Hamnet, by Maggie O'Farrell

[Lyn]

It's time to start discussing Hamnet!

I enjoyed this book, and will give more details of my response later, after I hear from a few of you.

Shakespeare did have a son named Hamnet, who died at age 11 in 1596. Although I don't think we know how he died, bubonic plague was afoot. His wife has been called Anne, but Shakespeare has referred to her in writing as Agnes.

Here is a literary review of the book:
https://www.theliteraryreview.org/boo...

Here are a few notes from the author:
https://www.goodreads.com/notes/49856...

So, how did you like this novel? Favorite parts and lesser aspects?

[Joan]

I can pick up my copy tomorrow. I am looking forward to this.

[Barbara]

I am a little over halfway through it. Will be back as soon as I finish!

[Mary]

I have it on hold but it’s going to be a couple of weeks.

[Mary]

Just read the review you posted, which is beautifully written. I’m now even more eager to read this book.

[Ruth]

I borrowed it from the library as an ebook a few months ago. Completely forgot it was one of our discussion books. Wish I had the book now to refresh my memory. I liked it a lot.

[spoko]

Just finished it a few days ago, and enjoyed it all the way through. Don't have any points to raise at the moment, but can't wait to see the discussion get going in here.

[Blaine]

I had a few reservations about this book (I always do) but I thought it was wonderfully evocative of the experience of living in a small village at this time in history and the occasional contrast with the dimly perceived world of London, both as a physical place and as a cultural influence.

I also thought the portrayal of Agnes's thoughts and feelings was perfectly done. The language was so immediate and direct, her second guessing of herself so believable.

[spoko]

Ben wrote: “I thought it was wonderfully evocative of the experience of living in a small village at this time in history and the occasional contrast with the dimly perceived world of London ...”

I did too. One passage that really sticks with me is the description of the letter’s journey from Agnes to Will. Such a great exposition of a world that’s barely imaginable today. My cynical mind kept thinking “but why would that person (for each person in the chain) even bother?” The obvious answer is that society functioned according to a set of priorities and understandings that are pretty foreign to us today, and I loved O’Farrell’s way of showing-not-telling that reality.

[Ann D]

I finished this last weekend. I think it is exceptionally well-written. I really liked the poetic writing. As an example, here is the description of the forest by Agnes’s childhood home.

You might find it a restless, verdant, inconstant sight: the wind caresses, ruffles, disturbs the mass of leaves; each tree answers to the weather’s ministrations at a slightly different tempo from its neighbour, bending and shuddering and tossing its branches, as if trying to get away from the air, from the very soil that nourishes it. page 25

Of course, the relationships between Agnes and Will and between Agnes and her son are primary but this is also a story about other relationships: Will and Agnes’s relationships with their own parents and their other children, interactions between grandparents and grandchildren, and the ties– and brokenness- between siblings. I shared Judith’s grief in searching for that half of her that had been wrenched away when Hamnet died, understood Susanna's resentment of her mother and sister, and even found sympathy for Will's inability to stay with his family at the risk of sacrificing his art. In fact, I identified so closely with these characters that I found parts of the story simply heartbreaking.

I realize that almost nothing is known about Agnes (Anne's) life, and I liked this telling of an imagined life. I appreciated the historical details about things such as the glove making business, village life and gossip, the medical use of herbs, and the difficulties in traveling 103 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon to London, which took days instead of hours. The descriptions of the city of London were pretty awful. Agnes was right; Judith would never have survived there. The only part I found historically questionable was the willingness of people to come into such close contact with a plague victim after Hamnet died.

My favorite part of the novel was the ending. Agnes finally sees the play Hamlet and understands how Will worked through his grief by letting his son live again as the hero of the play. In effect, the father and son change places, with Hamlet’s father (Will) dying, and Hamlet continuing his life – for a while at least. This being a tragedy, everyone we care about dies in the end.

[Ruth]

Thank you, Ann, for such a long and detailed comment. It refreshed my memory about the book and why I liked it so much. I agree with everything you said.

[Donna]

I agree with all that Ann has said. I loved that, as readers, we were immersed in the Elizabethan world in a very seamless way as the storyline unfolded. The descriptions of grieving after Hamnet’s death were stunning and heart breaking.

[Lyn]

Thanks, everyone, for kicking us off. I agree with everything Ben, spoko, and Ann has said.

I would add to spoko's mention of the path of a letter depicted (I also loved this) that I liked the tracing of the path of a flea in the transmission of the bubonic plague.

I loved what O'Farrell made in the characters of Agnes and Will. I was absorbed in the family dynamics even without the Shakespeare connection.

I did love this book and would give it about a 4.5, especially for the imagination and research combination that brought it forth.

Some trifling negatives, to see if there is any agreement or disagreement with me out there:
1) I found the language at times to be a bit overwrought.
2) I am rarely fond of "magic" in a story (though I don't consider Agnes' herbs and tinctures, or even special gifts, to be objectionable magic). What I was iffy about was Hamnet trading places with Judith to "trick death" and it then working. Was this necessary? In reality, Hamnet's maneuver would have just gotten them both killed of bubonic plague. Would there have been another way to write Hamnet's death that would be just as interesting and yet not involve magic?

