313: Maggie O'Farrell's HAMNET - Our May 2026 Book Club Pick
- unabridgedpod
- May 27
- 29 min read
What book has broken your heart in the best possible way? In episode 313, we’re discussing Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm), our May 2026 Book Club pick. Before we dive into this moving novel inspired by the life and loss behind Shakespeare’s Hamlet, we share our Bookish Check-in.
In our discussion of Hamnet, we talk about Maggie O’Farrell’s stunning portrayal of grief, motherhood, art, and love. We discuss Agnes as such a compelling and unconventional character, the emotional power of Hamnet and Judith’s bond, and the way the novel captures both intimate family moments and sweeping questions about loss and creativity. We also share pairings, including Weyward by Amelia Hart (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm).
Whether you’ve already read Hamnet or have been meaning to pick it up for years, we’d love for you to join us for this conversation.
Bookish Check-in
Our May Book Club Pick
Our Pairings
Unabridged Favorites
Ashley - Ethique products
Jen - live theater; The Outsiders; Blackfriar Theatre in Staunton
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Full Transcript for Episode
[00:00:00] Ashley: Welcome to The Unabridged Podcast. I'm Ashley.
[00:00:05] Jen: And this is Jen.
[00:00:06] Ashley: Join us for bookish episodes and check out our website, unabridgedpod.com, where you can find lots of new bookish content to grow your TBR.
[00:00:13] Jen: Sign up for our newsletter to find out more about online book discussions and upcoming events. Find us on Patreon for extra Unabridged content.
[00:00:21] Join us on Instagram and Facebook @unabridgedpod, and message us there or see our website to get plugged into the Unabridged community. You want opinions about books? We've got them.
[00:00:35] Hi everyone, and welcome to Unabridged. This is episode 313, and today we are talking about Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet, which is our May 2026 book club pick. Before we start with our bookish check-in. I just wanna remind everyone that we do have a bookshop.org affiliate partnership. And what that means is that if you click on any of the links in our show notes, it'll take you to bookshop.org, or you can go to our store, that link is also in our show notes, and anything you buy there, we get a percentage as an affiliate.
[00:01:10] And so you can support us, and you can support independent bookstores at the same time. Win-win. Alright, we're gonna jump into our bookish check-in. Ashley, what are you reading?
[00:01:20] Ashley: One of the books I'm reading is Sally Smith's A Case of Mice and Murder. I started this one because we recently were doing cozy mysteries, and it crossed my mind to potentially share this one, but I wound up picking something different. This one's really compelling. It is set in 1901 in London, and it starts with someone being dead.
[00:01:46] That's what I should say. And as often happens, it goes in mystery, and it's a bizarre situation. So it's set within the legal world, and it's within the kind of cloistered area that a lot of the judges, barristers, and people live together in this space. The Lord, Chief Justice, who you know, is like the top of their system.
[00:02:16] kind of mysteriously shows up with no shoes on, dead in this area. And we also get to know Gabriel Ward, who is one of the barristers, the lawyers in this space. And he is a quirky character who is very academic, very bookish. He's a great barrister, but he is not a big people person. And basically, what comes to pass is he discovers the body of the Lord, the chief justice, in the morning.
[00:02:47] And then from there, he starts noticing all these unusual things. In that moment, but is hoping to not be involved at all in the mystery piece of it, and trying to unpack what happened. But the people who live in the temple, where all of them are kind of one of the next in line, essentiallysay too him that they want him to investigate.
[00:03:09] And he is like, no, thank you. And then the person telling him essentially says, I know you really love your. A little haven with your books and your room, and you love being in this space. And wouldn't it be sad if you couldn't live there anymore? And so basically he says to him, if you do not investigate, you will be removed from the temple grounds.
[00:03:31] So suddenly, Gabriel finds himself forced to do this murder investigation. And part of why he hadn't wanted to do it is because he has this very heavy lift case that he is trying to prepare for. and it involves a copyright dispute, essentially. But it is a very complex situation where the author had thrown away the book.
[00:03:54] The book had been discovered. It was a children's book. It was very well loved. It was released by the publisher without the author's consent because the author had thrown it away and was unknown, could not be found, and then it went on to be this wild success. And so that case is unfolding. And then, meanwhile, Gabriel has been assigned to.
