LITE-2Z35: Contemporary Writing Candidate: 3534278

Contemporary Literature

Last Orders. Graham Swift.

Building on the work of previous writers, contemporary literature is defined primarily by its freedom in
all aspects. It takes to extremes what previous writers put into practice, a palimpsest evolving new
themes: memory, consciousness, contradiction, death. Writers exploit first-person narrative, narratorial
independence, and in some texts 1, the narrator even seeks to alienate readers. In Last Orders, Swift
explores many of these aspects, his narrative experimenting in new ways as well as old.

One of the first elements of this book which grabs the reader’s attention is the multiple first-person
narrators. David Lodge expresses that in the world we live in today, “a single human voice... can seem
the only authentic way of rendering consciousness” 2. Here Swift attempts to do this with many single
voices, each offering their own incite and varied stand-point on the same situation. However, although
the character speaking changes, the manner in which it is spoken stays very similar, so that the reader is
not thrown though a series of stylistic and perhaps confusing transitions, but instead experiences the
steady descant of a singular voice. Where it does not change in style or register, the accent and
intonation continuous, the content is able to move more freely, forcing the reader to jump between
memory and plot, and consequently make huge leaps in time. The effect this monotonous polyphony
has is to create transient characters, their edges blurred and smudged, all spilling into one and other,
and held in place by a shared bank of memories.

When the speaker becomes the spoken of, the visual alignment of the reader again changes. No
longer are internal thoughts and memories accessible but instead we are fronted with external
expressions, actions and reactions. When Ray narrates Vince scattering Jack at Wicks Farm, the reader is
never clear of the intent or what thought traced itself through Vince’s mind. Very often we define
ourselves by our relationships with others and our reflection in them or their reaction to us, so perhaps
the characters in this novel are truest to their self when seen externally, and that is why, in moments of
spotlight-glory, the external is all that is shown.

Essentially, this has been called a text in journey form 3. The characters undertake a quest in order to
reach a resolution. However if we look at the essence of the journey it consists of only 5 focal points,
1
eg: A. Warner, Morvern Callar
2
D. Lodge, Consciousness And The Novel, Unit Dossier, pg 3
3
P. Cooper, Graham Swift's Last Orders: A Reader's Guide, Continuum International, 2002, pg 32
LITE-2Z35: Contemporary Writing Candidate: 3534278

and over half of it is spent inside the characters’ minds, remembering bits and pieces of Jack and them.
Pamela Cooper described the novel as “the interplay between story, history, and memory” 4. Perhaps
this is best thought of as a journey in memory (“in one direction there’s what’s ahead and in another
there’s the memory”5; “like a person never dies in the mind’s eye” 6). After all it is the amalgamation of
memories from our various and many narrators which brings us Jack: war hero, father, cheated
husband, butcher; in effect this is his story, though he is the only one without a voice; Jack’s life flashing
before their eyes. It is asked when they first encounter the urn whether it is “all Jack in there or Jack
mixed up with bits of others” 7. He is most certainly created in the reader’s mind by bits and pieces from
his friends, even the contrasting views such as Ray’s fondness and Vince’s hatred fuse together in an
overall picture as one.

Despite this being a text about a journey, there is a preoccupation with standing still. Although
introduced initially as a joke (“the coach” which “ain’t ever moved” 8) Jack’s death seemed to create a
feeling amongst his friends “like [they] ain’t going nowhere, it’s the corridors and swing-doors which
move passed [them]”9, “like we’re all in some place where things have come to a standstill” 10. This then
gives a purpose to their detoured journey, a means of re-animation, re-energizing themselves and
moving on. Thus when they reach Margate pier, they have “got to act quick”, and symbolically Vince’s
sudden movement after the crawlingly slow car ride is time’s sudden release and recuperation, allowing
their re-entry into the present and their previously stationary perception accounts for Ray’s description
of event happening fast and rushed in comparison from here onwards.

