It was a rare book, a precious one. One of those which evoke the past in an original, unusual way. I don’t read contemporary historical novels like that often. I like many of them, but they always lack something, if not in their characters, then in their style. In the end, I’d say that ‘Hamnet’ and ‘Matrix’ by Lauren Groff are simply exceptional. ‘The Essex Serpent’, maybe, if I hadn’t gotten bored eventually… There aren’t many of them on my list. But let me explain.
I’m not in the ‘Once Historical Novels Were Better’ team. I think, actually, that our notion of ‘historical novels’ has improved over time in comparison to the works of, let’s say, Walter Scott. There’s been a certain shift in particular novels, from ‘Kristin Lavransdatter’ through ‘The General in His Labyrinth’ to, finally, the books of Stacey Halls. Daily things have become more important and the so-called Great People have gotten demythologized. And you know what is the best about ‘Hamnet’? This novel does both of these two things!
It’s a novel, as you’ve guessed, probably, about Shakespeare’s son. And it isn’t about Shakespeare, not the way we might have expected. It’s about his family, living far from big things and great events. Neither Shakespeare is a Great Artist figure here; he is a troubled son and then, a troubled husband and father. What’s more, it’s a novel about dailyness and disease, about one event changing the Shakespeare family forever. It is, in a way, so far from our presumptions and expectations, from what we think a traditional historical novel should look like. It doesn’t look that way, and I am glad it doesn’t.
The past and the present are intertwined in the story of Anne/Agnes Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife, who stayed with their three children in Stratford-Upon-Avon when he lived in London. Usually, it has been painted as a story of a loveless marriage, and Agnes herself has been depicted as somebody unimportant. Here, Maggie O’Farrell gives her back her voice, her feelings, in a way, even her name. This love story is complex and ambiguous, and very different from the ‘Shakespeare didn’t care about his wife’ trope. How can you say that there was no love just because the spouses lived apart? How can you say that there was no love because Shakespeare had left in the first place? Maggie O’Farrell shows that we can draw something completely different from the scarce information we have on Shakespeare’s life, and what she does is magnificent. From the perspective of our times, we can’t say for sure why Anne/Agnes didn’t follow him to London, and whether it was the proof of a broken marriage. Maggie O’Farrell fills this blank space with convincing tropes, with dreams and fears. Is it possible that Agnes was too used to her provincial life to live in London? That Judith, the younger daughter of theirs, was too delicate to move to a big, plague-ridden city? Is it possible that Shakespeare left in the first place because he’d been unable to perform and create in the place where he was known as the ‘wastrel, good for nothing’ son of a disgraced glover? Everything O’Farrell has filled her book with looks so convincing and plausible.
Her characters and their situations are also relatable. One can read them as people coping with trauma. Shakespeare, a victim of domestic violence, not only longs for a life of an artist but also tries not to repeat the violent patterns of his bossy father. He succeeds, but for the price of being separate from his family. Agnes, orphaned by her mother, is interested in the same things she was, wanting to form a bond with those who are gone, to preserve her heritage. She is considered a witch and the witch’s daughter, but this goes deeper than a New Age-like retelling of a forgotten wife’s story. What Agnes does is important for the local community; she’s helpful, she’s better than most physicians, but she’s respected only when it is suitable for others. Some people may complain that the witch trope is too cliched, but I think that in this case, Maggie O’Farrell isn’t generic. Yes, women with supernatural powers, defying the traditional society, have become more popular in our culture. But it doesn’t mean that this novel is ‘The Mists of Avalon’ on a smaller scale. Neither does it mean that O’Farrell’s work is as loose about history as that book by Bradley. There was a lot of blank space in the case of Shakespeare’s family, but I think that the author makes a really good use of her speculations. And Agnes is simply convincing. Her goals and worries are something we can still relate to.
She was often ignored in our discourse. In this novel, she’s alive, she’s just a human being, immersed in the contexts of her era and in the folklore of her native area. I don’t know if this is a feminist version of Agnes/Anne; some people already complain on that. Somehow, every woman in historical fiction who works as a witch-doctor and who is misunderstood by those around her, is considered an unbelievable feminist apparition (for conservatives) or an icon (for progressivists). But Agnes isn’t that simple. There are interesting reflections on women’s lives and double standards here, but they are very subtle. They aren’t anachronistic, they are a part of Agnes’ world. And you can say the same about other elements in this book, such as depicting domestic violence. We are shown how nobody cared about Shakespeare’s father’s behaviour, how his harshness was found normal and acceptable. Still, O’Farrell is able to indicate how toxic and damaging it was. We don’t need entire dialogs about how bad beating your children is. We can see it for ourselves from the way Shakespeare was traumatized.
From all the subtleties of this novel, the very Hamnet may be the most elusive element. We regret his death not because his personality was so strong, but rather because he was so young and full of life, we regret his death because affected every member of his family. Does it mean that Maggie O’Farrell failed to depict him as a blood-and-bone human being? I think she didn’t. Her book is just not what you may think it is about. If you want to read it, be ready for that.
Left Hand of Fiction 