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Hamnet Hardcover – Deckle Edge, July 21, 2020
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Soon to be a major motion picture directed by Chloé Zhao and starring Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, and Joe Alwyn.
England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on.
A young Latin tutor—penniless and bullied by a violent father—falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.
- Print length320 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherKnopf
- Publication dateJuly 21, 2020
- Dimensions6.65 x 1.3 x 9.57 inches
- ISBN-100525657606
- ISBN-13978-0525657606
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From the Publisher
Editorial Reviews
Review
"O'Farrell has a melodic relationship to language. There is a poetic cadence to her writing and a lushness in her descriptions of the natural world. . . . We can smell the tang of the various new leathers in the glover's workshop, the fragrance of the apples racked a finger-width apart in the winter storage shed. . . . As the book unfolds, it brings its story to a tender and ultimately hopeful conclusion: that even the greatest grief, the most damaged marriage, and most shattered heart might find some solace, some healing."
—Geraldine Brooks, the New York Times Book Review
“All too timely . . . inspired. . . . [An] exceptional historical novel ”
—The New Yorker
"Magnificent and searing. . . . A family saga so bursting with life, touched by magic, and anchored in affection. . . . Of all the stories that argue and speculate about Shakespeare’s life, about whether he even wrote his own plays, here is a novel that matches him with a woman overwhelmingly more than worthy."
—The Boston Globe
"A tour de force. . . . Hamnet vividly captures the life-changing intensity of maternity in its myriad stages—from the pain of childbirth to the unassuagable grief of loss. Fierce emotions and lyrical prose are what we've come to expect of O'Farrell."
—NPR
"O'Farrell moves through the family's pain like a master of signs and signals. . . . In Hamnet, art imitates life not to co-opt reality, but to help us bear it."
—Los Angeles Times
"Wholly original, fully engrossing. . . . Agnes is a character for the ages—engimatic, fully formed and nearly literally bewitching to behold in every scene she's in."
—San Francisco Chronicle
“A moving portrait of a mother’s grief. . . . O’Farrell’s prose is characteristically beautiful.”
—The Wall Street Journal
"Miraculous... brilliant... A novel told with the urgency of a whispered prayer — or curse... through the alchemy of her own vision, she has created a moving story about the way loss viciously recalibrates a marriage... A richly drawn and intimate portrait of 16th-century English life set against the arrival of one devastating death."
--Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"What could be more common, over centuries and continents, than the death of a child - and yet Maggie O’Farrell, with her flawless sentences and furious heart, somehow makes it new. This story of remarkable people bereft of their boy will leave you shaking with loss but also the love from which family is spun."
--Emma Donoghue, author of Room
"Grief and loss so finely written I could hardly bear to read it"
--Sarah Moss, author of Ghost Wall
"A bold undertaking, beautifully imagined and written"
--Claire Tomalin, author of Charles Dickens: A Life
"Heartstopping. Hamnet does for the Shakespeare story what Jean Rhys did for Jane Eyre, inhabiting it, enlarging it and enriching it in ways that will alter the readers view for ever"
--Patrick Gale, author of A Place Called Winter
"Exquisite, immersive and compelling… deserves to win prizes"
--Marian Keyes, author of The Break
"It so happens that the child at the center of Hamnet inspired one of civilization’s most famous plays, but in Maggie O’Farrell’s gifted hands, Hamnet feels as real as my own child. The raw physical life of O’Farrell’s Renaissance England is enthralling. But the beating heart of this book is Hamnet’s mother – an indelible, dauntless woman. What a sensual, full-throated love song to the lost child."
--Amity Gaige
"Hamnet is a beautiful read, a devastating one, intricate, and breathtakingly imaginative. It will stay with me a long time"
--Rachel Joyce
"I'm absolutely blown away by Maggie O'Farrell's HAMNET. Love, grief, hope, resilience - the world of this novel is so vivid I could nearly smell the grass in the fields, hear the rain in the gutters. In moments where the story shoots up to heaven I was there, too, grieving with these characters, feeling how lucky we all are to be alive, understanding how desperately we want the people we love to be remembered. It's without a doubt one of the best novels I've ever read."
