I just don’t think the play Hamlet is, in any way shape or form, about the grief of losing a child. That’s just…not the play’s concern. As an origin story for one of the most famous plays of all time, it simply doesn’t work.
I thought the film was more enjoyable than the book, but that may partly have been because it was filmed near to where I live. I admire Maggie O'Farrell's success and enjoyed I am, I am, I am, but it was a relief to hear someone whose views I respect who didn't enjoy Hamnet as my dislike of it met with incredulity among my writing group and other friends. Apart from the witchy stuff and the violent father which both felt heavy handed, my particular gripe is O'Farrell's obsession with writing adjectives and adverbs in clusters of three. In the passage you quoted she talks of a 'musky, dank, salty, smell' and once you notice that tendency its impossible to unsee it in every paragraph.
So pleased to read a review by someone else who didn't think much of the book. Sometimes I think certain books are chosen for the hype and we are led to believe they are better than they are (I can think of a few where I haven't understood the consensus that they're brilliant - The Salt Path is one). I found Hamnet mawkish and relentlessly miserable. And I felt sorry for poor Judith always playing second fiddle. The woo-woo irritated me. Why didn't someone denounce Agnes as a witch? It was all the rage then...I don't intend to see the film although I love Jessie Buckley and her extraordinary ability to inhabit a role.
I remember enjoying Hamnet – I mean, I liked it enough to finish it, which is by no means a given – without thinking it was particularly believable. But I do find the contemporary habit of projecting hippyshit onto our ancestors, rather than the things we know they believed in profoundly, really annoying.
Yes... I think I generally want to have a fairly accepting view of anachronisms... Writers have a right to create their own worlds... But the political/religious/gender/hippyshit (lovely word!) projections do still annoy me. It always feels like an attempt to crowbar our world into the past. Or, worse, to make the past conform to our own modish prejudices.
I'm aware I'm far too easily triggered by trivialities. Eg, it really irked me that Mantel has Cromwell use the word 'upcountry'. It just felt wrong to me and it soured my experience of the rest of the book. Which I freely admit is just silly…
Borges says somewhere that there's no such thing as a historical novel. You can only write a contemporary novel, wherever and whenever you choose to set it. That's true enough, I guess, but I don't see the point of historical fiction where the past is just set dressing for the author's 21st century social circle.
I read Carys Davis's Clear last year. It was nicely written (and short! I like short!) but I didn't believe a word of it. Nothing persuaded me that the characters in that place and in that time would have behaved as she had them behave. (She has her 19th century Scots use the word 'hardscrabble'. That irked me too.)
Actually, I have a soft spot for hippyshit. And it does have a place in the past, of course. But it shouldn't be the default option…
I didn’t like the book but enjoyed the movie even with its lack of authenticity. Personally, I’ve always felt Anthony Burgess’s take on Hathaway was the most convincing
The review and your post create a masterclass in how not to write a novel. Death in Venice was the first novel I read in which the author created a genius and then quoted them and I have continued to be horrified by the device ever since. It's good that O'Farrell mostly avoids it, but when she doesn't she really shows the pitfalls. I also love what you say about the ludicrousness of making Agnes a 'magic' woman. I deeply dislike the contemporary tendency in women's fiction to insist on either paragons or sad girls as main protagonists. Not helpful, not interesting, not creative. I haven't actually read Hamnet because I don't read novels in which children die - I don't need that level of manipulation in my life! Excellent post, Sam.
I've read a lot of Maggie O and really loved some of her contemporary novels, my favourite being The Hand That First Held Mine. (Brilliant novel.) But I found Hamnet to be not very interesting and I was unmoved by it. Over-blown mediocrity... which Big Publishing seems to set so much store by. It's been tiresomely over-hyped by the publisher, but it is absolutely an "average" novel. I hope she goes back to contemporary fiction, because I think that's where her strength lies.
I haven't read any of her other books - but it's at least clear from Hamnet that she knows how to write a sentence... She's got talent. Hope she writes something you enjoy soon!