[00:04:15] Doing some investigating for this murder. But at the same time, the temple people do not want any outsiders in their space, and they, all of them, are kind of above needing to be tracked or monitored. And so, you know, they'll go to ask like who came and went during the. Like from the gates during this time.
[00:04:34] And the people who are at the gate are like, oh, well, we don't write that down. These are all gentlemen, and we don't record anything. And, they were doing exactly what they should, and they're like, how do you know they were doing what they should because there's no record. And then they're like, we don't need to keep a record.
[00:04:46] You know? So there are a lot of those, like cyclical conversations happening over and over again. And he also gets assigned an officer who, they kind of get to. Have a collegiate relationship, even though at first he doesn't want anybody to help him. But Officer Wright keeps finding ways to be helpful.
[00:05:04] You know, there's a lot of like, Sherlock Holmesy feeling of like, you've got these two people who are trying to unpack what happened, and there's some sleuthing going on. even though it's kind of reluctant sleuthing. And there's also, I think, a lot about power and authority and the ways that people abuse those positions to do whatever they want.
[00:05:28] And then I'm not far enough along, but I'm assuming also there is some connection between the two different storylines that are happening. And I think that could be really interesting as well. So again, this is Sally Smith's, A Case of Mice and Murder. And so far, so good.
[00:05:40] Jen: Oh, that sounds really good. Yeah. I'm adding that to my list.
[00:05:44] Ashley: I mean, it's fun, like the, I like the setting. And Gabriel, the character, like, he's a lot of fun too. He's a great protagonist. What about you, Jen? What? Go ahead.
[00:05:52] Jen: I was just gonna say, I love an investigation into a deep bureaucratic mess too. Anyway.
[00:05:56] Ashley: Yes, there is absolutely no doubt about this. Just like, why would we need to answer to that kind of attitude? And there's a lot of that that's really interesting. And then also, like, all the people who work there are servants to the people. And so then there's like that class is happening to the class system and, you know, who gets to say what happened?
[00:06:15] So yeah. Very interesting. What about you, Jen? What are you reading?
[00:06:18] Jen: I am reading Vauhini Vara's Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age, thanks to Random House for an advanced paperback copy of this one. So this had been on my list for a while. I heard several of my favorite podcast hosts raving about this one. So I was really excited when Random House reached out with the offer of this copy.
[00:06:36] And it is about, well, it's about a lot of things, and I'm still pretty early on, but Vara is an author whose sister died of cancer, and she, as part of her grief process. This is gonna sound ridiculous, but she used a predecessor of Chat GPT to write about her sister's death, and then used that as the core of an essay that she published on the internet that went viral, and that experience inspired her to write this book.
[00:07:11] And at the point I'm at, she has thus far investigated the beginnings of her time on the internet. So she describes going to a friend's house and hearing that old dial-up modem sound when you were first getting online, when AOL used to send those CD-ROMs that you could load into your computer and get so much time per month, like five hours a month or something, which now is almost, I mean, just inconceivable, right?
[00:07:39] And just how that sort of opened up her world in ways good and bad. And it's sort of a memoir as well. So she's writing about how she was feeling at the time that her family had recently moved, and she was very much feeling on the outside of things. And so the internet arrived at a time that coincided with her suddenly feeling before she felt like she belonged.
[00:08:04] Now she felt like she didn't, and here comes the internet. So, she's also talking about her family structure. She's setting up her sister's death, and the way that all came about, she's also looking at, for example, she found a way that you can look at everything you've searched on Google ever. And so she dives into her history.
[00:08:27] There's a whole chapter of all of the questions that she has searched on Google over a certain period of time, I sorted into the how, what, when, where, wand hy those questions. And it looks like everyone's internet searches, right? Some things are really deep questions. Some things are totally random.
[00:08:43] There's how to do blank. She also uploaded the first group of chapters into ChatGPT and asked it for feedback. And so she includes that conversation. So it's sort of, it's all centered on this same concept, but she's approaching it from all of these different angles. Her writing is great. I'm loving it so far.
[00:09:07] It's cohesive in its central topic. It doesn't feel entirely cohesive yet, but I'm guessing that will come later. So, yeah, so far I'm really enjoying it. I'm intrigued, I wanna know where it's going. I'm just quite early, so I really am operating off of these reviews that I've heard and the synopsis that I've read.
