Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Per the GR blurb for Hamnet: “A New York Times Notable Book (2020). Best Book of 2020: Guardian, Financial Times, Literary Hub, and NPR." I assume none of these august entities actually read the book. Hamnet is meant to be an atmospheric and emotive speculation on the life of William Shakespeare’s family. It is instead overwrought, boring when it’s meant to be most emotive, and at times eye-rolling ridiculous.

O’Farrell suffers greatly from melodrama-descriptorus-vomitous - the belief that every paragraph, nay every sentence should present a flowery melodrama featuring at least three adjectives or metaphors for every thought and action. A first this style feels novel and lush. At fifty pages, it becomes annoying. Where is the story? Can we please move along? At hundred pages it is a tiresome gimmick, endless description at the expense of pace and plot. Only one scene in the entire book has emotional weight: the birthing scene. It is the most simply written.

Gimmick also is O’Farrell’s refusal to name Shakespeare anywhere in the book. He is only ever referred to as son, father, brother, husband, as if teasing some grand reveal of the Bard that never comes nor was ever necessary.

The actual story is simple and hardly merits 300+ pages. William meets his wife, they have children, one dies. Agnes, William’s wife is well developed and interesting. I liked her ethereal backstory. Daughters, Susanna and Judith also. Hamnet, the son is never developed enough to care about which is a crucial flaw when his death and aftermath is supposed to be THE emotional center of the book.

The Bard himself is largely a side character who in O'Farrell's telling we are supposed to sympathize with, but who reads as a selfish cad eager to escape Stratford, with little interest in his wife and children left behind. From history we know he rarely ventured home staying away for upwards of a year at a time. He provided well for his family but his emotional connection is questionable. O’Farrell’s premise that Hamlet the play was written as grieving ode to William's lost son brings the book to a laughable close. Hamlet recall is about a son seeking revenge on his uncle for killing his father and marrying his mother. Nothing whatsoever to do with a senseless death of a “bright and beautiful boy.� O'Farrell never read the play?

Bottomline: Tepid, gimmicky, overwrought, overhyped. On my Buy, borrow, skip scale: Skip and read Hannah Kent’s stunning Burial Rites instead. It is everything Hamnet wants to be but fails miserably to achieve.
----
Buddy read with Allie and Nataliya. Thanks ladies!