That one should feel required to apologize for trouncing mediocirity in one's past is an unfortunate aspect of our cultural present, which is all about mediocrity. That the apology should come from a person who has done so much to uphold the highest literary standards in our culture with GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS, putting his own money at risk year after year to fly in the face of a public for whom pablum is the preferred fare ... HAMNET was a good work of "general fiction" but never made it even close to "literary fiction" as the canon now has decided to classify their ever descending "genres" of treacle. I say this as one you have repeteadly rejected in your selection processes with no hard feelings, because - as I look back in retrospect - the particular works were not deserving. And your backlists are bulging with ones who are, even more, replete with a few immortals.
Hats off to you Sam, and keep up the good work and the good fight.
Thank you for such a thoughtful - not to mention flattering and generous comment.
I think the thing I do have to at least slightly apologise for is being down on something that so many people have so clearly enjoyed. I don't want to be negative about that. I'm glad they've enjoyed it - and some of that has to be a tribute to Maggie O'Farell's talents too. (But I think to some extent you've very nicely clarified the thing that annoys me... The book is fine in its way. But some critics give the impression it's going to be contending with Ulysses and co in the long fight.... If it does, I feel sad for future generations.)
(Hope you will continue submitting. Next time we open our subs window, anyway! And best of luck in the meantime.)
The thing is, I agree with all of your criticisms without finding they add up to anything quite as damming as your faint praise. Hamnet is full of falsity and improbability, and I kind of think that’s the point. I see the end as the winters tale crossed with Inglorious Basterds - a wish fulfilment fantasy that manages to be anchored enough to satisfy the story craving without pretending to be real. None of it pretends to be THE story of Shakespeare - I think it’s just A story, a bit like that weird episode of Doctor Who (which I also like).
I may have no right to an opinion - I haven't seen the film, and I gave up on about page 4 of the novel. I just don't find these suppositions about the real life of people like Shakespeare necessary. (Though I did love Wolf Hall).
Interestingly Agnes and Anne were interchangeable names (not seen as different), like Edmund & Edward. Agnes sometimes rendered as Annis too. I don’t want to read the book or see the film because of the witchy pagany stuff. A good case can be made for Anne having been a good, solid householder, running New Place whilst WS was away. The poem on her tomb - possibly by Susannah Hall - is beautiful.
Thanks - interesting - that was my impression about Anne too.
Agreed about the witchy pagany stuff. It's bollocks. It also seems pretty close to Bardology to me. The strain of thinking that says Shakespeare had to be an aristocrat because how could he otherwise write so well, isn't entirely removed from saying that Agnes/Anne can't be a normal woman, because otherwise why would Shakespeare like her...
Your reservations about the book mirror mine about the film. There is a strain of women’s fiction I call “I’m not like the other girls” fiction. I felt Hamnet fell firmly in that category.
I could relate to the film in that I, too, in my younger more militant days, went through a Wicca stage and got all into herbs (wort cunning), burning Candles That Meant Something, etc., which unfortunately made the whole story line seem a little silly to me. Plus, the only men that seemed attracted to this were those with large credit card bills and dim employment prospects so I gave it up.
Thanks, Sam, for sharing your Hamnet review. (BTW, we were introduced by Helen/Jericho last year and I'm awaiting my moment to pounce on you with my new novel MS based on Hamlet). As an obsessive writer about the hidden mystical heresies and blasphemies in Shakespeare - and currently in Hamlet - many a time and oft have I felt I 'should' read Hamnet or see the movie. The latter I shall when it comes on the TV. But since I am firmly convinced Sir Francis Bacon had a hand on the Bard's quill, the idea of watching (what you seem to describe as mawkish click bait) on the imaginary son of an imaginary playwright gives me a visceral reaction that I'll leave to your imagination. BTW, I do not think 'Shakespeare' was a simple pseudonym, but given the risky stuff hidden in his subversive writings, had the 'truth' been spotted in his day, not only would he have burned, but so would have been all his works. How best can I make contact with you and have a chat about my work and whether you can help me polish and/or publish?
I just don’t think the play Hamlet is, in any way shape or form, about the grief of losing a child. That’s just…not the play’s concern. As an origin story for one of the most famous plays of all time, it simply doesn’t work.
YES! (And it's not like Shakespeare didn't have the ability to write on those subjects if that was his actual intention...)