--Mary Beth Keane, author of Ask Again, Yes
"A bold, beautiful, heart-breaking novel. Maggie has taken on both the most famous writer in the world and the mantle of history with effortless grace. In the process she’s written the book of her life. I’m wildly jealous!"
--Tracy Chevalier
"I don’t know how anyone could fail to love this book. It is a marvel: a great work of imaginative recreation and a great story. It is also a moral achievement to have transformed that young child from being a literary footnote into someone so tenderly alive that part of you wishes he had survived and Hamlet never been written"
--Dominic Dromgoole, author of Hamlet, Globe to Globe
“Evocative. . . . [Hamnet] is also life-affirming as it suggests ways art can transcend misfortune.”
—National Review
“Superb. . . . O’Farrell’s exquisitely wrought eighth novel proves once again what a very fine writer she is.”
—Financial Times
“Elliptical, dreamlike. . . . [Hamnet] confirms O’Farrell as an extraordinarily versatile writer, with a profound understanding of the most elemental human bonds—qualities also possessed by a certain former Latin tutor from Stratford.”
—The Observer (UK)
“A remarkable piece of work. . . . O’Farrell is one of the most surprisingly quiet radicals in fiction.”
—The Scotsman (UK)
“[A] portrayal of grief and pain. . . . O’Farrell describes these agonies with such power that Hamnet would resonate at any time.”
—The Guardian
“[O’Farrell is] a writer of rare emotional intelligence whose personal intimations of mortality bear rich fruit in this, her eighth novel.”
—Evening Standard
“This artfully paced novel is an anatomy of grief. . . . Just when the novel’s second part seems to be moving to a tragic conclusion, it mounts a stunning redemptive volte-face.”
—The Times Literary Supplement
"This striking, painfully lovely novel captures the very nature of grief."
--Booklist [starred review]
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The passage is narrow and twists back on itself. He takes each step slowly, sliding himself along the wall, his boots meeting each tread with a thud.
Near the bottom, he pauses for a moment, looking back the way he has come. Then, suddenly resolute, he leaps the final three stairs, as is his habit. He stumbles as he lands, falling to his knees on the flagstone floor.
It is a close, windless day in late summer, and the downstairs room is slashed by long strips of light. The sun glowers at him from outside, the windows latticed slabs of yellow, set into the plaster.
He gets up, rubbing his legs. He looks one way, up the stairs; he looks the other, unable to decide which way he should turn.
The room is empty, the fire ruminating in its grate, orange embers below soft, spiralling smoke. His injured kneecaps throb in time with his heartbeat. He stands with one hand resting on the latch of the door to the stairs, the scuffed leather tip of his boot raised, poised for motion, for flight. His hair, light-coloured, almost gold, rises up from his brow in tufts.
There is no one here.
He sighs, drawing in the warm, dusty air and moves through the room, out of the front door and on to the street. The noise of barrows, horses, vendors, people calling to each other, a man hurling a sack from an upper window doesn’t reach him. He wanders along the front of the house and into the neighbouring doorway.
The smell of his grandparents’ home is always the same: a mix of woodsmoke, polish, leather, wool. It is similar yet indefinably different from the adjoining two-roomed apartment, built by his grandfather in a narrow gap next to the larger house, where he lives with his mother and sisters. Sometimes he cannot understand why this might be. The two dwellings are, after all, separated by only a thin wattled wall but the air in each place is of a different ilk, a different scent, a different temperature.
This house whistles with draughts and eddies of air, with the tapping and hammering of his grandfather’s workshop, with the raps and calls of customers at the window, with the noise and welter of the courtyard out the back, with the sound of his uncles coming and going.
