“Hamnet” Review

 🎭 Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell was one of those books that you keep reading even if you’re not entirely taken by the plot, just because it is written so beautifully, you just can’t have enough of it. 💙

🌞 Hamnet is mostly a book of fiction, there are very few historical records about Shakespeare and his family, save from the dates of baptism and death. The book is centered, like the title gives away, around the Bard’s only son, Hamnet and his premature death.

However, we are also told how his parents met and what brought the poet to move to London to start his career as a playwright. 

I particularly appreciated how Shakespeare is never named, he’s the glover’s son, Agnes’ husband, his children’s father. He is shown in all his humanity, no mythification.

This book is about love, loss, grief and family. O’Farrell explores a mother’s grief for the death of her son with such delicacy, respect and kindness that it is impossible not to cry. Human feelings, good or ugly, are explored in such depth and with such poetry that this book felt like a balm for my soul. 📖

🦋 Plot-wise, I found it a bit poor. The book was over 400 pages long and it was divided into chapters about the “present” and the past. While the chapters about Agnes and her husband’s past spread across years of narrative, the present ones only covered the half-day that will take for Hamnet to fall ill with the plague and sadly pass away. Thankfully, in the second part of the book, the time frame stretches to cover up until four years after his death and it ends with Hamlet’s premiere at The Globe Theatre in London. ✨

I believe that I enjoyed it more since I went to visit Shakespeare’s birthplace and house two years ago. There are many, many references to the house, the garden, the street where the house still stands and I could easily imagine all these characters walking along those walls. I’m not sure if I would have enjoyed it as much if I hadn’t visited it.

However, I would definitely recommend anyone who enjoys historical fictions and English literature to give this book a read as it is definitely worth it!