dorothy senner

Reviews and other content aren't verified by Google

Every tedious thought and unrealistic action of the main character told in an unrelenting active tense created a very plodding tale for this reader. An uninformed newbie may have found the information about one of the pandemic waves of plague in England insightful, but there is nothing profound about it in this novel. Moreover, there is nothing new to learn about Shakespeare, his wife, nor their children in the telling of this tale. I plodded along, hoping for a redeeming ending, but found only a slight--very slight--connection to Hamlet, the play, and Hamnet, the son--and even that is a stretch. Anne (ok, Agnes, accent on the second syllable) Hathaway was probably a very ordinary woman; to portray her as having extraordinary abilities is downright silly. For this former English teacher (me) this is a very disappointing novel. What's all the hoopla? I loved The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by the same author, but Hamnet was a big disappointment.

Amazing! The script, the actors--top notch. Most of all, however, is the scathing result: an effective and realistic plunge into the mind of a person with dementia and probably Alzheimer's. To me, as an octogenarian, this movie hits home. I have never seen a depiction of dementia as brilliantly portrayed on every level as this one. With the combination of an aging America, and the advancement of the film industry, this movie could be considered a foremost prototype on the dramatization of the aging.