Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
After trying to read Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell for two weeks and finding myself unable to sustain interest in the story, I decided not to continue. This might not be the author’s fault – I’ve been sick and my concentration is non-existent. All I’m good for is lying on the couch and looking at the window at the washing hanging limply on the line and coughing and snotting – I know that’s not a word, but it should be!
The story followed a young man whose twin sister was extremely ill, probably from the plague since those were the times. Their mother Agnes was away tending to her medicinal plants, and their father, who was unnamed but whom we assume was Shakespeare, was in London working on his plays and theatre. The family lived next door to their abusive grandfather, who Hamnet had been warned by his father to stay away from.
The plot then dipped into the backstory of Hamnet’s parent’s romance. Shakespeare was a young tutor when he and Agnes, who had a kestrel and was different to other girls, met and fell in love. He knocked her up on purpose so that they could be married. I gave up the book for good when both sets of parents learned, to their dismay, that Agnes was pregnant.
I found the historical note and epigraph at the beginning of the story to be far more interesting to me than the fictional story. I learned that the names Hamlet and Hamnet were used interchangeably during Shakespeare’s time and that Shakespeare had a son named Hamnet who died aged eleven. Four year’s after his son’s death, Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. In my opinion, that’s the story.
The book Hamnet has been wildly popular and so has the movie of the same name, however I didn’t like the writing and the romance irked me. Someone who saw me reading the book asked if it was any good and my response was that I wasn’t convinced by it – I suppose what I meant was that the characters and their stories hadn’t become real to me.
However, I am going to see the National Theatre Live’s production of Hamlet soon and am expecting to enjoy that much more.
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