To be, or not to be, that is the question. (Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 1)

Amaze Amaze Amaze!  (Rocky, Project Hail Mary)

I broke one of my cardinal rules AND deviated from my typical commonalities post, all in one go. If a movie is based on a book, I make it a point to read the book first but in the case of Hamnet and Project Hail Mary, it was quite the opposite. Even more so, the movies made me want to read the respective books so much, I put my fiction/nonfiction tandem read on hold so I could read both books, and what books they were. 

Project Hail Mary was a masterpiece of a science-fiction movie and a delightful read. I will also admit I used to not be a huge Ryan Gosling fan but after Barbie, I started warming up to him and I thought he absolutely killed it in PHM. After reading the book, it was also clear it was a perfect casting. Gosling was able to embody Grace’s character to a T and it was probably as close to a 1:1 as you could have gotten, if I do say so myself. PHM was a rare case, I also found, where seeing the movie first actually improved my reading experience. The science involved in PHM was so complex, it helped to have the movie visuals already in my mind when reading so I was able to better visualize what Weir was writing about, because I would have been completely lost had I read the book first. There’s a reason I teach/taught English, not Science. This also proved to be a lovely, much more lighthearted companion to Hamnet, whose movie absolutely broke me and whose book was as heavy as it was beautiful. 

Hamnet was my first read by Maggie O’Farrell and I knew immediately she was my kind of author. Rich description and sweeping metaphors filled the pages of this beautiful take on Shakespeare and even though I have a tricky relationship with the Bard (funny as an English teacher, I know), I was enthralled. The film was gut-wrenching and I can’t even remember how many times I cried, but it was also a masterpiece well deserving of its awards. The acting was superb across the board and in a similar case to PHM, seeing the movie first actually improved the experience reading the book by really punctuating (wink, wink) the important emotional beats/scenes. I don’t think the scene of Agnes’ second birth would have hit nearly as hard solely as words without the accompanying scene from the film that replayed in my mind. I find it a fun challenge to spot the differences in a film adaptation of a book and for Hamnet, there were some larger differences than I expected, but I understood why the changes were made and the movie was still an excellent adaptation. 

Commonalities

Starting with the Unknown

Both novels begin with the unknown, quite literally. In Hamnet, we start the novel by following Hamnet through his vacant house as he searches for an adult, or anyone for that matter, to help his ailing twin sister Judith upstairs. He goes from room to room, calling the names of his mother, grandmother, older sister, other family members only to be met with silence. He goes from room to room, around the house’s grounds, through his grandfather’s glove making workshop, all to no avail. Through O’Farrell’s prose, we truly feel the loneliness Hamnet feels in this situation and the helplessness as he knows he can’t do much for Judith on his own and that the sickness wracking her frail body is only going to get worse without some kind of intervention, nor does he know where anyone is, his mother, sister, etc. He eventually has no choice and ventures out into the town in search of the physician, who is also not where they are supposed to be and thus, also cannot come to Judith’s aide. The chapter ends with Hamnet returning, him and the house both empty still and going to accompany Judith upstairs as he resolves to wait patiently for someone, anyone, to return. 

In PHM, we begin with Dr. Grace waking up in a spaceship, although he doesn’t realize that yet because he has no idea who he is, let alone where he is. The beginning of the novel is a puzzle Dr. Grace tries to solve piece by piece to even remember his own name, or anything that defines him, i.e. the fact that he’s a scientist, in space, on a suicide mission to save the planet. Dr. Grace’s memories are fed to us piecemeal in a wonderful story structure that truly makes you feel as Grace does with random memories inserting themselves to help tell the story of why he, and we, are here. 

Trapped (Literally and Figuratively)

In both novels, we encounter characters trapped either physically, in the case of Dr. Grace in PHM, or situationally, in the case of Will in Hamnet. In PHM, Grace is trapped on his spaceship light years from Earth, with nowhere to go but further along on the mission to save Earth’s dimming sun, lest he be lost forever in the void of space. We also learn that the mission Grace finds himself on is a one-way trip. There is only enough fuel to get Grace and the ship to the destination star, not enough for a return to Earth. Grace and the rest of the crew were meant to die in space, with both of the other crewmembers perishing technically even before the story begins. Grace meets Rocky, an Eridian alien facing the same fate on his planet and over the course of the novel, we learn that Rocky has fuel to spare so Grace can actually return to Earth. The reader feels hopeful for Grace until he learns Rocky is in danger on his own trip home and makes the tough decision to use the remainder of his fuel to save Rocky. The decision leaves him trapped again, this time on Rocky’s home planet while the native Eridians refuel his ship for a later return to Earth. 

The character Will in Hamnet is none other than William Shakespeare, the great playwright. In this story however, he does not start out as a master of the theatre, but the lowly son of a glovemaker in a small, country town. Agnes, his wife and who I would argue is the main character, recognizes the mind Will has and also how the slow, country life they were meant to live would only stifle and smother him. He is trapped in a provincial cage and Agnes sees he is meant for bigger and better things and if he doesn’t break free, he very well might wither away and become a version of himself that she doesn’t know and didn’t fall in love with. The mind of a creative is a fickle one and, in a time where societal and familial roles are as cut and dry as they get, a mind like Will’s finds no outlet in the monotonous life of a glovemaker or Latin tutor. Despite wanting Will by her side always, as any wife would, Agnes pushes Will to follow his dreams to the city of London, where he begins his soon to be illustrious career in the playhouse.

The Great Debate: Arts vs. Science

The subject matter of both novels, both underlying and overarching, were interesting to consider at the same time while tandem reading. On the hand of Hamnet, we have the importance of theatre and the arts. Especially in the film, the final scene of the performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, we see the impact of theatre on its audience and how we collectively experience art. While I was glad to watch Hamnet at home to avoid others seeing me ugly crying in public, AJ, my partner, brought up an excellent point that it would have been a much deeper experience to have watched the final scene in the playhouse along with a live audience in the movie theater. In a society increasingly leaning towards STEM and away from the arts, this book and film brought to the forefront that the arts should not be forgotten. In PHM, we see the importance of science and how such complicated concepts, methods, rules, and procedures play a part in literally saving the world; multiple worlds at that. We see forays into biology, physics, astronomy, you name the field, and it really puts into perspective how far we have progressed as a society due to scientific breakthroughs and the constant advancement of technology. Hamnet, by subtitle, is a novel about the plague which is nonexistent today due to significant improvements in science and medicine. In education, in recent years we have seen the push for more STEM/STEAM centered schools and coursework at the expense of fields like the arts and humanities for the sake of supposed practicality. The arts persevere as they always do and will, but there should be an equal focus on both, as one can hardly exist without the other.