From the Bookshelf of Retro Chapter Chicks …

Hamnet

Maggie O'Farrell

Start date: July 1, 2021

Finish date: July 31, 2021

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Aug 26, 2020 Candi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction

“What is given may be taken away, at any time. Cruelty and devastation wait for you around corners, inside coffers, behind doors: they can leap out at you at any moment, like a thief or brigand.”

Without a doubt, this is a brilliantly imagined novel written by one who is quickly becoming a favorite author. I’m afraid I’ll have to explain myself for not singing its praises as effusively as I would have liked, but I’ll get to that later. There are a lot more positives to this than there are negativ “What is given may be taken away, at any time. Cruelty and devastation wait for you around corners, inside coffers, behind doors: they can leap out at you at any moment, like a thief or brigand.”

Without a doubt, this is a brilliantly imagined novel written by one who is quickly becoming a favorite author. I’m afraid I’ll have to explain myself for not singing its praises as effusively as I would have liked, but I’ll get to that later. There are a lot more positives to this than there are negatives, after all. I did just profess that O’Farrell is edging her way to the top of my list after just two books!

“She, like all mothers, constantly casts out her thoughts, like fishing lines, towards her children, reminding herself of where they are, what they are doing, how they fare.”

Anne Hathaway, called Agnes here, was wed to William Shakespeare. Above all, this is her book, not Shakespeare’s and not Hamnet’s, despite the title. In fact, O’Farrell never utters Shakespeare’s name directly; he is always called ‘husband’ or ‘father’. Agnes, however, is front and center, and what absorbed me fully was the theme of motherhood – the joys, the doubts, the fears, the sorrows. A mother constantly questions whether she is doing enough for her children. There looms a certainty that surely you could do more if you only tried harder. With little knowledge to build on, O’Farrell has shaped one of the most fascinating mothers in the literary world. Agnes is of another realm entirely, it seems. She reminded me of a sprite, so ethereal in nature. Starved for love as a child after her mother’s death, Agnes makes friends with nature – the animals and the forest become her companions. She learns to divine truths about the essence of others based on what she can glean from their hands.

“If asked, the girl – a woman, now – would remove the falconer’s glove and hold your hand, just for a moment, pressing the flesh between thumb and forefinger where all your hand’s strength lay, and tell you what she felt. The sensation, some said, was dizzying, draining, as if she was drawing all the strength out of you; others said it was invigorating, enlivening, like a shower of rain.”

The plot alternates between Agnes’s youth, courtship and pregnancies with the time when tragedy strikes in 1596. A parent’s greatest fear is finally realized. I remember when my children were young and some illness or another would strike. I couldn’t sleep, remaining constantly alert to any cries in the night, any change in breathing. Surely, I thought, I could be doing more to relieve their suffering.

“The trick is never to let down your guard. Never think you are safe. Never take for granted that your children’s hearts beat, that they sup milk, that they draw breath, that they walk and speak and smile and argue and play.”

The first three-quarters of this novel completely captivated me – the atmosphere, the pacing, the shadow hovering overhead. “There is a sensation of change, an agitation of air, as if a bird has passed silently overhead.” The exploration of both a mother and a father’s grief is handled with the care and knowledge of what I am certain comes from O’Farrell’s own experiences. I have read her memoir, I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death. She understands foreboding, fear, and heartache. She writes what she knows with clarity. What I missed, however, was a complete connection to her words. I’ve been trying to pinpoint what exactly lacked for me here. I have certainly been a blubbering fool over the last few novels I’ve read, but not this one! I should have been weeping buckets! Perhaps it is the third person point of view in this one, compared with her memoir which wholly succeeded in baring O’Farrell’s heart and soul to the reader. I went into this one expecting the same. Had I not read the other first, I suspect I would have had a bigger soft spot for Hamnet. But don’t let that stop you from picking this up. It’s worthy of your time and a very fine work of historical fiction – never trite and altogether unique.

“Every life has its kernel, its hub, its epicenter, from which everything flows out, to which everything returns.”
...more

311 likes · Like · see review

Jan 04, 2021 Maureen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, historical-fiction, own, tudor, nyt-best-books-21-centuty

“He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.”

Hamlet, ActIV scene v

This is the tragic story of the death of William Shakespeare’s son Hamnrt also known as Hamlet.
There is no loss greater than the loss of a child.

