Hamnet lurking in the Writer’s heart

Immensely absorbing with overwhelming interest, the book is a recollection of a human memory shining through everything she writes

A legend written from the heart subconsciously to create a fictitious prince, Gwen Herat breathes life into a spirit who rise from ashes of time and walk into eternity.  It is a pleasure to review or criticize her work because of the lyrical quality found in words and above; for the sudden twists and turns she injects with no prior indication to the reader, who is taken unawares, as to in which direction the story is heading.   

They all amount to surprises and mystery. ‘To be or not to be’ moans Hamlet in Shakespeare’s Tragedy. ‘To live or not to live’ Ophelia breathes her last from Herat’s Tragedy.   While the first is a famously quoted Shakespearean phrase, the second is bound to pick up in no time. Now, starts the race when Hamnet, the Prince from Nowhere clean-sweeps the bookshelves and reaches Shakespeare readers and also make way to classrooms. ‘To live or not to live’ will soon be a popular quote. Both phrases are aptly placed generations apart. To use prose and words as self-expression is the forefront in her texts and all those, who have followed Herat’s works, will agree that they are all symphonic sonatas reflecting a day’s mysteries that Hamnet and Ophelia experience in their tryst.  Elegant structures and bewildering pen-scribbles go to make this tragedy a modern classic. What spurred such a creative parallel between two lives, drawing her inspiration from a ‘Prince’ who is Hamnet of today and Hamlet of yesterday, is perhaps someone in possession of her soul. “Of noisome winds upon enamelled green, Morning dawns, the evening ends, Stay gentle, sweet Hamnet And I shall be thy faithful maid. Upon the prints of steps, Thou leave behind Beyond the realm of yonder land We shall find our resting place - 49 Herat is so good in her prose that I cannot but quote still more beautiful verses. At times, the tenses run haywire but they all meet to swell the story. Here is yet another that caught my imagination:- ‘Or the last vestige, like the broken rocky hill, When volcanoes run the great flow, When shinny cradle see the day, Alas: The day has dawned when earthlings rise Our spirits to engulf. But I see thee in thy golden robe As preamble the nightingale a distant call - 122   

"An intimate portrait of a person she carries in her mind subconsciously. Herat’s delightful literary style is appealing to both young and old. "

TRANSITION TO INCARNATION   

A touch of re-birth pre-dominate one life followed by another leading the way to spiritual attainment. There is no doubt that illusion makes great stories. Many writers are capable of creating uncanny senses of living every minute in a reader’s mind but Herat goes a step further as she by-passes the sense of dying as well.   
One must remember the writer to be a Christian and therefore re-births are not active in her mind.   
It makes her tick as a perceptive analysis of character.   
Time ago, I was listening to her keynote address to SAARC women on fate and destiny of Asian women, when suddenly she turned around and said loud and clear.   
‘I am my destiny’   
A very strong statement from 
the Chair.   
Those words kept ringing in my ears until, by chance, I came across her latest book, Hamnet, which is all about destiny gripping its central figures, including a sloth bear.   
Laden with lyrical prose, apart from the leading story of intrigue, passion and sacrifice, with a snarling beast that mauls them to a gruesome death in the lonely forest of Elsinore, with Ophelia’s soliloquy reverberating in the darkness of the night, creating a harrowing effect on the reader due to its fast-tracked words.   
‘My ripped heart ached for his love declared too late in the wilderness. It was him I loved and not Hamlet, the secret I kept locked in my heart as we held back our forbidden passion for each other. 
We were Elsinore’s dream but fate had her own reasons unknown to us and shortened our lives before the early buds opened out in their glory to paint the flowers in myriad hues and sap the nectar of youth in us.   
‘To live or not live?   
As every sentence compels her deeper into the mystery with strange happenings, seemed a predestined mock of life, upon identical twins to the point of separation: One to live, the other to die as the intrepid journey of one as opposed to luxury living, both given to love Ophelia.    It captures the magic of youth at crossroads. The reader will feel the darkness across the woods and midnight close at hand.   
Compassionate, resilient and emotionally broken, Ophelia seeks his love she never 
had in life.   

"Herat’s inner spirit has come in contact with someone she would have met for the first time even briefly, possibly in a split of a second, or someone in a crowd but not without leaving behind a deep impression. "

A PSYCHO - LOGICAL ANALYSIS   

The potent element that functions as human soul or mind, relevant to the psyche of the unknown mysterious character -that subconsciously torments the writer-arises in the prose so cleverly composed.   
Trapped, bound and chained in her own dream world from which she cannot free herself, Herat’s inspiration remains a vision.   
Shakespeare would have grabbed the idea like no other for the new twist given towards its 
story value.   
Her mind would have walked pass mountains and valleys to discover Hamnet, her idol, inspiration without which, the story would not have 
seen the day.   
Therefore, Hamnet is someone she knows subconsciously- perhaps love.   
Now, wait a second: This type of psychological conception is pure imagination born out of a vision that grips the mind to formulate each character like Hamnet.   
With my experience as a senior psychologist, I did come across and did discover one or two possessed by such enigmas in my class like I find in Herat, awaiting explosion or coughing up.   
Herat’s inner spirit has come in contact with someone she would have met for the first time even briefly, possibly in a split of a second, or someone in a crowd but not without leaving behind a deep impression.   
And that someone is Hamnet.   

‘From behind the darkened shadows
Cast by floating clouds
Thou appeared from nowhere
And seized my heart, my soul, my all.
Precious Prince from nowhere
No crown upon thy head 
That glittered in princely gems 
The glow upon thy wondrous face
That was Hamnet’s grace’ (132)   

Immensely absorbing with overwhelming interest, the book is a recollection of a human memory shining through everything she writes.   
An intimate portrait of a person she carries in her mind subconsciously. Herat’s delightful literary style is appealing to both young and old.   
This magnificent book is dedicated to Rt. Rev. Dr Devsritha Valence Mendis, Bishop of Chilaw.   
Front cover - Mystery of Elsinore woods in glorious colour. Hand-bound hardcover priced at Rs. 800, US$:20.00 and available at Vijitha Yapa bookshops islandwide.