I thought the film was more enjoyable than the book, but that may partly have been because it was filmed near to where I live. I admire Maggie O'Farrell's success and enjoyed I am, I am, I am, but it was a relief to hear someone whose views I respect who didn't enjoy Hamnet as my dislike of it met with incredulity among my writing group and other friends. Apart from the witchy stuff and the violent father which both felt heavy handed, my particular gripe is O'Farrell's obsession with writing adjectives and adverbs in clusters of three. In the passage you quoted she talks of a 'musky, dank, salty, smell' and once you notice that tendency its impossible to unsee it in every paragraph.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the film to some extent. And glad to have been able to share an opinion. Very funny about the triple adjectives.
I'd love to read a historical novel where the heroine has zero interest in herbalism, or actively despises it. Would be so refreshing!
Hahaha!
So pleased to read a review by someone else who didn't think much of the book. Sometimes I think certain books are chosen for the hype and we are led to believe they are better than they are (I can think of a few where I haven't understood the consensus that they're brilliant - The Salt Path is one). I found Hamnet mawkish and relentlessly miserable. And I felt sorry for poor Judith always playing second fiddle. The woo-woo irritated me. Why didn't someone denounce Agnes as a witch? It was all the rage then...I don't intend to see the film although I love Jessie Buckley and her extraordinary ability to inhabit a role.
"Why didn't someone denounce Agnes as a witch? It was all the rage then.." Haha! Very good! (And thank you. I'm glad I'm not alone on this one...)
I remember enjoying Hamnet – I mean, I liked it enough to finish it, which is by no means a given – without thinking it was particularly believable. But I do find the contemporary habit of projecting hippyshit onto our ancestors, rather than the things we know they believed in profoundly, really annoying.
Yes... I think I generally want to have a fairly accepting view of anachronisms... Writers have a right to create their own worlds... But the political/religious/gender/hippyshit (lovely word!) projections do still annoy me. It always feels like an attempt to crowbar our world into the past. Or, worse, to make the past conform to our own modish prejudices.
I'm aware I'm far too easily triggered by trivialities. Eg, it really irked me that Mantel has Cromwell use the word 'upcountry'. It just felt wrong to me and it soured my experience of the rest of the book. Which I freely admit is just silly…
Borges says somewhere that there's no such thing as a historical novel. You can only write a contemporary novel, wherever and whenever you choose to set it. That's true enough, I guess, but I don't see the point of historical fiction where the past is just set dressing for the author's 21st century social circle.
I read Carys Davis's Clear last year. It was nicely written (and short! I like short!) but I didn't believe a word of it. Nothing persuaded me that the characters in that place and in that time would have behaved as she had them behave. (She has her 19th century Scots use the word 'hardscrabble'. That irked me too.)
Actually, I have a soft spot for hippyshit. And it does have a place in the past, of course. But it shouldn't be the default option…
Hippyshittification.
Ha!
I didn’t like the book but enjoyed the movie even with its lack of authenticity. Personally, I’ve always felt Anthony Burgess’s take on Hathaway was the most convincing
The review and your post create a masterclass in how not to write a novel. Death in Venice was the first novel I read in which the author created a genius and then quoted them and I have continued to be horrified by the device ever since. It's good that O'Farrell mostly avoids it, but when she doesn't she really shows the pitfalls. I also love what you say about the ludicrousness of making Agnes a 'magic' woman. I deeply dislike the contemporary tendency in women's fiction to insist on either paragons or sad girls as main protagonists. Not helpful, not interesting, not creative. I haven't actually read Hamnet because I don't read novels in which children die - I don't need that level of manipulation in my life! Excellent post, Sam.
Thank you so much! I tend to agree about the manipulation. It's an easy trick. Also, who needs dead children? Not me!
‘Women’s fiction’? Can’t say I’ve seen that category in my local bookshop? Hmmm 🤔
I've read a lot of Maggie O and really loved some of her contemporary novels, my favourite being The Hand That First Held Mine. (Brilliant novel.) But I found Hamnet to be not very interesting and I was unmoved by it. Over-blown mediocrity... which Big Publishing seems to set so much store by. It's been tiresomely over-hyped by the publisher, but it is absolutely an "average" novel. I hope she goes back to contemporary fiction, because I think that's where her strength lies.
I haven't read any of her other books - but it's at least clear from Hamnet that she knows how to write a sentence... She's got talent. Hope she writes something you enjoy soon!