[00:09:23] But yeah, it's great so far. So that is Vauhini Vara's Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age.
[00:09:30] Ashley: I think that whole, like reflecting on way back with the internet and then where we are now, that sounds really fascinating.
[00:09:38] Jen: Yeah, it's been interesting. Yeah. I was trying to remember when I became aware of the thing called the internet and what, yeah. My neighbor had a dial-up modem, and I remember thinking it was this big, mysterious thing. And he was the only person in the neighborhood who had that. So it was this new Yeah.
[00:09:57] It's funny to remember.
[00:09:59] Ashley: Yeah.
[00:09:59] Jen: And when it was the same as your phone line, so if somebody called, you'd get kicked off, and so Interesting.
[00:10:07] All right, so we're gonna move on to our discussion of Hamnet, which would work for the Unabridged Podcast Reading Challenge about reading a book that has an award-winning adaptation. I will talk about the adaptation at some point, but this would definitely qualify,o interestingly enough, Ashley and I found very different synopses of this one.
[00:10:25] I'm gonna read one of them. There are other synopses out there. So this says England 1580, A young Latin tutor, penniless, bullied by a violent father, falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman, a wild creature who walks her family's estate with a falcon on her shoulder and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer. Agnes understands plants and potions better than she does people.
[00:10:51] But once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford, she becomes a fiercely protective mother. And a steadfast centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose gifts as a writer are just beginning to awake,n when his beloved young son succumbs to bubonic plague. A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family, ravaged by grief and loss,
[00:11:12] And a hypnotic recreation of the story that inspired one of the greatest literary masterpieces of all time. Hamnet is mesmerizing and seductive and impossible to put down, a novel from one of our most gifted writers. Alright, well, we'll start with our overall impressions. Ashley, what did you think?
[00:11:28] Ashley: I loved this. I have put off reading it for a long time because I knew very keenly that it was sad. I've talked many times about how I avoid that in my life. It's a work in progress. but. Jen and I had wanted to do it, knowing that it fit that category really well. And I have not seen that adaptation, so I'll be excited to hear what you have to say about that, Jen.
[00:11:49] But I did know that it has gotten rave reviews and yeah, I feel like it made me think that I wanna read everything of O'Farrell. I've read a couple of her books prior, and I think what she can do so well,
[00:12:07] I feel like this is a very, this is a weird comparison, but I'm just gonna say that in the way that when we talked about The True Story of Raja the Gullible and His Mother, which we discussed in our January book Club pic, which was set in Lebanon and really focused on a sweeping expanse, but also a kind of micro moment.
[00:12:24] I feel like O'Farrell does that here, where we are watching the moment that Judith and Hamnet become ill, and that is unfurling through the entirety of the book. And it is a tiny piece, you know, happening over a very short period of time. And at the same time, we have this sweeping expanse of time and a movement through generations, and you know, so much of a life that is unfolding.
[00:12:52] Also, I, being parallel compared to this, like a very intense, very short moment. And so I just feel like, yeah, I mean, it's masterful and kind of breaks you open, but in the best way, I guess. What about you, Jen? Overall impressions?
[00:13:06] Jen: This was my second reading of this book. So I read it shortly after it came out and absolutely loved it and remember so sobbing through it, but also falling in love with it. So I should just say Hamlet is my favorite play by Shakespeare. I taught it for years, and so that definitely added a point of resonance that for anyone who doesn't love Hamlet or doesn't love Shakespeare, you may not have, but I also think it stands up on its own.
[00:13:34] So I think even if you don't like Shakespeare, you've never read Shakespeare, and you don't care about Hamlet. I think she does such a beautiful job just building a portrait of a mother and building a portrait of grief and how you can try to move on. Post grief. So, I read the book once.
[00:13:55] I saw the movie in the theaters recently, and then I reread it. And so it was interesting rereading it post-film because I do think the adaptation is so strong that some of the choices made in the film affected my reading of it in a positive way. Yeah, the movie is beautiful. I also sobbed through that because.
[00:14:17] When I see an adaptation that so perfectly captures a book I love, I find that to be very moving because often it doesn't happen. And then when it works, it really works. And yeah, I just think it's a perfect book. I really love it so much. And as you said, I mean, Maggie O'Farrell, I've read a lot of her books, but I have a few still to get to.