But not today. The boy stands in the passageway, listening for signs of occupation. He can see from here that the workshop, to his right, is empty, the stools at the benches vacant, the tools idle on the counters, a tray of abandoned gloves, like handprints, left out for all to see. The vending window is shut and bolted tight. There is no one in the dining hall, to his left. A stack of napkins is piled on the long table, an unlit candle, a heap of feathers. Nothing more.
He calls out, a cry of greeting, a questioning sound. Once, twice, he makes this noise. Then he cocks his head, listening for a response.
Nothing. Just the creaking of beams expanding gently in the sun, the sigh of air passing under doors, between rooms, the swish of linen drapes, the crack of the fire, the indefinable noise of a house at rest, empty.
His fingers tighten around the iron of the door handle. The heat of the day, even this late, causes sweat to express itself from the skin of his brow, down his back. The pain in his knees sharpens, twinges, then fades again.
The boy opens his mouth. He calls the names, one by one, of all the people who live here, in this house. His grandmother. The maid. His uncles. His aunt. The apprentice. His grandfather. The boy tries them all, one after another. For a moment, it crosses his mind to call his father’s name, to shout for him, but his father is miles and hours and days away, in London, where the boy has never been.
But where, he would like to know, are his mother, his older sister, his grandmother, his uncles? Where is the maid? Where is his grandfather, who tends not to leave the house by day, who is usually to be found in the workshop, harrying his apprentice or reckoning his takings in a ledger? Where is everyone? How can both houses be empty?
He moves along the passageway. At the door to the workshop, he stops. He throws a quick glance over his shoulder, to make sure nobody is there, then steps inside.
His grandfather’s glove workshop is a place he is rarely allowed to enter. Even to pause in the doorway is forbidden. Don’t stand there idling, his grandfather will roar. Can’t a man do an honest day’s work without people stopping to gawk at him? Have you nothing better to do than loiter there catching flies?
Hamnet’s mind is quick: he has no trouble understanding the schoolmasters’ lessons. He can grasp the logic and sense of what he is being told, and he can memorise readily. Recalling verbs and grammar and tenses and rhetoric and numbers and calculations comes to him with an ease that can, on occasion, attract the envy of other boys. But his is a mind also easily distracted. A cart going past in the street during a Greek lesson will draw his attention away from his slate to wonderings as to where the cart might be going and what it could be carrying and how about that time his uncle gave him and his sisters a ride on a haycart, how wonderful that was, the scent and prick of new-cut hay, the wheels tugged along to the rhythm of the tired mare’s hoofs. More than twice in recent weeks he has been whipped at school for not paying attention (his grandmother has said if it happens once more, just once, she will send word of it to his father). The schoolmasters cannot understand it. Hamnet learns quickly, can recite by rote, but he will not keep his mind on his work.
The noise of a bird in the sky can make him cease speaking, mid-utterance, as if the very heavens have struck him deaf and dumb at a stroke. The sight of a person entering a room, out of the corner of his eye, can make him break off whatever he is doing—eating, reading, copying out his schoolwork—and gaze at them as if they have some important message just for him. He has a tendency to slip the bounds of the real, tangible world around him and enter another place. He will sit in a room in body, but in his head he is somewhere else, someone else, in a place known only to him. Wake up, child, his grandmother will shout, snapping her fingers at him. Come back, his older sister, Susanna, will hiss, flicking his ear. Pay attention, his schoolmasters will yell. Where did you go? Judith will be whispering to him, when he finally re-enters the world, when he comes to, when he glances around to find that he is back, in his house, at his table, surrounded by his family, his mother eyeing him, half smiling, as if she knows exactly where he’s been.
In the same way, now, walking into the forbidden space of the glove workshop, Hamnet has lost track of what he is meant to be doing. He has momentarily slipped free of his moorings, of the fact that Judith is unwell and needs someone to care for her, that he is meant to be finding their mother or grandmother or anyone else who might know what to do.
