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Loading... Hamnet (original 2020; edition 2020)by Maggie O'Farrell (Author)
Work InformationHamnet by Maggie O'Farrell (2020)
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![]() ![]() This prize winning novel is a fictional retelling of the short life and death of William Shakespeare's only son. It contains two time tracks, starting with Hamnet's illness and death, with alternating chapters going back to his parents' marriage. For much of the novel, Hamnet's mother, here called Agnes (Anne) Hathaway is the dominant character, a semi-magical white witch character (for which there is no historical evidence). But the last third of the novel follows on from the young boy's death from plague, centring on his parents' contrasting reactions to his passing, expressing their grief in very different ways, Agnes by being unable to move or carry on with her day to day life, William by returning to London and throwing himself into his dramatic work. The other two Shakespeare children, Judith, Hamnet's identical twin, and the elder daughter Susannah, also come across clearly with distinct characters. The author's writing style is very evocative of the sights, sounds and smells of Elizabethan Stratford and (in brief at the end) London. I greatly enjoyed the novel, though I thought the descriptions of grief, while very evocative, were perhaps a little overdone, and was initially slightly confused by the rapidly changing timestreams. The close connection of the names of Shakespeare's only son and his most famous play, crucial to the novel's ending here, is not accepted by all historians, though. A powerful novel. Everyone is right. Why did I postpone it for so long? Beautiful book, the writing, the tale, the imagination. Thanks to all who kept recommending it to me. The author's exposition of grief is extraordinary bringing a tear to my hardened eye. So many quotations to savor, i.e. this of his pregnant wife: "His mind is traversed for a moment, by an image of her body in its current astonishing shape, as he saw it last night; limbs, neat rib cage, the spine a long indent down the back, a cart-track through snow, and then this perfectly rounded phere at the front. Like a woman who had swallowed the moon." Hamnet is written by Maggie O’Farrell. This is a brilliantly, lovingly written book. It is so emotional with quiet yet powerful, lyrically written words. The writing seems ‘to transport’ one to the late 1500s in England. I was completely caught up in the day-to-day currents of the the town and its inhabitants. So historically and culturally accurate. Hamnet “is a luminous portrait of a marriage, of a family ravaged by grief, and a boy whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time.” ***** I am so glad I read this book. no reviews | add a review
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"A thrilling departure: a short, piercing, deeply moving novel about the death of Shakespeare's 11 year old son Hamnet--a name interchangeable with Hamlet in 15th century Britain--and the years leading up to the production of his great play. England, 1580. A young Latin tutor--penniless, bullied by a violent father--falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman--a wild creature who walks her family's estate with a falcon on her shoulder and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer. Agnes understands plants and potions better than she does people, but once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose gifts as a writer are just beginning to awaken when his beloved young son succumbs to bubonic plague. A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a hypnotic recreation of the story that inspired one of the greatest masterpieces of all time, Hamnet is mesmerizing, seductive, impossible to put down--a magnificent departure from one of our most gifted novelists"-- No library descriptions found. |
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.92Literature English English fiction Modern Period 2000-LC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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