Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell: The Act Of Grief [Review]
From the day she learned about the early death of William Shakespeare’s son, Maggie O’Farrell was haunted by the connection between the boy’s name and the title of his father’s play Hamlet.
O’Farrell tried three times to write a narrative that sought to explain the connection. She wanted to re-imagine the relationship between Shakespeare and his wife and show how it was affected by the death of their son Hamnet. But the book refused to come together.
After publication of her memoir I Am, I Am, I Am, Maggie O’Farrell took herself in hand. It was a case of either write the book now, or give up on it entirely, she told an audience at the Hay (Online) Festival in 2020.
I’m so glad she she succeeded at her fourth attempt because the resulting novel Hamnet is one of the most wonderful books I’ve read all year; a joy from start to finish.
Fresh Perspectives
I don’t normally care much for novels featuring, or inspired by, real people, especially ones as famous as William Shakespeare. But O’Farrell brings a completely fresh perspective; spinning magic from gossamer-thin historical facts to provide a wholly immersive tale of love and grief.
It’s not a novel about the boy Hamnet Shakespeare, despite the title. History in fact records little about the child beyond his baptism alongside his twin sister Judith, and his death in 1596 at the age of eleven. Nor is it about William Shakespeare – he’s never even named in the novel, referred to only obliquely as “the husband” or “the Latin tutor.” Instead what we have is a narrative that tracks the passionate relationship between two people and how this is tested by their son’s death.
Hamnet jiggles between two timelines, one beginning on the day Hamnet’s sister Judith becomes ill and takes to her bed, exhibiting all the signs of bubonic plague. The other timeline circles back to the beginning of the relationship some 15 years earlier between William, son of a moderately successful glover, and Agnes Hathaway (pronounced Ann-yis), eldest daughter of a wealthy sheep farmer.
Woman Of Nature
Agnes is a superb character, a free-spirited woman who feels most at home among the trees and plants of the forest near her home. She’s admired in the town for her skills as a healer and bee-keeper, but is also treated with some suspicion because she seems able to look into people’s souls just by pressing the muscle between thumb and forefinger.
It can be shut and opened like the beak of a bird and all the strength of the grip can be found there, all the power of the grasp. A person’s ability, their reach, their essence can be gleaned. All that they have held, kept, and all they long to grip is there in that place.
She’s a strong-minded woman who brings order to the home she shares with her in-laws, getting her own way about domestic routines and standing up to her rude, and often violent, father-in-law.
Responses to Grief
Towards her children she shows immense tenderness, shown most effectively in the night-time scene where she has to wash and lay out the body of her dead son. Every inch of his body reminds her of his past: the scar on his arm where he fell from a fence, his fingers calloused from gripping a quill and the small pits on his stomach from when he had pox.
She would wash the fever from him, draw it from his skin, if she could. … Hard to think she will never again see these arms, these knuckles, these shins, that thumbnail, that callus, this face, after this.
Her love for her husband is no less deep. It withstands his long absences in London. But is put to the severest test in the aftermath of their son’s death. She feels completely adrift from her former self, unmoored and lost.
There is a part of her that would like to wind up time, to gather it in like yarn. She would like to spin the wheel backwards, unmake the skein of Hamnet’s death.
Her husband retreats into “a silence that … expands and wraps itself around them.” He doesn’t cry, instead pacing their second floor “like someone trying to find their way back to a place for which they have lost the map.” He does eventually admit that he – like is his wife – is constantly looking for his boy in every street and every crowd. But then he disappears back to London. It is only when the play Hamlet is performed, does Agnes realise the full extent of her husband’s suffering and guilt.
Tangible World
Though the novel is set in the sixteenth century, O’Farrell’s portrayal of love and grief has a timeless quality. And yet she still manages to evoke the spirit of the age with with atmospheric details of the smells and daily routine of bread-making, pig feeding and clothes washing.
I loved the way Maggie O’Farrell made this world wholly tangible, giving me a sense that I was alongside Agnes as she taught the maid how to make soap or as she planted her new garden.
Yet it was also intangible. The decision not to name The Bard or Stratford, and to use the unfamiliar (but accurate) versions of the wife’s and son’s names, frees the narrative from the baggage of over-familiarity.