[00:14:39] I just think on the sentence level. It's amazing, and then zoomed out and looking at the book as a whole, every choice she makes is just inspiring and sad and covers the scope of human existence. I just think she's amazing. Yeah. All right. Well, we're going to try to zoom in on just one thing that worked for us.
[00:15:01] Ashley, what would you pick?
[00:15:03] Ashley: I really think that, I mean, there were so many things I loved.
[00:15:08] I wanna focus on Agnes, I think, and what I love that O'Farrell does is show how centered she is as a person and how outside of all of the like social norms and conventions she is, and yet she's so much more herself, even as a young person, like even as we're watching. Her relationship with the Latin tutor unfurled in the early days, and we see how she
[00:15:38] is so much more authentically herself than almost anyone else in the book. I really loved her brother Bartholomew. I thought, as a supporting character, I would love to see a whole book about him. I think he's really fascinating. But in a lot of ways, I think we see her because of her mother, even though she had lost her so young, and even though she remembers so little of her, she seems to have this anchor that.
[00:16:01] So many of the other characters in the book just don't have. So I think the special abilities she has, but also the way that she just can be, I just really admired, and yet even all of that doesn't spare her what comes to pass. And I think there's something really heartbreaking and also really beautiful about that.
[00:16:21] And so, yeah, I would say. Her as a character study, I think, is one of my very most favorite things about the book. What about you, Jen?
[00:16:30] Jen: Yeah,
[00:16:30] Ashley: I wanna focus on Hamnet himself because I think, I'm not sure the book would work if he doesn't work, and if we don't see
[00:16:42] Jen: the desperation he feels to help his twin sister, Judith, and. His helplessness, which is then mirrored later by Agnes's helplessness because he is just desperately, he knows something is wrong and he is desperately trying to find any adult who can help him, help her.
[00:17:01] And then
[00:17:02] The moment he decides that he will die so she can live and is so selfless. And he's such a little boy, but he just loves her so much and is able to put someone else first. Clearly, you can tell by my voice that I'm very moved by that, and I just think that because O'Farrell can make us feel for him so much, it makes us love him.
[00:17:27] And I think that's one of the key points of the novel that has to be in place for us to feel the sorrow and the grief that the people around him feel. So, yeah.
[00:17:37] Ashley: Yeah, and I think that the fact that she is so ill for so much of their life is really impactful too, and shapes the way that he is her protector, and presumably was her protector from before birth. You know, there's this feeling that they. Had a deeper connection than anyone else, and I think that whole scene also complements everything about Agnes, with the fact that she has this.
[00:18:04] a gift that people hate because they don't want to know what will pass or what they cannot see. And yet her ability to see it in a lot of ways enriches her life and the life of the people around her, but she can't see it all. And that idea of the things that are veiled for her and that she thinks she understands.
[00:18:28] But then they are different than the way that she understands them. I think all of that impacts that moment. And his decision in a lot of ways is to you know, quote, trick death. But it is also tricking her, and not to be hurtful, but because he feels that no choice is going to save them both.
[00:18:50] Jen: Just thinking about like the other pieces that fit into that I wanted to just touch on, like the way that we see the original flea, and then the way that all of that gets traced to this moment when Judith opens the bead box and the person who loves her so much that she lets her have this like special moment.
[00:19:12] Ashley: and all the things that kind of went wrong, but also just lined up to bring about the plague. I thought all of that was just so well done, and then I thought that the part where the physician finally comes, and he's so terrifying looking, I think. I'm sure that a lot of you listening have seen what those outfits looked like and the ways that they have appeared in culture since then as this like terrifying reminder, and how Hamnet sees that and is so afraid, and how the person won't do anything to help them.
[00:19:45] And, how Agnes is like, you know, none of that stuff is gonna protect him, but if he never. Comes in contact with anyone and saves himself instead, then yeah, maybe. Maybe that will protect him because he refuses to help those who need help, especially after we see Agnes serve others throughout her life and help them at times that no one else would like.
[00:20:09] I think. Yeah, there's so much in there about the societal approach to things versus like what the real or better approach should be. There's a lot in there about that, too.
