A young Latin tutor—penniless and bullied by a violent father—falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.
Comment: I had previously seen references to this book by some readers but I wasn't particularly driven to try it. My best friend did and she liked it, recommending it to me as well, and that is why I read it.
In the late 16th century, the plague is spreading throughout Europe and many people aren't able to stay safe. In a rural area of England, a little boy dies because of it, although he isn't the only case, nor the only one being mourned. However, his family is devastated, especially his mother and his twin, but should not make them special in any way. The truth, though, it that it does and the aftermath will be much more meaningful than anyone would think.
At the end of this book, the author includes a note explaining her inspiration for this book and the sources and reference books she used. The story is fiction, of course, but based on real facts and people and some are easily recognizable. I like Shakespeare for what he did in literature, but I confess I didn't know that much about his life, apart from what I had seen in movies and in other fiction books. It was interesting that this story wasn't really meant to be about him, but it end up being so anyway.
I was positively surprised by the writing style, it is fluid while moody and it reminded me of lyricism and poetry. Some passages were very beautiful and the characters seemed to be so much larger than life at times because of this. However, there was always a part of me that felt this was an obvious fictional story and I was not really taken by the characters themselves but by how they were portrayed. I suppose there's nothing wrong with seeing this this way but it meant that I kept a certain emotional distance anyway.
The plot isn't too complicated. It is divided into two parts, the first (and bigger) one in which we see how cute Hamnet is and why his loss would certainly be so heavy for everyone, although most of the focus is on other family members, namely his mother Agnes. The second part happens after Hamnet dies and how everyone copes, and how this certainly seemed to have inspired his father to write a tragic play in which the main character has a very similar name to that of his son...
The author says this is her interpretation of how things might have been, so I don't really give much importance to its veracity or not, it seems more like a fun detail than an intrinsic part of the novel. As for the actual plot, I assume the main point of interest isn't exactly the emotions caused by or related to Hamnet's death, but how special his mother is and how she was like a wise woman/seer. Was this the element that changed the way the story is developed? I can't tell, but at the end, I cannot say I really got to know these characters well.
Nevertheless, as the focus wasn't on any specific situation, and even the event of Hamnet's death was not overly developed, I feel like this was an OK story for me to read. My friend said it was very emotional...I just didn't see that... Still, I think it was a good story to read, not so heavy as I pictured, considering the theme and the whole plague setting and inevitable outcomes.
Perhaps an interesting element here is how the author was able to write a lot about several scenes but the real depth of the story is on what wasn't written. I think this is a good book for the reader to read between the lines, in which some of the things not mentioned, not explicit become part of the plot precisely due to this tactic. I enjoyed the idea of seeing things that should not matter (like the flea) take such an importance in the big scheme of things.
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