, and it was beautiful. Poetic, sumptuous, immersive descriptions of the touch of leather, the smell of drying apples, a passing thought that latches onto another. Apparently a young mopey Shakespeare was running around somewhere in the book but I barely saw him. Read this book for the love of language, not a forever fast-forwarding plot.

Upon reading this book, I tried to pinpoint my restlessness with the writing and the story and realised that the title should not have been Hamnet, but Agnes. O'Farrell writes of Shakespeare's wife, Agnes (listed in a will by that name, colloquially called Anne) and her life from child to adult to wife and mother. When she loses her son, Hamnet, it is her undoing. O'Farrell feels her way around grief; the absence of her child and a part of herself. The writing is meandering, thoroughly touching all parts of a tragedy that affects them all, but centred on the mother. The unfolding of this story is slow and sometimes feels stagnant. I was definitely expecting a different story and was left feeling a little disappointed.

There is a theory that the plays of William Shakespeare are about different emotions (Parris 2011). According to this theory, Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet is about grief. Maggie O’Farrell’s novel Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague which was published in 2020 is also about grief. Hamnet and Hamlet were used interchangeably in the records of the town of Stratford-upon-Avon. The central character of the novel is Anne Hathaway. O’Farrell uses the spelling Anges which the writer Bill Bryson writes that Anges may have been used interchangeably with the name Ann in England in the 16th Century (Bryson 41). In this novel, Anges Hathaway is a “wise woman” of the 16th Century like the woman in Monica Furlong’s novel The Wise Child. Hathaway runs a small folk medicine practice, that uses some of the plants that appear in the Shakespearean plays. Shakespeare in his plays mentions 180 plants (Bryson 107). O’Farrell writes in the “Author’s Note” of Hamnet “It is not known why Hamnet Shakespeare died: his burial is listed but not the cause of his death.” A play beside Hamlet that some people believe references the death of Hamnet is King John which has a reference to the grief of a parent over the loss of a child (Bryson 118-119 & Parris 2011). Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, Hamnet is a well-written and thoughtful novel about grief. Works Cited: Bill, Bryson. 2016. Shakespeare: The World as a Stage. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle. Furlong, Monica. 1989. Wise Child. New York: Alfred A. Kopf. Parris, Matthew. “William Shakespeare.” British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Great Lives. August 30, 2011. Podcast, website, 27:45 minutes. Great Lives - William Shakespeare - BBC Sounds