Most Shakespeare biographers, and there are many (a few listed below), freely admit they built with sand and straw for Shakespeare, who penned so many memorable lives on stage, left so little of himself or his family. - a will, a house deed, a second best bed, title deed, baptismal certificate, court records ... Inevitably, being mainly legal documents, they are bloodless. Maggie O’Farrell walked behind them, gleaning fallen straw and sand and did what many biographers could not with their “facts”. She breathed such vivid, magnetic life into a young boy, his family, two towns and so much else. Meeting them in “Hamnet” is not straw or sand; it is “such stuff as dreams are made on”. Readers will be unable to ignore the Ghost’s command - “Remember me”.

As accomplished writing becomes a part of us, we will certainly remember and “Hamnet” is outstanding, accomplished writing.

Readers will not “slumber here / While these visions [did] appear”; “Hamnet” is no “weak and idle theme”. It is a masterful evocation of lives, all of whom have fascinated so many for so long. A list of “facts”, it is not. “Hamnet”, O’Farrell’s eighth novel, makes no pretence at “truth” but comes closer to entrancing, magnetic and breath-stopping truth and reality despite readers knowing the ending.

O’Farrell draws on so many rich sources to animate the times, characters, medicine, family love, twins’ gestalt, marital love and, ultimately, Shakespeare’s love of and need to write.

In “To Kill a Mockingbird”, Harper Lee gives Atticus Finch the following wisdom: “you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them”. In “Hamnet”, O’Farrell, with great insight, eloquently selects the shoes and eyes to recreate lucid perspectives with such expressive empathy, readers will breath with the characters in so many heart-stopping moments.

To make points, I usually quote in reviews. Not here. Readers are left to animate the pages “alone”.

“Alone” they will experience the almost ineffable - but not quite - understanding between twins, parental love for twins and confusions which can sometimes arise in telling moments; “alone”, readers will experience the unusual love between partners separated by illiteracy, distance, time and genius; “alone”, readers will suffer a parent’s worst nightmare from which springs a timeless expression of that suffering. “Alone” readers will experience what, I believe, only a woman could have written from intimate experiences.

Like biographers, O’Farrell has done her homework; unlike biographers, she has taken the historical warp (what little there is) and interwoven a weft of power, eloquence, insight and reflection to create a profound, affecting experience.

Readers - although “Hamnet” is a work of fiction and does not pretend to be otherwise, be prepared to embark on a journey through sixteenth century blood streams and pulses, a journey from which you will emerge a different person.

“Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

_______________

PS Although always a Stratfordian (rather than Oxfordian) for authorship, O’Farrell’s fiction provided yet another “substantive reason”. I heard, with Agnes, the word which had provided so much family hope before the breath to say the word was sucked from their lips … until everyone’s lips spoke it.

A few biographies:

PARK, Honan, “Shakespeare, A Life”, (1998)

SCHOENBAUM, Samuel, “Shakespeare, A Compact Documentary Life”, (1975)

BATE, Jonathan, “Soul of the Age”, (2009)

BRYSON, Bill, “Shakespeare”, (2012)

GREER, German, “Shakespeare’s Wife”, (2008)

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.

I'd been recommended to read this book by many people so was looking forward to finally getting the paperback whilst also being slightly apprehensive that it may not meet up to expectations. Maggie O'Farrell is a great writer though and I've loved many of her other books so I felt in safe hands.

There are 370 pages split into 2 parts which are before and after Hamnet dies (not a spoiler as we know this is going to happen from the start). The chapters move back and forward to cover both Hamnet's illness/death and his parents earlier lives.

The prose has a beautiful lyrical rhythm which is rare in novels and is very compelling to read. I'm not a fan of audio books but I would imagine this would be a good way to experience this book.

Hamnet's father is never mentioned by name which is initially curious as there is no doubt that he is William Shakespeare, we also never hear the family's name being used. The story might have been overpowered by the fame of Will Shakespeare so it's very clever not to mention him. The reader knows it is him but his name isn't allowed to take anything away from the hugely emotional story of the love between a son and a mother.

I thought the descriptions were deep and simply gorgeous. Maggie O'Farrell has a way of using multiple metaphors in a passage of text which gently emphasise, creating images which could be physical or emotional.