[00:20:20] Jen: Yeah. Can we also talk about the fact that this came out in March, 2020
[00:20:24] Ashley: Uh, no.
[00:20:26] Jen: And just yes,
[00:20:28] Ashley: O'Farrell could not have known,
[00:20:30] Jen: No. Which makes it even more amazing, I think.
[00:20:33] Ashley: It does. Yes, a hundred percent, yes.
[00:20:36] Jen: Oh,
[00:20:38] Ashley: I'm sure she started wondering about her own abilities to foresee,
[00:20:41] Jen: All right. So, we're gonna move on to a quotation. What quotation would you like to read?
[00:20:49] Ashley: I tried to choose one that did not make me feel as emotional as some of the other ones, but, for what it is worth. For people who listen a lot. I did think this one was worth the tears. I'll just say, and I'm pretty discerning about that feeling. So anyway, I'm gonna go with "every life has its kernel, its hub, its epicenter from which everything flows out to which everything returns.
[00:21:08] This moment is the absent mothers, the boy, the empty house, the deserted yard, the unheard cry. him standing here at the back of the house, calling for the people who had fed him, swaddled him, rocked him to sleep, held his hand as he took his first steps. Taught him to use his spoon to blow on the broth before he ate it, to take care.
[00:21:28] Crossing the street to let sleeping dogs lie to swell out. A cup before drinking to stay away from deep water. It will lie at her very core for the rest of her life." And I think with Agnes's, as I said before, I mean, I think that there were so many things I loved about this book, but I think the ability of O'Farrell to capture her and all of her complexity was just so well done.
[00:21:49] And I think that we, as the readers, can forgive this, like. A situation that came to pass for no one's fault.
[00:21:59] But I also can see how she cannot let go of just that feeling that if she had been there, everything would've been different, and the guilt of carrying that. And again, I think in some ways it is ever more painful.
[00:22:15] Because she feels that she should have known, because she has this inner knowing that is, you know, somewhat magical, essentially. And yet nothing warned her. She didn't know, and she can't get over the fact that she didn't know. And I think it's also a moment where, see that tiny moment.
[00:22:34] Then the Grand Expanse and those two are playing out together in that quote in a way that I think is just so beautiful, and I think is so well done throughout the book.
[00:22:43] Jen: So when I was typing in my quotations to consider reading, I typed this one out too, and I didn't realize it till after I'd finished. But yeah, I just think this one really speaks to me as a mother because I think there's always this feeling that if you can just be with your child, always, you can keep
[00:23:01] him safe. I have two boys, so I said it's him. Keep them safe.
[00:23:05] Ashley: But of course we can't. Of course, that's an illusion. And of course, we can't keep them attached to us always, but there is that feeling that if you can just give them the right warnings and tell them the right things, that we can keep them safe.
[00:23:18] Jen: Even knowing that is an illusion, it's an illusion that sometimes is all that we have to hold onto. And yeah, I found that to be very moving.ng
[00:23:27] Ashley: Yeah. Yeah. The listening, I think of all the things that they taught him to protect him, and that, like,
[00:23:32] Jen: Yeah.
[00:23:33] Ashley: All of it is for him in some way, like it feels in that moment.
[00:23:36] Jen: Yep.
[00:23:36] Ashley: What about you, Jen? What quote did you choose other than the one that I chose? Sorry about that.
[00:23:41] Jen: Yeah, we will deal with a lot of that. This episode, I chose, "she grows up feeling wrong out of place. Too dark, too tall, too unruly, too opinionated, too silent, too strange. She grows up with the awareness that she is merely tolerated and irritant useless, that she does not deserve lo, and that she will need to change herself substantially.
[00:24:02] Crush herself down. If she's to be married, she grows up too with the memory of what it meant to be properly loved for what you are, not what you ought to be." And I just thought this hearkens back to Ashley, what you were saying about her mother and the way her mother provides that powerful center of her certainty of who she is.
[00:24:24] And then the tutor we know is will Shakespeare. He gives her this kind of love, too, and their marriage is not perfect for sure, but at their heart, they understand each other, and it's that understanding that allows them to support each other in what they need to do to continue to be themselves.
