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A review by emilymknight
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.25
I read Hamlet recently and knew I needed to read this!!!
I love anything Shakespeare so a fictional retelling of his family and his son, Hamnet, who died young sounded like a very interesting book to me. While I definitely appreciated how the plot unfolded and the way the feeling of grief was crafted, I just couldn’t completely vibe with O’Farrell’s style of writing. Every line was embellished with metaphors, similes, etc, so it felt like it almost held you back as you read? If you stripped all that away, I feel like it’d be a great 250 page book that you could easily breeze through - however, I appreciate that it is probably O’Farrell’s style!
Personally I love the idea that Shakespeare wrote a play named after his late son. Even though there are not many similarities between a Prince of Denmark or a Ghost of an old King with a young boy from Stratford, I find it heart-warming that the memory of a son stays alive for centuries after his death as people speak his name through the play. His named is immortalised through the play :') and I like that a lot.
I think a reread of Hamlet is definitely needed now!
I love anything Shakespeare so a fictional retelling of his family and his son, Hamnet, who died young sounded like a very interesting book to me. While I definitely appreciated how the plot unfolded and the way the feeling of grief was crafted, I just couldn’t completely vibe with O’Farrell’s style of writing. Every line was embellished with metaphors, similes, etc, so it felt like it almost held you back as you read? If you stripped all that away, I feel like it’d be a great 250 page book that you could easily breeze through - however, I appreciate that it is probably O’Farrell’s style!
Personally I love the idea that Shakespeare wrote a play named after his late son. Even though there are not many similarities between a Prince of Denmark or a Ghost of an old King with a young boy from Stratford, I find it heart-warming that the memory of a son stays alive for centuries after his death as people speak his name through the play. His named is immortalised through the play :') and I like that a lot.
I think a reread of Hamlet is definitely needed now!
”Agnes bends forward to touch her lips to his forehead. And there, by the fire, held in the arms of his mother, in the room in which he learnt to crawl, to eat, to walk, to speak, Hamnet takes his last breath.”