Skins hang from a rail. Hamnet knows enough to recognise the rust-red spotted hide of a deer, the delicate and supple kidskin, the smaller pelts of squirrels, the coarse and bristling boarskin. As he moves nearer to them, the skins start to rustle and stir on their hangings, as if some life might yet be left in them, just a little, just enough for them to hear him coming. Hamnet extends a finger and touches the goat hide. It is unaccountably soft, like the brush of river weed against his legs when he swims on hot days. It sways gently to and fro, legs splayed, stretched out, as if in flight, like a bird or a ghoul.
Hamnet turns, surveys the two seats at the workbench: the padded leather one worn smooth by the rub of his grandfather’s breeches, and the hard wooden stool for Ned, the apprentice. He sees the tools, suspended from hooks on the wall above the work bench. He is able to identify those for cutting, those for stretching, those for pinning and stitching. He sees that the narrower of the glove stretchers—used for women—is out of place, left on the bench where Ned works with bent head and curved shoulders and anxious, nimble fingers. Hamnet knows that his grandfather needs little provocation to yell at the boy, perhaps worse, so he picks up the glove stretcher, weighing its warm wooden heft, and replaces it on its hook.
He is just about to slide out the drawer where the twists of thread are kept, and the boxes of buttons—carefully, carefully, because he knows the drawer will squeak—when a noise, a slight shifting or scraping, reaches his ears.
Within seconds, Hamnet has darted out, along the passageway and into the yard. His task returns to him. What is he doing, fiddling in the workshop? His sister is unwell: he is meant to be finding someone to help.
He bangs open, one by one, the doors to the cookhouse, the brewhouse, the washhouse. All of them empty, their interiors dark and cool. He calls out again, slightly hoarse this time, his throat scraped with the shouting. He leans against the cookhouse wall and kicks at a nutshell, sending it skittering across the yard. He is utterly confounded to be so alone. Someone ought to be here; someone always is here. Where can they be? What must he do? How can they all be out? How can his mother and grandmother not be in the house, as they usually are, heaving open the doors of the oven, stirring a pot over the fire? He stands in the yard, looking about himself, at the door to the passageway, at the door to the brewhouse, at the door to their apartment. Where should he go? Whom should he call on for help? And where is everyone?
Product details
- Publisher : Knopf
- Publication date : July 21, 2020
- Edition : First American Edition
- Language : English
- Print length : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0525657606
- ISBN-13 : 978-0525657606
- Item Weight : 1.4 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.65 x 1.3 x 9.57 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #23,201 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #10 in Biographical Historical Fiction
- #100 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
- #240 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Maggie O’Farrell, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, is the author of HAMNET, Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020, and the memoir I AM, I AM, I AM, both Sunday Times no. 1 bestsellers. Her novels include AFTER YOU’D GONE, MY LOVER’S LOVER, THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US, which won a Somerset Maugham Award, THE VANISHING ACT OF ESME LENNOX, THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE, which won the 2010 Costa Novel Award, INSTRUCTIONS FOR A HEATWAVE and THIS MUST BE THE PLACE, and THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT. She is also the author of two books for children, WHERE SNOW ANGELS GO and THE BOY WHO LOST HIS SPARK. She lives in Edinburgh.
Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book's story captivating and well-written in present tense, with deep emotional content that heartbreaks and soars throughout the narrative. The characters are fully realized and connect readers to life events in a realistic way, while the book offers a striking way to tell a story about William Shakespeare. The pacing receives mixed reactions, with some finding it slow-moving and others appreciating its timing.
AI Generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book's story beautiful and captivating, with one customer noting how it feels very authentic for its period, and another describing it as a pleasant tale of life in rural England.