[00:24:46] And you know, Shakespeare's family does not love everything that Agnes does for sure, but because of his support, they're able to. Give her a pass on some things. I love the way the arc of his mother develops through the book that she's never totally on Agnes's side, but they reach this compromise, and the way her grief gives her an understanding of Agnes's grief, I think,k is beautiful, the way they can come together.
[00:25:14] And so, yeah, I just think. That gift Agnes had from her mother and then later had from Will Shakespeare of being loved for who you are and not being expected to be anything else is such a gift. And I think, yeah, it's one I hope we give the people we love. I found it to be really beautiful.
[00:25:31] Ashley: Yeah. Yeah. I loved all that too, and I thought that it was really, you said, it is not perfect, but the way that she could see what he needed in a way that even he couldn't, and then could make that happen for him, I thought it was really rich and the way that. He makes space for her even though perhaps it would be easier for them sometimes if she were more like the societal norms. Yeah.
[00:26:00] Jen: All right, we're gonna move on to our pairings. Ashley, what's a book you would recommend alongside this one?
[00:26:05] Ashley: I thought of a lot of books, and I also thought that nothing was a perfect fit, but I like this one. I would s, ay Agnes. I would say that there's a witchy element to Hamnet, but it is not as explicit as the one I wanna recommend. But I wanted to share Amelia Hart's Weyward, and I have talked about this on here before.
[00:26:24] but I loved this book. It was all a very. Emotionally challenging book for me. But I loved it. I thought it was just deeply impactful. But the thing that I thought it had in common, it travels even more through the generations of a family. So part of what I love about Hamnet is the way that we see Will and Agnes as children.
[00:26:47] Like we get to know them from early on all the way through, through the beginning of their relationship. And all the way through until he writes Hamnet and she sees it. And we also get to know both of their families and all of those complexities. And they both have some very substantial familial problems.
[00:27:04] and so we see that. I think also we see the anchoring with nature, the way that through the natural world, Agnes better understands herself and understands healing, understands helping others. All of that comes from his natural world connection that she had learned from her mother and that she carries in her, like when she wants to birth the children, like she does birth Susanna in the forest, but she's trying to do that with the twins as well.
[00:27:28] and so in Weyward, you have three different time periods. There's. 1619, 1942, and 2019, and they are three different women, all from the same family line. Altha is the one in 1619. She is awaiting trial.
[00:27:44] She's been accused of murder for this person, but she didn't touch the person. And so it's like they think that the animals acted the way that they acted because of this thing that she did. And so she's awaiting trial, and we're watching that happen. 1In 942, we meet Violet. Violet is.
[00:27:58] Kind of trapped in her family's estate. It's during World War II. She has a lot of, like, her father's terrible, and it really keeps her under his thumb. Her mother had died, and these mysterious circumstances that no one wants to explain. And there is this idea that her mother had these abilities that people judged her for, but Violet doesn't understand, like no one will tell her the stories. And so she knows that something happened, but she really doesn't know what it was. And then we have 2019, and we meet Kate, and
[00:28:28] Kate is on the run from her life partner. She has this like abusive situation happening, and she has tried to leave several times and really has not been able to, and is on the run, and she is heading to Weyward Cottage.
[00:28:42] And that is how all of this starts to unfurl, this connection between these generations of women that gets woven together. As you're learning about each of their journeys, and so while on the surface it's quite different, I think that the common threads are really present in this idea of women having abilities that have been stifled by society and judged and misconstrued. By society. And I think we see that, and then the way that plays out in their individual lives. And so we're really seeing that with Agnes in this. both the ways that she profoundly helps the community around her, and also the ways that people want to judge her eccentricities, and want her to conform to be different from what she is.
[00:29:26] We really see that. And then with Weyward, we're seeing it unfold under several different generations, over huge swaths of history. So I loved the exploration of all of that. And then again, like this. Idea of the role of the natural world and the way that people who have a capacity to tap into it have a different life experience than people who don't.
[00:29:47] I think all that's really interesting. So that's Amelia Hart's Weyward.
[00:29:51] Jen: I think that is such a great connection. Yes. I think the way both look at women's places in society historically, and then the way that's continued to modern day, I think, is so brilliant. That's such a great parallel.
[00:30:05] Ashley: Oh, thanks. Yeah, I think that, I mean, just thinking about the ways society keeps women in check, I think, is really interesting. And the more, yeah, the more I read about things like this, the more I'm like, huh, how different are things than the way they seem? Because of these societal norms and the, I mean, oppression of things that deviate from those norms, I think it is really interesting to explore.
