Hamnet

Where to start with this one? I rarely give five stars. In fact, almost never. But the artistry and craftsmanship of this novel are things that some readers have apparently totally missed.While this book won untold numbers of awards and has many other 5 and 4-star ratings, I am frustrated by the number of reviews that say "This book was slow!" or "This book was boring!" Those readers are certainly owed their opinions, and I'm not here to question them, but I don't know that those readers understand what kind of novel this is. It's not your page-turner. It's not your heart-burner. But what it is, is something very different and very special.While I would not call myself a Shakespeare scholar, I would confidently call myself a Shakespeare student. I studied his works very extensively in college and have acted in some of his plays. Any serious study of Shakespeare begins with an introduction to his life. And for someone as famous as he, with works as immortal as his, the details of his life are frustratingly scanty.*SPOILER ALERT*I think most people who know anything about Shakespeare know that his son Hamnet died, and Hamnet's death was a deciding, changing factor in Shakespeare's life, for good or ill. And no one knows for sure Hamnet's cause of death. And most people who have studied Shakespeare also know that his marriage with Anne/Agnes (I have read that at this point in history, those names were largely interchangeable) was largely spent apart from each other and seems to have deteriorated for reasons unknown to time. We know she was a few years older than he; we know that she was almost certainly pregnant with their first child at the time of their marriage. The rest of the details, no one knows.This is a brilliant attempt not at imagining him, but imagining her. The wife of a writer so immortal that his works are still being read, interpreted, made into films and other works of art, and reimagined in different eras, 500 years on -- but who was she? And has history ever really cared?"Hamnet" imagines her as a child of nature -- also a psychic and, in a way, according to the views of the times, a witch. She's clearly smitten by him, and vice versa, and I find that very believable, considering that in real life, they came from different social stations, and one must only speculate what drove them together so powerfully in the beginning of their relationship.In the novel, she gives up much of her own free thinking, and her own lifestyle, and her kestrel, and other things that make her happy, out of love of this man. I would ask, what woman of the late 16th century did not? If you were a woman of this era, no matter how much you loved the man you married (and I would argue that most marriages of this time did not feature love, so you probably didn't love him at all), marriage meant the death of you as to whoever was you, whoever was the individual you were before. Among many, many other things, I think "Hamnet" is an incredible exploration of that, emotionally.And it's a shattering, unbelievably intimate and emotionally descriptive dive into the gradual disintegration of a marriage based on the horror and heartbreak of the loss of a mutually loved child.The fact that Shakespeare's first name -- or that his name in general -- is never used, to me is a stroke of art. It implies that the reader knows who HE is ... doesn't everyone? It is an introspection of a woman NO ONE knows, and he is a supporting character -- yet, brilliantly, at the same time, he is the main character. Because the planets circled him, not her. He's portrayed as self-absorbed and troubled and needy -- and at least in my own imagination, I can see him being all of those things.If my review henceforth hasn't made this clear, I thought this was a brilliant book. Yes, it IS slow at times. But sometimes with "slow," you just have to stop and smell the roses. And this book has many, many roses. And people who don't have time to smell the roses when it comes to literature just need to go read something else, rather than criticizing works like this. Amazon's full of beach reads -- go find one.

If you love the written word, Hamnet is for you. Gorgeous prose, both atmospheric and heartbreaking. Hamnet is an incredibly moving story. Though Hamnet is the character that the book is named for, I see this book as Agnes’ story. Her life reads like a fairy tale. I love that there is a mystic quality to her.Agnes is my favorite character. She is a herbalist and a healer, a naturalist and a seer. I loved her relationship with nature, her bees, her kestrel. Agnes is no stranger to death and her concept of death/the afterlife as a room on a moor was haunting.If you like a fast paced story, this may not be for you. Maggie O’Farrell has the amazing ability to describe small moments in such amazing detail with awe-inspiring prose.The scenes that stand out are:the love scene in the apple shed, the pain and exhaustion of child birth and the following post delivery recovery. There are three beautifully written pages on parting, and a detailed chapter on the plague’s origin and journey to London.Maggie O’Farrell writes about death and grief like no other. She captures the numbness and the inability to move forward in every day life. The devastation and emptiness of life going on while someone you loved is dying behind closed doors. These sentiments resonated with me having experienced hospice care of a loved one in their home.The author writes of the powerful connection between twins, between birth and death. Even though Hamnet is a heavy read, the beauty of the prose and Audible narration made it an incredible reading experience.

Maggie O'Farrell, the author of HAMNET, made some wise choices in her story of William Shakespeare's family. She gives his wife, Agnes (Anne) the leading role with strong subsidiary roles to the children.Thus, people who know Shakespeare's basic biography are not apt to quibble about his career decisions.Instead, I became fascinated with Agnes. Knowing in advance only the story of her pregnancy prior to wedlock and her receipt of the "2nd-best bed" after her husband's death, I began to understand the dynamics of Shakespeare's boyhood and his ill repute as a young man as he struggles to find a way out of the drudgery of village life.O'Farrell gives Agnes the characteristics of a rebel, a woman of strong will and strong talents. She can turn her back of customs to marry a man she loves. She is the center of her children's world though they know she is as likely to be off in the woods gathering medicinal roots as to be cooking in the kitchen. Agnes uses her fey abilities to heal, to comfort, and as necessary, to deceive.The magic of this book goes beyond the literal magic potions conjured in Agnes's kitchen. The relationship between twins Hamnet and Judith is spun out even as Judith falls desperately ill. They are much like modern twins in their twinship with the added element of shock that they have lived beyond infancy to tell their stories in an Elizabethan world full of death, dirt, squalor, and malnutrition.This too, imparting the setting, is part of O'Farrell's strength. She never uses a single word or phrase when she can add a catalog. Here is an example of the prose poem style: "Then the door bangs behind her and he is alone, with the falcon, with the apples, with the smell of wood and autumn, with the dry-feathered meaty smell of the bird."Among reviews I read after finishing this book, this kind of description was widely decried as "impossible" and "boring." Alas. I understand that many readers have little time to read. They want story and action, and they want it now, delivered in the staccato rhythms of texting on a phone.However, for people with time to read and luxuriate in the sensory images, HAMNET is more than a story of a famous family, more than a historical novel. It is a re-creation of a prior world, one of magic, hope, love, and deep profound grief. Agnes walks through the stages of grief in the final chapter with such clarity and heart-breaking depth, I was left breathless.HAMNET may never earn the renown of Shakespeare's HAMLET, but it is truly as profound and as beautiful. To me.

I would have to say this is one of the top 10 books I’ve ever read really very well written really puts you into the place and time where it occurs.

This is a well written historical novel, but alas, for me at least, it is a sad story.

Love the story, highly recommend.

Excelente

quality was good, edges were kinda bent, and the packaging seemed lacking.

A very strong story , with historical background and not-to-be-forgotten characters. William S., his wife Agnes, their children... you'll live with them quite a long time after you've finished the readingAnd the writing is ...incredible !A great book indeed

Loved reading the story about Shakespeare’s early life and his children. Having been to Stratford upon Avon and seen his parents house helps imagining the story line even better. It’s just beautifully written and it was a great reading experience