"...The characters are well fleshed out and interesting...." Read more
"...The writing is eloquent and evocative. As one consequence of the better writing, the characters gain more dimension...." Read more
"...insanely in love with this book—found the writing breathtaking and imaginative, and the evocations of grief were profound, racking sobs-worthy...." Read more
"...Great story. It made me head to Wikipedia and look up the details on Hamlet and Shakespeare’s early family life." Read more
Customers appreciate the writing style of the book, praising its gorgeous and lyrical prose, and noting that it is written in present tense.
"...A clever story. Beautifully written. Easily 5 stars.*********" Read more
"...Countless others may find the book enthralling and beautifully written and compelling. It left me feeling flat." Read more
"Well researched and well written. More female perspective in literature please" Read more
"Well written but sad and very dark. Familiarity with Hamlet makes it a more interesting read. Would rate 3.5 if available" Read more
Customers find the book highly readable, describing it as brilliant and a satisfying read, with one customer noting that it gets better with each encounter.
"Great read for the enduring hardships of the commoners during the Renaissance period when life fun by the guilds and theatre is becoming a popular..." Read more
"...My heart both broke and soared within these pages. Wonderful." Read more
"...renown of Shakespeare's HAMLET, but it is truly as profound and as beautiful. To me." Read more
"...I loved this book and recommend it especially if you enjoy historical fiction...." Read more
Customers praise the book's emotional depth, describing it as a heart-rending story with very real depictions of grief that make readers' hearts break and soar.
"...Gorgeous prose, both atmospheric and heartbreaking. Hamnet is an incredibly moving story...." Read more
"...The novel is intense. It is about love, loss, and grief, and also about the mystery of creation...." Read more
"...Well-written and moving, this book will appeal to readers of historical fiction and family dramas." Read more
"...She's bright, sensitive, empathic, and has powers (although never named as such in the book, we might say she was a Wiccan)...." Read more
Customers appreciate the character development in the book, noting that the characters are fully realized and connect readers to the story through realistic descriptions of life events.
"...(who’s a strong, fascinating character) and their son Hamnet...." Read more
"...A wonderful character, to be sure, but a completely fictional one...." Read more
"...She is a master portrayer of the human spirit, her characters come alive on every page, and her depiction of the era and culture in which..." Read more
"I so enjoyed the author’s writing style, her descriptions, and characters. She must have done lots of research to produce a book like this...." Read more
Customers appreciate how the book elaborates on Shakespeare's life and family, with one customer noting it provides a fascinating account of English life.
"Well researched and well written. More female perspective in literature please" Read more
"This book was so well researched - the descriptions of life during this time. I have no reservations in..." Read more
"...It’s easy to forget that the story concerns Shakespeare...." Read more
"What a striking way to tell a story about William Shakespeare without once mentioning his name...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the pacing of the book, with some finding it well-timed while others describe it as slow-moving.
"I really enjoyed the writing, pace and detail of this story. The characters felt real (well, they were real) and relatable...." Read more
"...The pacing is a little slower at times, but it gave me time to sit with the characters and their experiences, which I actually appreciated...." Read more
"...vividly depicts the sights and sounds and smells, the slow pace of life in Stratford and the hectic pace of life in London, of the age of Elizabeth...." Read more
"...Yes, it IS slow at times. But sometimes with "slow," you just have to stop and smell the roses. And this book has many, many roses...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the pacing of the book, with some loving Hamnet while others find it cliched and note that it jumps around too much.
"...She bounces around in time for the first half of the book. Even the name Agnes is confusing. William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway...." Read more
"...It's not your heart-burner. But what it is, is something very different and very special...." Read more
"...As has been noted elsewhere, the central point is the sudden, tragic death of Hamnet, the only son of this marriage...." Read more
"...While it did added to the theme of independence, this trope is over used." Read more
Reviews with images

A beautifully-written masterpiece
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2025Format: KindleVerified PurchaseI really loved Hamnet! It’s one of those books that stayed with me after I finished it.