Shakespeare’s name is never mentioned in this novel. He is a minor character in this tale. He is the husband of Agnes or the father of Suzanne or the twins, Hamnet and Judith.
This Agnes’s story.
No one knows why Hamnet died at the a ...more

22 likes · Like · see review

Mar 12, 2023 Theresa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: coming-of-age, theater-film-music, friends-recommended, z-aty-2023, country-life, z-pop-sugar-2023-reading-challenge, england, historical-fiction, highly-recommended-by-me, z-2023-top-10

A very young Latin tutor falls in love with and marries a country woman a few years older named Agnes in the late 16th Century England. They have a daughter then a few short years later, twins, a boy and a girl. When the twins are 11 years old, the plague finds them and takes the son, leaving behind a shattered marriage, a mother deep in depression, a house of mourning and loss. This is Stratford, England in the late 16th Century, and 4 years after the plague takes their son, the father writes a A very young Latin tutor falls in love with and marries a country woman a few years older named Agnes in the late 16th Century England. They have a daughter then a few short years later, twins, a boy and a girl. When the twins are 11 years old, the plague finds them and takes the son, leaving behind a shattered marriage, a mother deep in depression, a house of mourning and loss. This is Stratford, England in the late 16th Century, and 4 years after the plague takes their son, the father writes a play as a memorial to and named for his son, Hamlet. This is a beautiful, rich, stunning tapestry of historical fiction, bringing a time and a family into living breathing being in all the imperfections one experiences in life. I can't find a single thing to critique.

It is a novel of Shakespeare and his family and yet, because Shakespeare is never named and in fact himself is largely absent from most of the story, it becomes the story of family, marriage, loss, grief, and ultimately survival. Both Agnes and the Latin tutor come from abusive (in different ways) families but flourish, find happiness, and success in spite of such inauspicious beginnnings. Their marriage finds happiness even with great distance as the Latin tutor's work keeps him in London and Agnes and the children stay in Stratford, and especially the deep differences in their natures. But most of all, this is a tragedy: the death of a child. The toll it takes in different ways on every member of the immediate family. It's heartbreaking. Yet, there is always a sense of survival and hope.

There are many beautiful and bittersweet moments and passages here.

On twins: There is not enough life, enough air, enough blood for both of them. Perhaps there never was. And if either of them is to live, it must be [one of them]...

On death: Anyone, Eliza is thinking, who describes dying as "slipping away" or "peaceful" has never witnessed it happen. Death is violent, death is a struggle. The body clings to life, as ivy to a wall, and will not easily let go, will not surrender its grip without a fight.

I was engaged (and oddly charmed) by two journeys described in detail: that of how the plague germ came to this household, and, later, that of the letter informing the father of the illness in the household. What a singular sense of being in the time and place and moment they provide the reader!

The language and writing is gorgeous. I thought the format particularly effective, with the first and largest portion of the story told in alternating chapters starting with the arrival of illness in the household, then flashing back to the story of the marriage from when it started to the point of the inevitable ending. The second part is the aftermath of Hamnet's death, those immediate years after and the toll taken on the family. That final scene is a gem. ...more

14 likes · Like · see review

Apr 02, 2023 Book Concierge rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, literary-fiction, family, england, book-club, library, concierge, strong-women, grief, shakespeare

Subtitle: A Novel of the Plague

From the frontspiece
HISTORICAL NOTE
In the 1580s, a couple living on Henley Street, Stratford, had three children: Susanna, then Hamnet and Judith, who were twins
The boy, Hamnet, died in 1596, aged eleven.
Four years or so later, the father wrote a play called Hamlet.

My reactions
Wow. You think you know where a story is headed because you know something of the historical figures depicted, and then an author completely surprises you.

O’Farrell focuses the story on Agne ...more

11 likes · Like · see review

Jun 07, 2021 Celia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: ten-year-challenge, 2021-read, wholesale, kindle-list, vero-book-club, 2020-pub, 52-2021, 2021-kindle-counted, historical-fiction-read

This book is astoundingly good. It is written in a style that I cannot quite name. (Anyone who has read it and has a name for it, please let me know!!)

The book is made by the characters and O'Farrell's view of them.

Agnes (pronounced Ann-yis) - the mother of Hamlet. She is a woman steeped in the knowledge of herbal cures, yet cannot save her son. Older than her husband, she allows him to go to London to escape the dominance of his father. Hamlet dies during this period. It is hard for Agnes to fo ...more

9 likes · Like · see review

Jul 04, 2021 Tasha rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-reads, historical-fiction

4.5 rounded up to 5.

I loved the writing and the story was really interesting, a great sense of time and place. I listened to this one and the audio was really well-done.

6 likes · Like · see review

Aug 28, 2023 Lory Sakay rated it it was amazing

This is one of those, "Why did I take so long to read this?" books on my bookshelf. This was just a beautiful, fictional story of the "What if these people behind the scenes existed?" ; exploring the background of Shakespeare's life, rather than the popular, well known foreground. The characters were rich and the events were detailed eloquently. Gave me some Allende vibes too, with the bit of mysticism inserted throughout. I think I must now re-familiarize myself with Hamlet. :) ...more

1 like · Like · see review