Don’t judge a book by its cover and don’t judge it by a film based on it, they say. Both is true for Maggie O’Farrell’s „Hamnet“ – but in different ways. Whereas the film – a major favourite for the Oscars with a brilliant Jessie Buckley as the overall strong wife Agnes to Paul Mescal’s William Shakespeare – isn’t that easy to understand if you don’t have any idea about Shakespeare’s life, let alone know all the characters. The book goes deeper because it does what a good book (and a good author) does: leading the reader into the mind, the joys and sorrows of the figures and bring them to life.
„Agnes (…) keeps bees here, in hemp-woven skeps, which hum with industrious and absorbed life.“
Placed in a world where we yet have no knowledge of how to handle serious diseases like those spreading in the summer of 1596 in Henley, where Hamnet’s twin sister is seriously ill. But it isn’t Judith who will die a painful death in her early life but in an unlikely, quite magical turn of events, her brother. Agnes stricken by unbearable grief, can’t cope with the loss of her son and it seems that she will never recover from this blow of life, a blow, she apparently has to bear alone because her husband who will soon become the famous playwright William Shakespeare, lives in London – a huge city far away from his family.
„There are many who rely on me in London.“
Maggie O’Farrells „Hamnet“ tells a story of Shakespeare’s son Hamnet – or Hamlet – who as far as we learn from history – died at the age of 11, four years before one of the most famous plays of all times „Hamlet“ was written. But Maggie O’Farrell’s story isn’t about this play and it isn’t about Shakespeare. „Hamnet“ is about women – especially Agnes – her knowledge about nature, herbs, trees and how to keep bees, a knowledge some would describe as witchcraft. And it is about love, loss and grief and how to cope with them. By switching between times on a regular basis, the story doesn’t get confusing but fascinating and makes „Hamnet“ a must-read.
Maggie O’Farrell: Hamnet, Headline, about 10£.
Die deutsche Übersetzung ist unter dem Titel „Judith und Hamnet“ bei Piper erschienen.