Maggie O’Farrell’s writing is beautiful—thoughtful, descriptive, and emotional without being overdone. The story imagines the life of Shakespeare’s family, particularly his wife Agnes (who’s a strong, fascinating character) and their son Hamnet. Even though I knew how the story would end, I still found myself completely drawn in. The way O’Farrell explores grief, love, and family felt very real and relatable.
The characters were incredibly well-developed and the setting was vivid without being overwhelming. The pacing is a little slower at times, but it gave me time to sit with the characters and their experiences, which I actually appreciated.
I highly recommend.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2022Format: KindleVerified PurchasePerhaps this book suffered from high expectations, but I was disappointed. Frankly, the first part of the book was a slog. It tells the story of Agnes (or Anne) Hathaway working on the family farm and William Shakespeare (never called by name) who is tutoring children in Latin and working for his glovemaker father who is abusive and of dubious character. It tells of their meeting and how they marry. The reader is immersed in the mundane detail of daily life in historic Stratford upon Avon. The history is interesting, but I was not swept away or entranced by the writing. It may not strike you this way, but to me, never using the surname Shakespeare or even calling William by his first name seemed both artificial and pretentious. The book shifts dramatically in its second half. The writing is eloquent and evocative. As one consequence of the better writing, the characters gain more dimension. The difference is so substantial that you could think that it had been written by a different author. As she writes of Agnes’ grief at the death of Hamnet, the reader sees that it is tangible and shattering. The second half of the book is what makes it worth reading. I enjoyed the historic descriptions of the Shakespeare family home, Anne Hathaway’s cottage and the Globe theatre, especially since those are places that I have visited. There is a long section of the book that describes the journey of a plague infested flea and its descendants from Venice to Stratford that is apparently intended to show how through a series of neutral and unexpected events how the plague arrived in small town England. For me, the book would have been better without it. It took me out of the narrative and served more as irritation than illumination. Others in my book group disagreed. This book was a selection for my book group, and it was successful as it led to an interesting discussion.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2022Format: KindleVerified PurchaseWhere to start with this one? I rarely give five stars. In fact, almost never. But the artistry and craftsmanship of this novel are things that some readers have apparently totally missed.
While this book won untold numbers of awards and has many other 5 and 4-star ratings, I am frustrated by the number of reviews that say "This book was slow!" or "This book was boring!" Those readers are certainly owed their opinions, and I'm not here to question them, but I don't know that those readers understand what kind of novel this is. It's not your page-turner. It's not your heart-burner. But what it is, is something very different and very special.
While I would not call myself a Shakespeare scholar, I would confidently call myself a Shakespeare student. I studied his works very extensively in college and have acted in some of his plays. Any serious study of Shakespeare begins with an introduction to his life. And for someone as famous as he, with works as immortal as his, the details of his life are frustratingly scanty.
*SPOILER ALERT*
I think most people who know anything about Shakespeare know that his son Hamnet died, and Hamnet's death was a deciding, changing factor in Shakespeare's life, for good or ill. And no one knows for sure Hamnet's cause of death. And most people who have studied Shakespeare also know that his marriage with Anne/Agnes (I have read that at this point in history, those names were largely interchangeable) was largely spent apart from each other and seems to have deteriorated for reasons unknown to time. We know she was a few years older than he; we know that she was almost certainly pregnant with their first child at the time of their marriage. The rest of the details, no one knows.
This is a brilliant attempt not at imagining him, but imagining her. The wife of a writer so immortal that his works are still being read, interpreted, made into films and other works of art, and reimagined in different eras, 500 years on -- but who was she? And has history ever really cared?
"Hamnet" imagines her as a child of nature -- also a psychic and, in a way, according to the views of the times, a witch. She's clearly smitten by him, and vice versa, and I find that very believable, considering that in real life, they came from different social stations, and one must only speculate what drove them together so powerfully in the beginning of their relationship.