At times it felt that what I reading was somehow outside of any specific world. Agnes is even introduced as if she’s a character in a fable of a girl “who lived on the edge of a forest”. There’s a nod also to the world of the stage with gender-switching twins who love “to exchange places and clothes, leading people to believe that each was the other”.
Hamnet is a compelling and powerful novel filled with some richly atmospheric writing that reveals how people respond to grief and find their way through it. I’m still thinking about it and picturing some of the scenes weeks after I read the final page.
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell: End Notes
About the Book: Hamnet was published in the UK by Tinder Press in March 2020. It won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2020. Why this book didn’t get even on the longlist for the Booker Prize is a mystery.
About the Author: Maggie O’Farrell was born in Ireland and spent part of her childhood in Wales. She has worked as a journalist, both in Hong Kong and as the deputy literary editor of The Independent on Sunday. She also taught creative writing at the University of Warwick in Coventry and Goldsmith’s College in London.
Her debut novel After You’d Gone won the Betty Trask Award. Her later novel The Hand That First Held Mine won the 2010 Costa Novel Award. She has twice been shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award: for Instructions for a Heatwave in 2014 and This Must Be The Place in 2017.
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Brona
I seem to be in the minority with this book, maybe it got me at a bad time. I loved the beginning with Hamnet racing around trying to find someone who could help him with Judith who suddenly came down sick. The tension and fear was palpable. But when the story veered off into a free spirited women wandering amongst the trees, I just groaned out loud! I tried two more times to get past this part, but couldn’t.
http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com/2020/05/fictionalised-biography-or-biographical.html
BookerTalk
Just read your post about historical fiction and the reaction to Hamnet. Oh well, not every book will gel with every author!
I left a comment on the post – not sure however it worked.
Brona
Thanks for checking – yes, your comment worked!
Sadly I didn’t have much joy with the Grenville either. Thankfully, I had a good run after my historical fiction post, with historical fiction. I was beginning to think I’d gone off my favourite genre!!
BookerTalk
Luckily that is a genre that has so much scope for variety (a few thousand years of history in so many different countries) that if you don’t find something to your taste there are always plenty more to choose
Calmgrove
I’m sure I shall around to this sometime, Karen, but maybe not just now. As it is I pick up and dip into a Who’s Who of people in Shakespeare’s life and, yes, Hamnet’s bio is one of the shortest. I don’t know if you ever watched the sitcom Upstart Crow but the episode which included Hamnet’s demise was sensitively done and even quite moving. A lovely review, one that’s convinced me even more that this is a must-read.
BookerTalk
I’ve not heard of that sit com Chris. Was it broadcast many years ago or recently?
Calmgrove
A BBC series, there’ve been a few seasons since 2016, the 400th anniversary of Will’s death, written by Elton John and starring David Mitchell as the upstart crow himself. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstart_Crow
BookerTalk
Shall have to go digging around on the iPlayer site in that case….
amanda
I have to admit, I would normally steer away from this sort of historical fiction, but your review makes it sound like this one avoids my usual pet peeves. I’ll have to keep an eye out for it at the library.
BookerTalk
If your library system is anything like ours, there could be a long queue of people wanting this…
The Reading Bug
I was blown away by this as well – my favourite book this year, easily. Have you read anything else by the author you could recommend?
BookerTalk
My favourite is the first one I read – The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. Highly recommend it …
Jo
I loved this book, and am also baffled as to why it didn’t make it on to the Booker longlist…
Jillian
Hm, I might try this one.
BookerTalk
Well worth it 🙂
Lisa Hill
I’ll read your review after I’ve read the book, but I did notice that you loved it, so that’s great!
BookerTalk
I shall keep my fingers crossed that you too love it
heavenali
I thoroughly enjoyed this one, though I personally didn’t think it would be a prize winner. I think one of its successes is that William Shakespeare is not prominent throughout the novel, we see him mainly through the eyes of others. I also thought the character of Agnes was brilliantly drawn.
BookerTalk
The way his role was minimised was a clever move I thought. Interesting that you didn’t see it as a prize winner.
Carol
I enjoyed reading your fabulous review!
BookerTalk
Thanks Carol, sometimes I find it harder to write about books I thoroughly enjoyed than those which were just so-so
Carol
So true!