The language continue with it's musicality throughout the book with the author slipping in a few words that would be been popular use in the 16th century - this gives the narrative a genuine feel without distracting from the wonderful story ("No one is abroad" meaning "No one is out" as a simple example). It's interesting to consider how words have changed their usage and this subtle touch adds depth to the setting.

MF allows herself the luxury of moving away from the main story occasionally. At one point we follow the journey of a flea through Europe which gives a chapter full of historical context which also explores the senses and emotions on the way.

Some characters are more prominent than others but the reader is always given a well rounded view of the story, looking in from varying perspectives.

I found this an emotional book to read as it explores all the elements of what it is to be human - encouraging the reader to understand Agnes's connection with her feelings, be they joy, grief and everything in between. At the same time the reader needs to look at themselves considering the whole gambit of emotions and how we handle them ourselves.

Just about everyone I know has read this book so, following the excellent film adaption last year, I thought it best to stop pretending that I had as well. The outline of the story was familiar from the film, but I wasn't prepared for the excellence of the writing (even though this is the fourth book by this author that I've read in the past two years), including the harrowingly exact description of bereavement: for example, the cry which a father makes is compared to that of "an animal forced to bear a great weight"; at the end of his wife's life, when her husband has been dead for years, she will still be able to "summon its exact pitch and timbre" [p272].

The feeling of helplessness when a loved one is ill is vividly portrayed: "She would do anything. She would open her own veins, her own body cavity, and give him her blood, her heart, her organs, if it would do the slightest good" [p249]. A panicked heartbeat is like "an animal hurling itself against its cage of bones" [p125]. A mother looking at the dead body of her son calls forth memories of how he'd been swimming in the river "not a week ago" with his friends before she starts to lay the body out, knowing that, once she wraps him in the winding-sheet she would "never again see these arms, these knuckles [...] that thumbnail, that callus" [p267]. Later on, his bereaved sister implores his spirit, "Please come. Just once. Don't leave me here like this, alone, please [...] I am only half a person without you." [337] - simple, heartfelt sentences which almost appear cliched, but they are brutally effective here.

The vivid style extends to other aspects of the story. On p155, there's a vivid description of a woman in labour, with a pain which "means to force her out of herself, to turn what is inside outside". Less specifically (at least for those who have not been through childbirth), she muses on the nature of partings: "it seems so simple: one minute ago, four, five, he was here, at her side; now, he is gone" [p214], and wonders how the people they saw earlier are unable to see the transformation that's taken place in her life. Later, when she thinks about the trammels of her own life, she muses on the goose which has been killed for their dinner: how it "ran for a moment, headless, as if sure it could get away, could change its fate" [p309].

A well-written, moving story. Recommended.

Fabulous book such an emotive well written story I couldn’t put it down

A good holiday read. Nice story but not as gripping as I expected from the hype.

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell was another read for my book club. I thought that this was something that I would really enjoy but I was a little disappointed. Hamnet tells the story of a young boy, a twin who grows up in Stratford. His mother Agnes stays at home but his father is away in London, writing plays and becoming famous. This is the imagined story of William Shakespeare's young son Hamnet, who died at the age of 11. Interesting to note that I don’t think William Shakespeare’s name is mentioned at all though the book?

I struggled through the first 100 pages but persevered and kept reading, for which I am glad as I did think the book improved. Some of the writing was just beautiful. I liked the character of Agnes or Anne (Hathaway) initially but disliked her more towards the end. I found it an interesting take on a side of Shakespeare’s life I had not thought of before. A book about grief and loss which unfortunately did not deliver, as it was a little too plodding, had too many supernatural events; ghosts, the hawk, Agnes's ability to read people but not herself that I think did not deliver the results that O’Farrell wanted. I would not read it again.

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell is the fictionalised story of Hamnet, the son of English playwright William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes (Anne) Hathaway. Little is known of Hamlet's life except that he had an elder sister, Susanna, a twin sister, Judith, and he died aged 11.

The author has written a beautiful account of what could have taken place. It touches the heart and brings the past to life. I couldn't help but be swept along by an emotional and deeply moving story.

Characterisation was so superb that I felt as though I'd been plucked from the 21st Century and dropped straight into the 16th; such was the vivid picture of Elizabethan England. This was a truly wonderful read which will stay in my thoughts for a very long time.