[Blaine]

I agree, Lyn. The use and existence of the supernatural was one of my reservations in the book. I thought it was unnecessary in depicting the practices and beliefs of a different time.

I would have been happier if she had written it as something the characters believed, rather than giving it an objective presence in the novel.

[Ruth]

Ben wrote: "I agree, Lyn. The use and existence of the supernatural was one of my reservations in the book. I thought it was unnecessary in depicting the practices and beliefs of a different time.

I would ha..."
Yes.

[Stephen]

I started this on Monday night and really enjoying it so far.

[Gina]

There are 35 people ahead of me at the library so it will be a long time before I can read this. However, I'm looking forward to it.

[Ann D]

Gina,
I hope the library has multiple copies!

[spoko]

Ann D wrote: "Gina,
I hope the library has multiple copies!"

If there are 35 holds on it, they certainly should! The public library in my city tries to keep the hold queue below 5!

[Ann D]

Lyn and Ben,
I understand your reservations about the role of the supernatural in this book. I am not a big fan of magic realism, but I have grown more accepting of it in recent years.

O'Farrell prepared us a little for these incursions. Agnes's mother was rumored to be a kind of forest sprite with magical powers. (Of course, any woman who practiced herbal medicine was suspect by many in a community). Agnes herself recognized that she sometimes had the ability to see into the future, although not to change it. Both Agnes and her daughter Judith came very close to crossing the line between the known and unknown world.

That said, I accepted Hamnet's pact with Death to take his life instead of his twin's. Maybe it was meant to be an hallucination, but I think that exchange mirrors what many people feel when they are about to lose someone very dear: take me, and spare the other.

Hamnet snuck into the bed with his sister while his mother was sleeping. Of course, you are right about this behavior not being rational - but then this was an 11 year old child.

What I did have some trouble with was the attitude of the family after Hamnet's death. His body definitely bore the signs of the plague, yet his uncle told Agnes that the women were there and prepared to get his body ready for burial. Both Bartholomew and Hamnet's father touched his body in farewell. They carried the body through the city. In the real world, I think everyone - except his mother- would have stayed very far away.

But then, this is a story, and this part served the narrative very well.

[Donna]

I’m not usually a fan of magical realism either, but in the case of Hamnet “trading places” with Judith, I felt it was written in such a way as to leave it open for interpretation. Yes, Hamnet wished it to be so, but his own illness was already heavily foreshadowed, leaving it quite plausible that his condition worsened while Judith’s improved. At least that’s how I remember it.

[Joan]

I’m only up to the part when the adult women return home. I have enjoyed many parts but I am struggling with the shifts in time with each chapter. I’ve enjoyed many books that alternate time & plot so I cannot explain why this one is irritating me.

[Ann D]

I agree, Donna. Hamnet was already showing symptoms.

[spoko]

Ann D wrote: “I agree, Donna. Hamnet was already showing symptoms.”

What I didn’t get was that most of the foreboding seemed to indicate the blow from his grandfather as the thing that would kill him. Even after he died, I kept looking for a reveal that they were wrong about it being the disease.

[Joan]

I’m not to the part when he died yet but I had been reading his early “turns” as sort of psychic connections with the other side of death — esp similar to his Mom & maternal grandmother’s vision

[Mary]

My name finally came to the top of the hold list. I started reading (listening) this afternoon. I’m hooked. It is beautifully written.

[Lyn]

Nice! Please check back in and comment on some of the issues raised here when you've finished.

[Mary]

I’m almost half way through. Today two things struck me. First, it seemed so fitting that Agnes snuck away to the forest to give birth to her first child. She always felt safe there...and close to her mother...and that would be such a comfort in an era when women so routinely died in childbirth. Writing that reminded me that she thought to herself that she knew she and the newborn would both live. And that reminds me that earlier in the story she thought about telling Will that they would have two children who would live long lives and then she decided not to tell him, which makes me wonder whether she knew then that they would have a child who dies and that was why she didn’t tell him. Second, I agree that the section describing the details of how the plague arrived in Warwick England was engrossing. It made me think of the butterfly effect, which I’ve found fascinating since I first heard the term many years ago. And O’Farrell’s detailed description is so much more effective than a scientific description of the butterfly effect in chaos theory.

[Mary]

2/3 of the way through it tonight. The twins are born. How gruesome! And now she understands her foreknowledge to mean that one child will die. And she defies that intuition and wills it not to come to fruition. It seems to me that Hamnet would grow up having a child’s sense, and particularly a twin’s sense, that Judith is vulnerable, that their mother is fiercely protective of her. I wonder if that will explain why he offers himself up as the substitute victim of the plague.

[Mary]

I finished this book last night. This morning I gave it one more star. It is inventive. The author’s ability to express the intense sense of loss and disorientation that comes with losing a child is astonishing. I’m not a huge fan of the occult or magical realism but it is mostly consistent with England at that time, particularly the more rural areas.