[00:30:25] What about you, Jen? What's your pairing?
[00:30:27] Jen: So I'm going to give full credit to Ashley on this one. I had a few potential pairings that I wasn't in love with, and then I saw on the sheet that Ashley had listed Weyward and this book, which is Station 11 by Emily St. John Mandel. And I was like, oh, that's perfect. And so selfishly, when she said she was doing Weyward, I was like, do you mind if I jump in?
[00:30:46] On Station 11, but it is so perfect in so many ways. So Station 11 is a book that also centers on Shakespeare in some ways. And so there is a performance that is sort of the seed from which the whole book grows. And it's a performance of King Lear in which the famous actor playing Lear dies very horrifically on stage.
[00:31:12] We find out pretty quickly that this is the first very visible sign of a plague that is going to have ramifications throughout the entire book. And there are all of these threads coming out from Arthur, who is this actor who dies, one of which is a young girl named Kirsten, who is in the play as well, in a minor role, but she is.
[00:31:37] Was, I believe, backstage. I can't remember exactly. It's been a few years since I read it, but I believe she's backstage and sees it all. And she then becomes, for me,e the second center of the story, that there are other characters as well. And so we see her 20 years later in this post-apocalyptic post-plague landscape in which she travels with a group called the Traveling Symphony, who go from.
[00:32:03] A town to town is maybe two grand because they aren't really towns so much as they are places where people live in loose groups. So she travels with the traveling symphony, and they put on plays for people around the country. And it's one of the big, rich parallels between. Hamnet and Station 11 are just this consideration of the ways that art.
[00:32:30] matter. I am gonna talk about the adaptations a little bit because Station 11 also has an absolutely stunning adaptation. It was a television adaptation. I can't remember how many episodes they were. They did change the story somewhat. And Hamnet, the adaptation, changes the story some, but both of them in ways that I think make them work better for the screen.
[00:32:49] And in both of them, they broaden. The way that Hamlet plays into the story. And so in Station 11, one of the plays that they perform is Hamlet, and that is another one that as soon as it started, that episode, I was just like crying through the whole thing because they built it up to be such a meaningful.
[00:33:08] Like, why would you, in this world where survival is a priority, continue to put resources into art? And it's because art does matter and because art makes a difference, and it helps you to understand your own story and to understand the course of your own life. And in Hamnet, the movie actually extends the performance of Hamlet in the film.
[00:33:30] It takes up a large proportion of the movie itself, and so it's a larger part of the movie than that Hamnet scene is in the book. But you can see I think often when we think authors use their biographies in their work, we think it's like a one-to-one connection, but the ways that Shakespeare used his son's life and experience and the loss of him to inform Hamnet.
[00:33:56] Becomes so clear in both the book and the film,m and seeing Agnes, who has been frustrated with her husband because she doesn't feel he's grieving enough. She feels that he's just moved on in a way that she has not been able to, and she sees that he's just, he's been working it out just in his own way.
[00:34:15] And so I just think both of these books have such a rich consideration of why art is important and what art can do for us. Not in a neat, easy way, but just in a way that it needs to be a priority, no matter the situation. As society and civilization can fall apart, art will still matter.
[00:34:34] Your life can be falling apart, and art still matters. So yeah, I just think, read the books, watch the movies, watch the TV show, all the things. So that is Emily St. John Mandel’s Station 11.
[00:34:46] Ashley: Yeah, I did. I was like, yes. This is so relevant, and I think all of us have gone through the pandemic ourselves recently, and its ramifications are carrying on into the present day. Can just see firsthand how fragile it all is. And I think in both the books, like there's that element of just that everything that we have is so precarious, and yet, as you said, Jen, that art still matters, admit all that, and all the more because of it, because of that fragility and having to find ways clinging to what's beautiful.
[00:35:27] Jen: Yeah. Oh, it makes me wanna watch that show again and read that book again. That one, the show came out in 2021, and we watched it live, and so it was a lot of, it was quite eerie because it just felt so reflective of what we were still going through at that time.
[00:35:42] Ashley: Yep.
[00:35:42] Jen: It was a.