It's reassuring, anyway, to find out I wasn't the only one who really could not get on with this novel.
That one should feel required to apologize for trouncing mediocirity in one's past is an unfortunate aspect of our cultural present, which is all about mediocrity. That the apology should come from a person who has done so much to uphold the highest literary standards in our culture with GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS, putting his own money at risk year after year to fly in the face of a public for whom pablum is the preferred fare ... HAMNET was a good work of "general fiction" but never made it even close to "literary fiction" as the canon now has decided to classify their ever descending "genres" of treacle. I say this as one you have repeteadly rejected in your selection processes with no hard feelings, because - as I look back in retrospect - the particular works were not deserving. And your backlists are bulging with ones who are, even more, replete with a few immortals.
Hats off to you Sam, and keep up the good work and the good fight.
Thank you for such a thoughtful - not to mention flattering and generous comment.
I think the thing I do have to at least slightly apologise for is being down on something that so many people have so clearly enjoyed. I don't want to be negative about that. I'm glad they've enjoyed it - and some of that has to be a tribute to Maggie O'Farell's talents too. (But I think to some extent you've very nicely clarified the thing that annoys me... The book is fine in its way. But some critics give the impression it's going to be contending with Ulysses and co in the long fight.... If it does, I feel sad for future generations.)
(Hope you will continue submitting. Next time we open our subs window, anyway! And best of luck in the meantime.)
(Would be much more convinced by an origin story where Shakespeare slept with his mother)
The thing is, I agree with all of your criticisms without finding they add up to anything quite as damming as your faint praise. Hamnet is full of falsity and improbability, and I kind of think that’s the point. I see the end as the winters tale crossed with Inglorious Basterds - a wish fulfilment fantasy that manages to be anchored enough to satisfy the story craving without pretending to be real. None of it pretends to be THE story of Shakespeare - I think it’s just A story, a bit like that weird episode of Doctor Who (which I also like).
I may have no right to an opinion - I haven't seen the film, and I gave up on about page 4 of the novel. I just don't find these suppositions about the real life of people like Shakespeare necessary. (Though I did love Wolf Hall).
Interestingly Agnes and Anne were interchangeable names (not seen as different), like Edmund & Edward. Agnes sometimes rendered as Annis too. I don’t want to read the book or see the film because of the witchy pagany stuff. A good case can be made for Anne having been a good, solid householder, running New Place whilst WS was away. The poem on her tomb - possibly by Susannah Hall - is beautiful.
Thanks - interesting - that was my impression about Anne too.
Agreed about the witchy pagany stuff. It's bollocks. It also seems pretty close to Bardology to me. The strain of thinking that says Shakespeare had to be an aristocrat because how could he otherwise write so well, isn't entirely removed from saying that Agnes/Anne can't be a normal woman, because otherwise why would Shakespeare like her...
Your reservations about the book mirror mine about the film. There is a strain of women’s fiction I call “I’m not like the other girls” fiction. I felt Hamnet fell firmly in that category.
LOL! (I’m sorry the film was disappointing for you too…)
I could relate to the film in that I, too, in my younger more militant days, went through a Wicca stage and got all into herbs (wort cunning), burning Candles That Meant Something, etc., which unfortunately made the whole story line seem a little silly to me. Plus, the only men that seemed attracted to this were those with large credit card bills and dim employment prospects so I gave it up.
Haha! Thank you. That made me laugh.
Thanks, Sam, for sharing your Hamnet review. (BTW, we were introduced by Helen/Jericho last year and I'm awaiting my moment to pounce on you with my new novel MS based on Hamlet). As an obsessive writer about the hidden mystical heresies and blasphemies in Shakespeare - and currently in Hamlet - many a time and oft have I felt I 'should' read Hamnet or see the movie. The latter I shall when it comes on the TV. But since I am firmly convinced Sir Francis Bacon had a hand on the Bard's quill, the idea of watching (what you seem to describe as mawkish click bait) on the imaginary son of an imaginary playwright gives me a visceral reaction that I'll leave to your imagination. BTW, I do not think 'Shakespeare' was a simple pseudonym, but given the risky stuff hidden in his subversive writings, had the 'truth' been spotted in his day, not only would he have burned, but so would have been all his works. How best can I make contact with you and have a chat about my work and whether you can help me polish and/or publish?