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本文に入る前に、 Historical note として、次の文が記されている。

In the 1580s, a couple living in Henry 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.

本書はロンドンの友人が薦めてくれた。クラシック文学を好む彼女は次のように書いてきた。

This book really brought alive Shakespeare's period of time to me. We sadly know so little about his actual life so a lot of it is imaginary but it's very plausible.

Stratford の農家の娘である Agnes (Anne Hathaway) は自然や動物を愛し、特殊な能力も垣間見せ、グラブ職人の息子でありながら、家業に馴染めず、子どもたちにラテン語を教えている若者と恋に落ちて、結婚し、3人の子どもを儲ける。Agnes の家族構成は複雑だが、実の弟との絆は深い。両家の生活を通して1580年代当時の佇まいがあれこれ想像されて興味深い。全体的に淡々と静かな筆致で描かれ美しい。

Agnes の夫は常に her husband 、のちには the father と記されて一度も固有名詞としては出てこない。無気力な夫を心配し、Agnes は弟と相談して、彼をロンドンに向かわせる。それが私たちが知る Shakespeare を生み出すことになるのだが、そこに至るまでには様々な苦悩がある。当時の Stratford と London はあまりに遠い。まれにしか帰ってこない夫、間遠になっていく手紙のやり取り。時折浮かぶ疑惑。庭に様々な薬草を栽培して人助けをする Agnes 。森の中で一人で産み落とした長女 Susanna は賢く成長している。やがて Hamnet と Judith の双子が生まれる。この双子は見た目もそっくりで、心も深い絆でつながっているが、当時襲ったペストに先にJudith が罹り、亡くなるのは Hamnet 。このあたりの事情はミステリアスだ。息子を亡くした Agnes の悲嘆ぶりが痛ましい。

この物語はあくまで Agnes の視点で描かれていて、her husband または the father は常に間接的なのだが、終末には彼の心情も吐露される。

Hamlet の上演のビラを目にした Agnes は、狂気さながら弟の助けを得て、ロンドンへ向かう。ついに辿り着いた the Globe Theatre での様子には心をうたれる。400年後に再建されたTheatre をしばしば訪れた私としては感慨深いものがあったが、それにもまして Agnes の心の動きには、淡々と続いてきた本書の圧巻のクライマックスを感じた。

Hamlet, here, on this stage, is two people, the young man, alive, and the father, dead. He is both alive and dead. Her husband has brought him back to life, in the only way he can.

本書はイギリスで、The 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction を受賞した。

I receive the book damages on the corner soo Disappointed

El libro llegó puntual acorde con la fecha pactada. El producto se encuentra muy bien cuidado. La película me encantó, y muero por leer el libro.

"Hamnet" is a beautiful piece of historical fiction that draws a new life out of the family of William Shakespeare, especially his wife, Agnes, history reveals as Anne Hathaway, and their son, Hamnet, who dies at the age of 11. O'Farrell's style is both descriptive and compelling, her writing ripe with evocation, while it brings to life this 16th-century Stratford-upon-Avon.

The greatness of the novel lies in how it touches the essence of grief and, in tandem, takes one through the rippling effects of loss. Here O'Farrell proves great prowess in her depiction of the adverse effect the passing of Hamnet has on his family; great effect especially on his mother, Agnes, and his twin sister, Judith. Her character sketch of Agnes, the wise and intuitive healer, really plonks the pathos into a historically neglected figure.

While Shakespeare himself remains unnamed, his presence looms large. O'Farrell subtly draws connections between the family's experiences and Shakespeare's later works, particularly "Hamlet," without forcing the issue.

The non-linear narrative structure further made the grasp of emotions strong, oscillating between Hamnet's final days and earlier years of Agnes and Shakespeare. It is in this way that O'Farrell was able to conjure tension and bring out related themes of fate and interconnectedness.

O'Farrell strikes a balance between the historical record and the immersion in Elizabethan sights, sounds, and smells. Yet, at no time does the research feel overpowering within the novel, which remains squarely based on humanity and firmly unloses its sense of familiarity.

"Hamnet" is a powerful meditation on love, loss, and the enduring nature of art. O'Farrell's fanciful yet respectful treatment of Shakespeare's family life offers a new vantage from which to view the man behind the plays. Moving and handsomely crafted, this is a novel that lingers in the mind of any kind of reader.