[00:35:43] Ashley: I told Jen I had just started that when Marc, 2020 happened, and then I took a long hiatus before I went back and finished that book because the ground under us was too shaky at that time to be able to read the more acute parts of the actual plague itself and what it was like for the characters.
[00:36:01] Yeah. I was like, no, thank you. We don't know yet what is coming our way, so.
[00:36:05] Jen: Yeah. All right. Well, clearly we loved it, so I have a feeling I know which way this will go, but it is done for our bookish hearts. Ashley, how many bookish hearts?
[00:36:13] Ashley: Five bookish charts.
[00:36:15] Jen: Yeah, I would give it more if I could give five for me as well. All right. Well, we will close out today with our Unabridged favorites.
[00:36:22] Ashley, what would you like to highlight?
[00:36:24] Ashley: I don't think I've shared this one before, but I just wanna circle back to Ethique is a brand that I really like that I don't think I've shared recently. And I was thinking about it, Jen was recently talking about, what was your book, Jen, about the garbage?
[00:36:37] Jen: Oh, the Total Garbage. Yeah, I talked about that on the episode earlier this month.
[00:36:41] Ashley: So Jen had shared a book that really focuses on ways to improve our. like how we're handling garbage, and I think it's just a very conscientious brand. I use their shampoo bar, their conditioner bar, and their face wash. And all of it is just, I love that they have compostable packaging.
[00:37:02] They're very careful about the way that they make the products, and I feel like all of it is really good. Also, like, works we, ll and I feel like I have tried a lot of different products, and as anybody who has tried to switch out some of these more like. Mainstream things like it is definitely a journey to find things that there are reasons why we have single-use bottles and that kind of thing.
[00:37:25] And so, like finding more conscientious products, but also like at work for you, I think, can be tricky. So I just wanted to share that one, as we're moving into summer might be a good time if you want to try out something new. And I just love those because I feel like the bars last a long time.
[00:37:41] I do a subscription for the shampoo bar. The conditioner bar lasts me like ages, I mean, more than a year probably. So I don't renew that one. But the shampoo bar I go through every few months. So I just have it set up where it sends it. You know, I don't pay shipping or anything because of the subscription.
[00:37:54] And, so that system has worked well for me, so that's a favorite of mine. They're outta New Zealand, and it's called Ethique. Jen, what was your favorite this month?
[00:38:01] Jen: I'm going to this feels very on brand for this episode. I'm gonna talk about live theater. So my husband and I over spring break went to New York and saw four shows, nd they were all great in different ways, but The Outsiders was stunning. Another thing that made me cry a lot in the best possible way, and I'm just amazed by that.
[00:38:26] This book, written by a 15-year-old, has now continued to resonate with audiences for so long, and the fact that there's a new adaptation, it's a musical, it's on Broadway now. I think they have a national tour going on as well, and that it is still resonating, and that there are themes that are still very pertinent.
[00:38:45] It's just amazing. There were several high school groups there with kids who, it was just so much fun to see. I think it would be a great one to take students to. And then we have a wonderful theater, the American Shakespeare Center in Stanton, Virginia. If you're ever in this area of the country, it is fantastic.
[00:39:03] And I took a group of 80 students to see The Twelfth Night there. They make Shakespeare accessible. They use the original language, but they perform it in a way. That students get it. They get the story. And then my friend and I just saw the Hound of the Baskervilles there, which it's been a long time I laughed so hard.
[00:39:21] But it was so well done. So yeah, I definitely would recommend. If you haven't been to a show in a while, go see some live theater.
[00:39:30] Ashley: I love that, Jen. Yeah, that's so fun. And that's, I do think sometimes it's hard to make time for. It, especially when you're outta the habit of doing it. So yeah, getting back in the groove of doing it, making time for it, and making those reservations to get the tickets in advance. Very cool.
[00:39:45] Jen: Thanks, everyone, for listening to our Hamnet episode. Don't forget to check out our shop on bookshop.org, and we'll talk to you soon.
[00:39:52] Do you have comments or opinions about what you heard today? We'd love to hear them. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @UnabridgedPod, or on the web at unabridgedpod.com for ways to support us. To get more involved, you can sign up for our newsletter, join a buddy read, or become an ambassador.
[00:40:12] Thanks for listening to Unabridged.
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