In the novel, she gives up much of her own free thinking, and her own lifestyle, and her kestrel, and other things that make her happy, out of love of this man. I would ask, what woman of the late 16th century did not? If you were a woman of this era, no matter how much you loved the man you married (and I would argue that most marriages of this time did not feature love, so you probably didn't love him at all), marriage meant the death of you as to whoever was you, whoever was the individual you were before. Among many, many other things, I think "Hamnet" is an incredible exploration of that, emotionally.
And it's a shattering, unbelievably intimate and emotionally descriptive dive into the gradual disintegration of a marriage based on the horror and heartbreak of the loss of a mutually loved child.
The fact that Shakespeare's first name -- or that his name in general -- is never used, to me is a stroke of art. It implies that the reader knows who HE is ... doesn't everyone? It is an introspection of a woman NO ONE knows, and he is a supporting character -- yet, brilliantly, at the same time, he is the main character. Because the planets circled him, not her. He's portrayed as self-absorbed and troubled and needy -- and at least in my own imagination, I can see him being all of those things.
If my review henceforth hasn't made this clear, I thought this was a brilliant book. Yes, it IS slow at times. But sometimes with "slow," you just have to stop and smell the roses. And this book has many, many roses. And people who don't have time to smell the roses when it comes to literature just need to go read something else, rather than criticizing works like this. Amazon's full of beach reads -- go find one.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2025Format: KindleVerified PurchaseHeartbreakingly beautiful and evocative. Not a wasted word. No knowledge of Shakespeare necessary but it multiplies the pleasures of this beautiful book and its perfectly pitched climax.
Top reviews from other countries
- Antonio AguilarReviewed in Mexico on March 23, 2021
5.0 out of 5 stars Climaxes into a wonderful, painful, story
Format: HardcoverVerified PurchaseThis story is told with such creativity, and novelty, that it takes some time to get a hold of what is happening. After a few pages (10-20?) the reader begins to grasp the author's voice and intent. From then on, you start to realice that the novel is filled with scenes that take place in different times, but with the same characters. It is very clever and it is up to the reader to understand this.
I think of the first two parts of the book (it has three), as if I was in the middle of a double helix (as the DNA strand). In one side is the story of Hamnet's birth and in the other is the story of Hamnet's death. And the helix is constantly moving from one side to the other in a constant swirl that peaks at the moment in which life and death are happening. As I said very clever.
At some point, the story made me remember the start of 100 Years of Solitude. With the time shifting in the life of Coronel Buendia from one period to another in Macondo. But do not get me wrong. This is not a magical realism novel, nor it intents to be. It is a novel in which a great story is being told with full control of the author. It shows an author in full control of its trade and this is always welcome news to us readers.
So please, stop reading this commentary and read the book.
- Mahta TayyarReviewed in Turkey on June 17, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Mutlaka okunmalı
-
takakoReviewed in Japan on October 13, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars Shakespeare's family life
本文に入る前に、 Historical note として、次の文が記されている。
In the 1580s, a couple living in Henry Street, Stratford, had three children: Susanna, then Hamnet and Judith, who were twins.
The boy, Hamnet, died in 1596, aged eleven.
Four years or so later, the father wrote a play called Hamlet.
本書はロンドンの友人が薦めてくれた。クラシック文学を好む彼女は次のように書いてきた。
This book really brought alive Shakespeare's period of time to me. We sadly know so little about his actual life so a lot of it is imaginary but it's very plausible.
