1.
Choice of quotes
Quotes
from David Beckham and William Shakespeare feature at the start of the
novel. The David Beckham quote is a neat encapsulation of the perceived
wisdom regarding the role of a husband and father. The Shakespeare quote,
'Wisdom cries out in the street and no man regards it’, is a potential
challenge to perceived wisdom and therefore provides a useful counterbalance
to the Beckham quote. I also thought ‘Wisdom cries out in the street’
was fitting for a novel where dogs may have the upper hand. Or paw. The
quote is from Henry IV Part One, spoken by Falstaff to Prince Hal.
Also,
Beckham and Shakespeare are both very different representatives of England,
so I thought it would be fun to put them side-by-side.
2.
Henry IV Part One
Henry
IV Part One is my favourite Shakespeare play and loosely inspired the
sub-plot for The Last Family in England. In the play Prince Hal is caught
between following his duty as the future King of England, represented
by his father King Henry, and the world of mischief and hedonistic self-indulgence
represented by Sir Jack Falstaff. So in my novel Prince faces a similar
predicament, caught between his Labrador mentor Henry and the mischievous
Springer spaniel Falstaff.
Incidentally,
although rarely performed nowadays, Henry IV Part One (along with Part
Two) was more popular than Hamlet in Shakespeare’s own time. Queen
Elizabeth I so loved the character of Falstaff that she commanded Shakespeare
to write a play which centred around him. The result was The Merry Wives
of Windsor, which like many other character spin-offs (such as A Nightmare
on Elm Street 2 and Frasier) is not quite as strong as the original.
There
are a number of textual references to the play. For instance, in the novel
Falstaff calls Prince 'madwag' because of the way he wags his tail and
in the Shakespeare version Falstaff greets Prince Hal by saying 'how now
you mad wag' and always refers to him as a wag of some sort.
There
were, of course, a variety of other conscious influences apparent when
writing this book. Here is a rough mathematical formula, to illustrate
these influences:
3.
The spelling of ‘Family’
Readers
will notice that the word family is sometimes spelt with a capital F and
sometimes with a lower case f. When humans are speaking they obviously
say ‘family’ and when dogs are speaking they say ‘Family’.
This is because all dogs, not just Labradors, once worshipped the human
family religiously. And so it is likely they would still talk of ‘Family’,
just as many people in secular societies talk of ‘God’. I’ve
also got Lapsang, the cat, saying ‘Family’. This is because
I believe that she values the human family she lives with far more than
she would have us believe.
4.
The short chapters
Originally
all the chapters were normal length, but then I decided to go through
and chop them all up to make them shorter. The shortest chapter is the
one called ‘sound’ which consists of four words, ‘There
was a sound.’
You can’t
beat short chapters, in my opinion, especially when they’re placed
before longer chapters. They’re not only very user-friendly (especially
for people who read on the tube), but they also inject pace and add atmosphere.
In contemporary cinema it is a common technique to have a short shot of
something before a longer scene. For instance, in Jerry Bruckheimer movies
you’ll get a short flashy view of a cityscape before a long shoot-out.
Short
chapters also help with pacing, and keep momentum going at the speed of
a dog galloping in a park.
5.
A note on Springer spaniels
Springer spaniels are presented as a corrupting influence on all dog breeds
in the novel. Their belief in pleasure over duty is said to have jeopardised
the security of all human families.
I would
like to distance myself from the views of my narrator at this point.
I have
nothing against Springer spaniels. In fact, from the age of ten to eighteen
I used to live with one. His name was Murdoch (and he has a cameo role
in the vet scene at the start of the novel), and I loved him very much.
He may have believed in pleasure over duty (in fact, I’m pretty
sure he did), but that made him all the more fun to be around.
6.
A note on cats
I have
nothing against cats either. The character of the cat Lapsang in the novel
may do cats a disservice, but the novel is written from a Labrador’s
perspective and must therefore reflect a Labrador’s prejudices.
7.
A note on Labradors
Obviously,
I could only guess at what prejudices a Labrador might have as I have
no immediate first-hand experience of being one, contrary to the rumours.
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