Am going to risk being ostracized by admitting that I didn’t find this book particularly astonishing. I realize it’s been praised by a lot of reviewers smarter than me, but while I found some of the prose to be lovely, some other elements of O’Farrell’s craft – characterization, plot, theme – left me unimpressed.Part of my frustration may stem from still not being entirely sure what the book was meant to be about. (I get that books don't necessarily have to be "about" anything, but bear with me.)
Was it meant to be a story of Hamnet, the son of Will Shakespeare and his wife Anne/Agnes – as the title would seem to imply? If so, then why does O’Farrell spend almost no time endowing Hamnet with any sort of memorable personality? Instead, Hamnet comes off as a rather average lad of his age and time; neither the fact that he is the son of a brilliant poet, nor being raised by an unconventional mother, nor that he is a twin are ever explored in any sort of depth.
Or was it meant to be an exploration of his eccentric mother Agnes, portrayed here as a sort of an Elizabethan forest sprite/Earth mother/white witch? If so, then why does O’Farrell strip her of these eccentricities as soon as she marries Will? The blurb on the back of the book calls her a “steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband” but I struggled to see how she contributed much of anything to his life or craft. (It’s her brother, not some extraordinary quality of empathy or insight, that finally helps her figure out why her husband is so moody; also, her supposed gift of foresight is weirdly off-again/on-again, seeming to have more to do with narrative convenience than logic.)
Is it supposed to be about two parents grieving the loss of a child? If so, why spend so little time establishing any sort of special emotional link between Agnes, Will, and their son? (And if they're such doting parents, why do they treat their other children with such indifference after Hamnet’s death?) Why choose as father a poet/playwright who never wrote a single play or poem about the death of a child? Why set the story in the time of the plague, when lifespans were short and children died all the time?
Or is it supposed to be about the dynamics of the marriage of two unconventional souls? If so, then why is Will’s creativity almost never explored or acknowledged? Anne supposedly marries the poet because she is attracted by his imagination, but once married, this aspect of their mutual attraction pretty much vanishes from the narrative.
And the bit at the end where the couple supposedly begins to heal? Maybe it’s just me, but O’Farrell’s attempt to convince us that the play “Hamlet” is somehow intended by Will as a tribute to their dead son struck me as improbably strained, the product of narrative necessity rather than any sort of genuine epiphany.
I’m willing to grant that O’Farrell’s prose is lovely and her imagery evocative. This is a veritable banquet of sights, smells, tastes, sounds, and textures. (Though I did feel like, in too many instances, the author indulged her enthusiasm for imagery at the expense of maintaining dramatic momentum; keeping these in balance requires not inconsiderable skill.) Also, O’Farrell has this technique of taking an idea and then elaborating on it in a series of clauses/short sentences that creates a sort of lyric cadence, which is lovely though, over time, can begin to feel a bit repetitive. (Take these examples from a single page, chosen at random: “But the magnitude, the depth of his wife’s grief …” “is so breathless, so seamless, it is quite possible …” “he would find them as they were, unchanged, untrammeled ….”)
Feel like this had the potential to be astonishing, but that it falls disappointingly short of the mark.