Stratford の農家の娘である Agnes (Anne Hathaway) は自然や動物を愛し、特殊な能力も垣間見せ、グラブ職人の息子でありながら、家業に馴染めず、子どもたちにラテン語を教えている若者と恋に落ちて、結婚し、3人の子どもを儲ける。Agnes の家族構成は複雑だが、実の弟との絆は深い。両家の生活を通して1580年代当時の佇まいがあれこれ想像されて興味深い。全体的に淡々と静かな筆致で描かれ美しい。
Agnes の夫は常に her husband 、のちには the father と記されて一度も固有名詞としては出てこない。無気力な夫を心配し、Agnes は弟と相談して、彼をロンドンに向かわせる。それが私たちが知る Shakespeare を生み出すことになるのだが、そこに至るまでには様々な苦悩がある。当時の Stratford と London はあまりに遠い。まれにしか帰ってこない夫、間遠になっていく手紙のやり取り。時折浮かぶ疑惑。庭に様々な薬草を栽培して人助けをする Agnes 。森の中で一人で産み落とした長女 Susanna は賢く成長している。やがて Hamnet と Judith の双子が生まれる。この双子は見た目もそっくりで、心も深い絆でつながっているが、当時襲ったペストに先にJudith が罹り、亡くなるのは Hamnet 。このあたりの事情はミステリアスだ。息子を亡くした Agnes の悲嘆ぶりが痛ましい。
この物語はあくまで Agnes の視点で描かれていて、her husband または the father は常に間接的なのだが、終末には彼の心情も吐露される。
Hamlet の上演のビラを目にした Agnes は、狂気さながら弟の助けを得て、ロンドンへ向かう。ついに辿り着いた the Globe Theatre での様子には心をうたれる。400年後に再建されたTheatre をしばしば訪れた私としては感慨深いものがあったが、それにもまして Agnes の心の動きには、淡々と続いてきた本書の圧巻のクライマックスを感じた。
Hamlet, here, on this stage, is two people, the young man, alive, and the father, dead. He is both alive and dead. Her husband has brought him back to life, in the only way he can.
本書はイギリスで、The 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction を受賞した。
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Maria Angelica Martinez RiveraReviewed in Italy on June 23, 2025
5.0 out of 5 stars Stupendo
Bellissimo! Da leggere piano per farlo durare più a lungo
- Janie UReviewed in the United Kingdom on June 1, 2021
5.0 out of 5 stars Explores the whole range of human emotions in a beautiful, lyrical novel
I'd been recommended to read this book by many people so was looking forward to finally getting the paperback whilst also being slightly apprehensive that it may not meet up to expectations. Maggie O'Farrell is a great writer though and I've loved many of her other books so I felt in safe hands.
There are 370 pages split into 2 parts which are before and after Hamnet dies (not a spoiler as we know this is going to happen from the start). The chapters move back and forward to cover both Hamnet's illness/death and his parents earlier lives.
The prose has a beautiful lyrical rhythm which is rare in novels and is very compelling to read. I'm not a fan of audio books but I would imagine this would be a good way to experience this book.
Hamnet's father is never mentioned by name which is initially curious as there is no doubt that he is William Shakespeare, we also never hear the family's name being used. The story might have been overpowered by the fame of Will Shakespeare so it's very clever not to mention him. The reader knows it is him but his name isn't allowed to take anything away from the hugely emotional story of the love between a son and a mother.
I thought the descriptions were deep and simply gorgeous. Maggie O'Farrell has a way of using multiple metaphors in a passage of text which gently emphasise, creating images which could be physical or emotional.
The language continue with it's musicality throughout the book with the author slipping in a few words that would be been popular use in the 16th century - this gives the narrative a genuine feel without distracting from the wonderful story ("No one is abroad" meaning "No one is out" as a simple example). It's interesting to consider how words have changed their usage and this subtle touch adds depth to the setting.
MF allows herself the luxury of moving away from the main story occasionally. At one point we follow the journey of a flea through Europe which gives a chapter full of historical context which also explores the senses and emotions on the way.
Some characters are more prominent than others but the reader is always given a well rounded view of the story, looking in from varying perspectives.
I found this an emotional book to read as it explores all the elements of what it is to be human - encouraging the reader to understand Agnes's connection with her feelings, be they joy, grief and everything in between. At the same time the reader needs to look at themselves considering the whole gambit of emotions and how we handle them ourselves.