Literary Wives is a quarterly online book club which considers the question: What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife? You can read all about the club and its previous choices on whatmeread’s blog here. When I saw on Naomi’s blog that the December choice would be Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell (2020) I thought this would be a great incentive to pick it off the TBR and join in!
Hamnet is historical fiction, taking the death of William Shakespeare’s only son at age 11 as its inspiration. It’s generally thought that this bereavement was the impetus behind Hamlet. But Hamnet Shakespeare had a mother too, and she is the focus of the novel:
“Every life has its kernel, its hub, its epicentre, from which everything flows out, to which everything returns. This moment is the absent mother’s: the boy, the empty house, the deserted yard, the unheard cry. […] It will lie at her very core, for the rest of her life.”
The plot moves back and forth between the present illness and then death of Hamnet, and the life of his mother Agnes Hathaway (as named in her father’s will although historical discussions usually refer to her as Anne). She is a misfit in late sixteenth-century Stratford society. She has a dowry, but her behaviour – flying hawks, understanding the healing powers of herbs, taking long walks – is problematic.
“She grows up feeling wrong, out of place, too dark, too tall, too unruly, too opinionated, too silent, too strange. She grows up with the awareness that she is merely tolerated, an irritant, useless, that she does not deserve love, that she will need to change herself substantially, crush herself down if she is to be married.”
She doesn’t have to crush herself down though, because the local Latin tutor finds her fascinating and doesn’t ask her to change.
“He is, he prides himself, adept at dissembling, at reading the thoughts of others, at guessing which way they will jump, what they will do next. Life with a quick-tempered parent will hone these skills at an early age.”
And Agnes marries into this unhappy home without quite knowing what she is getting into. She finds a way for her (never named) husband and her to survive her father-in-law’s temper and raise their three children. Like her husband, she sees and understands more than most people, although her skills come from a different source, an innate and psychic knowledge.
“They are women, mostly, and she seats them by the fire, in the good chair, while she takes their hands and holds them in her own, while she grinds some roots, some plant leaves, a sprinkling of petals. They leave with a cloth parcel or a tiny bottle, stoppered with paper and beeswax, their face is easier, lightened.”
Reading Hamnet was an interesting experience for me. I kept thinking: ‘Is this overwritten? Am I enjoying this or not?’ and for quite a while I wasn’t sure. Ultimately I decided it was overwritten but that I was still enjoying it 😀 I think this was because the overwritten aspects seemed to be an enthusiasm by O’Farrell to immerse the reader in the historical setting, rather than prove how clever she was and delight in her own brilliance. The scenes after Hamnet dies I found truly moving.
Agnes is a wonderful character, strong and fully realised. Anne Hathaway tends to be somewhat disregarded – the wife who stayed at home while her brilliant husband gallivanted around the City writing poems to dark ladies and fair youths. Hamnet makes Agnes a formidable woman while not rewriting history.
I liked the portrayal of Shakespeare too – limited contemporary accounts suggest he was good fun when he did go to the tavern, but these occasions were rare. That he was quiet and gentle, and very frugal, focussed on setting up financial security in Stratford. This is who O’Farrell has portrayed here.
What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?
The marriage in Hamnet is not always happy but it is always grounded in a deep love for one another. It is a marriage between two strongly individual people who endure tragedy and their very different ways of managing it.
Agnes doesn’t lose herself when she becomes wife. She doesn’t lose her identity within that of being Mrs Shakespeare, even though she’s married to a writer whose wider adoration is so extensive it has its own noun. Agnes is definitely not one for Bardolatry, grounded as she is by the demands of domestic family life and her own work.
Agnes marries for love the man of her choosing. Within a society that restricts women’s roles and where her skills in particular could be quite a danger for her, she perseveres along her own path. She shows how wives can be the lynchpin of a family, and the importance of unconditional love.
“What she desires is for him to stay at her side, for his hand to remain in hers. For him to be there, in the house, when she brings this baby into the world. For them to be together. What she desires, though, does not matter. He is going. She is, however secretly, sending him away.”
To end, the RSC is currently staging an adaptation of Hamnet and I enjoyed seeing the posters all over the tube as I sat there reading the book:
Hamnet is now on my reading list
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great! I hope you enjoy it.
LikeLike
A very persuasive review! I’m not much of an historical fiction fan – Hilary Mantel has set that particular bar so high – but I might take a look at this after all.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Susan! This is definitely not in the pared-back, precise style that you and I enjoy, but once I’d given myself over to it I did enjoy it. Hope you do too if you decide to give it a try.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Another that I have been hoping to get to, and I’m so glad to see from your review how good it sounds. I like that it seems to portray her as a strong and individual character without seeming anachronistic as characters in some historical fiction tend to be. Loved reading your thoughts on this one, Madame Bibi!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Mallika! It was cleverly done in making Agnes believable for her time, but unusual for it too. I hope you enjoy this if you get to it. I’ll look forward to hearing how you find it!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m pleased to see how positive you are about this one Madame B, as I’ve seen mixed thoughts on it and have felt a bit wary because of my aversion to fictionalised real people. But it does sound as if it deserves its praise and really works!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can understand the mixed reviews for sure, it nearly didn’t work for me. I’m also wary of fictionalised real people but I didn’t mind this as Anne Hathaway has been discussed and portrayed so much, but somehow reduced. This felt a nice redressing of the balance!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You and Naomi have persuaded me to give this a go, I especially liked your comment about the overwriting and I’m looking forward to being caught up in Maggie O’Farrell’s passion!
LikeLiked by 1 person
So glad we’ve persuaded you Jane! I really hope you enjoy it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for joining our club this month and for the mention! Please make a comment with a link to your post on one of our blogs. (Our posts are not all up yet, but we’re getting there.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Historical fiction from this era isn’t my genre, but I’m glad you enjoyed it in the end. The characterisation sounds good, and I like the sense that the author’s enthusiasm for her setting comes through. (Friends have tickets to see the stage adaptation, so I’ll be interested to hear how they find it!)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nor me Jacqui, but I was pleased with how I found this ultimately! I’d be very interested to hear how the adaptation works, it’s quite an internal book so I’d like to know how they translate that to the stage.
LikeLike
I’m afraid this one lost any appeal for me when I learned she’d changed Anne’s name to Agnes – don’t care if there’s a single mention of that in a will, her name has always been Anne!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Fair enough FF!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You make good observations about this novel. I often like fiction other people find a bit over-written! https://necromancyneverpays.wordpress.com/2021/07/30/hamnet/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Jeanne! I will check out your link.
LikeLike
I really enjoyed this when I read it. I thought having Agnes at the centre of the narrative worked particularly well. As you say, she never lost herself.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great to hear you enjoyed this too Ali. She’s such a strong character isn’t she? She could definitely carry the story.
LikeLike
I’m so happy you joined in! 🙂
I like that you point out that they married for love, which is a huge deal – I was too busy being angry at Shakespeare to see anything else very clearly. Ha!
I would LOVE to see that play!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I really enjoyed joining in Naomi, thank you to you and the other LWs for organising it! I think there’s a good chance that play will tour, and be recorded, so I hope you get a chance to see it 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, good!
LikeLiked by 1 person
And what an interesting tie-in with Hag-Seed, too!
Several years back I enjoyed Mr. Shakespeare’s Bastard by the Canadian writer Richard B. Wright (whose Clara Callan is a real favourite of mine) and I found the way he did and didn’t write about Shakespeare very satisfying too.
LikeLike