Hamnet

Very well written with good, strong characters that become vivid in the mind.

Excellent

I receive the book damages on the corner soo Disappointed

I love this books so much

Disclaimer: I’m only halfway through this book, and I’m half-enjoying it, at least I want to finish it - not least because it cost £9 and I usually buy my books second hand. But I’m baffled by all the glorious reviews because the writing is just poor. On pages 152-3 she uses the word ‘skein’ twice, both times awkwardly: first to describe Shakespeare’s hair (a skein? Really?) and a few paragraphs later to describe embroidery (a skein of embroidery? Really?). Did she not have an editor or even a critical friend? On page 127 she describes ‘the headless pheasant on the table, scaled legs fastidiously drawn up, as if the bird is worried about getting its feet muddy, even though it happens to be decapitated and very much dead.’ Did we not already infer the bird was decapitated and ‘very much dead’ on being told it was ‘headless’? Generally the writing is ponderous, self-conscious, contrived and purple; the author has used 20 words where one (or even none) would have sufficed, and been more eloquent. I’ve seen this book compared to Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea but Rhys could speak volumes with an economy of language - Maggie oFarrell does not have this skill (nor a competent editor). That said I’m determined to finish it, but Great Literature it is not.Edit: more terrible prose. Page 106: ‘A pain enters the back of his head and crouches there, snarling, like a cornered rat.’ This was bad enough but now on page 158 we have a different character: ‘Hunger growls in his stomach, low and menacing, like a dog crouched inside his body.’ I can imagine the author taking such misplaced delight in imagining a headache as a snarling, crouching rat (an image which does not at all convey the essence of a headache, possibly she found it in a random simile generator) that she repeats the ‘trick’ to convey hunger as a growling, crouching dog. Is this what passes for good writing nowadays?Edit: I’ve finished the book now - read all in one day - it picks up in the last 100 or so pages. I’m glad I read to the end, it was quite touching ultimately. Even though she managed to use the word ‘skein’ twice more (only once was the metaphor apposite) and found two more opportunities to describe inner feelings as animals (although these were not crouching at least). Worth reading if you have any interest in the play Hamlet, or are studying it. Have upgraded to four stars, not three.

Un bon mix d'éfficacité, de sensibilité et de contexte historique.

Having read The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell, and having thoroughly enjoyed it, I also enjoyed reading this book which is a fictionalised account of the short life of William Shakespeare's son, Hamnet. It was a real window into the lives of the Shakespeare and Hathaway families in late 16th/early 17th century Stratford-upon- Avon. If you like Maggie O'Farrell's style, I would definitely recommend this book.

Read it for my book group. Wonderful writing, draws you into the world and the story of Shakespearean England, so beautiful

This week I read a lovely novel: Hamnet, A Novel of the Plague. The novel was written by Maggie O'Farrell, who is an Irish writer, and was published in 2020. The title character is Hamnet Shakespeare, who was Anne Hathaway and William Shakespeare's only son and who died in 1596, at the age of eleven, probably of the bubonic plague. Four years after the death of Hamnet, William wrote Hamlet.Scholars have striven to connect the death of Hamnet to the themes in Hamlet. That, however, is not what the novel is about. What the novel is about is Hamnet's short life and sad death; his parents' love for him in life; and his parents' grief for him in death.Hamnet had an older sister, Susanna, and a twin sister, Judith. The principal characters in the novel are Hamnet; his mother, Anne (referred to in the novel, as she is sometimes referred to in historical records, as Agnes); and his father, William (referred to in the novel as "the Latin tutor" or "he," and never referred to by his name). Hamnet is a lively and loving little boy "with a slightly crooked smile and a perpetually surprised expression" -- a boy "who will forever remain a boy." Anne is a strong-souled woman who sees into other people's souls, spends much of her time exploring the dark forest outside Stratford, and gathers and dispenses herbal medicines. Many townspeople, including her mother-in-law, suspect she is a witch or a sorceress or a forest sprite. William is, for much of the novel, present by his absence -- absent because he is putting on plays in London, and absent because he spends his time "in a place in [his] head," "a whole country," "a landscape" that is "more real to him than anyplace else."The novel vividly depicts the sights and sounds and smells, the slow pace of life in Stratford and the hectic pace of life in London, of the age of Elizabeth. Many of the details about fruits, flowers, herbs, and medicines, about house pets, farm animals, and forest wildlife, come from historical records and from the plays of Shakespeare himself.The tender love his parents bestow on Hamnet will touch anyone who has ever been, or had, a parent.The descriptions of death and the dead are harrowing.The dark grief his parents suffer at Hamnet's death is the grief of anyone who has ever lost a loved one. He is gone. Where is he? He must be somewhere. He can't simply have vanished. Why is it I hear nothing but silence? How can it be he will never come back?The novel echoes many of Shakspeare's recurring themes: twins; entities that are both opposite and identical; role reversal, shape-shifting, transformation, and transfiguration; departure and homecoming; transgression and redemption; offense and forgiveness; estrangement and reconciliation; death and rebirth; to be and not to be. Those themes, however, are not explicitly stated; they are subtly suggested through the novel's events and the characters' responses..Reading this novel reminded me of reading Lincoln in the Bardo. Although they are radically different in style, the two novels are almost like twins in theme -- like two paired expressions of one truth -- a mother's love and grief, a father's love and grief.Having said all this, I'm not sure now is a good time to read either novel. The present world is so full of sadness it seems almost too much to read novels that add to the sadness. But we who read know that sadness can be redeemed by beauty.