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.

The story is straightforward. You know what's going to happen, it happens, and there are no big twists or stories within stories. But it's not simple. Maggie O'Farrell is an artist who can weave vivid, emotional scenes with her words. You feel every bit of this book at every stage of it. It takes you back in time so effortlessly that you don't even notice when the real world fades away. You can almost smell the herbs in the garden, feel the warmth of the fire, and sense the quiet heartbreak that runs through the story. The emotions feel real and intimate, as if you're in the room with the characters, sharing their grief and love. Even though it's a sad book, there's a strange kind of beauty in it. O'Farrell reminds you how love and loss are deeply connected, and how memories can keep people alive long after they're gone. In the end, Hamnet is not a tale about what happens but about how it feels: to live, to lose, and to remember.

Yes. A book on the untimely death of a child and how the loss affects the women in his life, and how grief can be channeled into art.

In every way, in every word, utterly and devastatingly beautiful. Breathes soul and context into literary history. I could not have loved it more.