Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Agnes is a wild creature who roams the area owned by her family while carrying a falcon in her glove. She is renowned across the countryside for her extraordinary healing abilities and for knowing more about plants and medicines than she does about people. When she and her young husband move to Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she transforms into a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in her husband’s life. His career on the London stage is just beginning to take off when his adored young son passes away from an unexpected fever.
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
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Hamnet is mesmerizing, seductive, and impossible to put down; it is a magnificent step forward from one of our most talented novelists. It is a luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a tender and unforgettable reimagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten and whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time.
I believe that the majority of individuals who are familiar with Shakespeare are aware that his son Hamnet passed away and that Hamnet’s passing had a significant, positive or negative impact on Shakespeare’s life. Furthermore, no one is certain of Hamnet’s cause of death. And most Shakespeare scholars are also aware that Shakespeare’s marriage to Anne (or Agnes; I have heard that these names were frequently used at this period in history) was primarily spent apart from one another and appears to have deteriorated for reasons unknown to time. We are aware that she was a few years older than him and that, at the time of their marriage, she was virtually likely expecting their first child. Nobody is aware of the remaining information.
She is shown in “Hamnet” as a child of nature who is both telepathic and, in a way, a witch, depending on the viewpoints of the day. Given that they came from different socioeconomic classes in real life and that she is obviously captivated by him, I think it to be extremely realistic. One can only hypothesize as to what initially brought them together with such fervour. She sacrifices a lot of her freedom of thought, lifestyle, kestrel, and other wonderful things in the book because she loves this man. What women in the late 16th century did not, is what I would enquire.
When you get married, you lose who you were as a person and the identity you had previously. Among a plethora of other things, I believe “Hamnet” is a fantastic emotional examination of that. And it’s a heartbreaking, incredibly close-knit, and intensely descriptive look at the slow breakdown of a marriage caused by the tragedy and anguish of losing a shared child.