History as well as memory is important in the novel. All five men have fought in the army, and were
severely affected by World War Two. This is very fitting, as most of our contemporary lifestyle is a result
of the war which caused massive industrial development, social reorganisation, and personal freedom.
Thus this is a defining moment, and the change caused is reflected in the novel: migration is accessible,
Susie disappearing to Sydney and Hussein living in England (“seeming suddenly like everyone was
looking for a new place to pitch their tent” 11), divorce or separation is infiltrating, as is consumerism,

4
Cooper, Graham Swift's Last Orders, pg 31
5
G. Swift, Last Orders, Picador, 1996, pg 63
6
Swift, Last Orders, pg 267
7
Swift, Last Orders, pg 4
8
Swift, Last Orders, pg 7
9
Swift, Last Orders, pg 186
10
Swift, Last Orders, pg 185
11
Swift, Last Orders, pg 245
LITE-2Z35: Contemporary Writing Candidate: 3534278

with Hussein’s collection of cars and Vince’s flaunted lifestyle, leading to growth in demand and
inauguration of supermarkets, putting small-time butchers like Jack out of profit and business (“there
was more than one meat market at Smithfield once”). This is all a reflection of the real world and how it
changes, creating a backdrop of contemporary life.

Obviously death and dealing with it are main themes running through the novel, also key elements of
contemporary fiction. It is said in many instances that “if you don’t do it, Jack will never know”, and Ray
says “there ain’t going to be no soonest or latest and you won’t ever get the chance again”, implying a
belief in nothing after death. Last Orders seems to be fitting not only in the sense that these are
frequenters of the “Coach and Horses”, but these are also their last orders, as soldiers, as a unit; these
are Jacks last orders. However, although there is a finality to death, there is ambiguity over what then
will ensue. Their certainty of Jack not knowing of the pilgrimage doesn’t stop them going or making
detours to take Jack for “a last look” 12. It becomes clear that the journey is not for the dead man but for
them, to say goodbye to their friend, and thus each of them has a detour of their own.

There is a contradictory manner of dealing with situations which is used regularly in the novel.
Despite Vince’s comment that “when something’s one thing, it ain’t another”, there seems to be an
underlying concern with things being something they aren’t. Jack is a good example: he wanted to be a
doctor not a butcher, and he pressures Vince to follow him despite his own aversions. Additionally his
household consists of: “a son whose home it wasn’t but it was, a daughter whose home it was but it
wasn’t ... a mum and dad who weren’t really a mum and dad” 13. Ray is supposed to be a lucky “ray of
hope”14, but his family left him and despite his betting fortune, he does not have excessive money. These
contradictions stimulate the reader to impugn the tangled web of narrators and distrust their word as if
there is always another side; it opens the characters’ memories to fallacy. Perhaps it is all elaborated
truths, distorted recollections bent by time and desire. But without these memories, even misshapen
and fragmented, there would be nothing else. All would be like June Dodds: exclusively confined to the
present. So what Vince neglected to observe when he said “nobody ain’t more than just a body... which
ain’t nobody”15, was not only that we are a body which remembers, but that that is somebody.

12
Swift, Last Orders, pg 10
13
Swift, Last Orders, pg 157
14
Swift, Last Orders, pg 284
15
Swift, Last Orders, pg 119
LITE-2Z35: Contemporary Writing Candidate: 3534278

Finally, the approach of the author suggests a contemporary style and form: the tone is casual and
conversation; the first-person narrative slips on occasion into second person 16 and stream of
consciousness; and it is littered with clichés 17. There are also references to external texts such as the
pilgrimage in The Canterbury Tales, and “Margate sands”18. In addition, the fragmented chapters,
switching narrator, time, and place without concern, create a rhythmic discourse of plot and past which
quickly becomes an interwoven canon of the two. Such textual interplay reeks of contemporaneity, the
stylistic approach pushing and experimenting with the boundaries of the previous work.

Last Orders’ is a book of many depths and it uses many techniques, exaggerated and augmented,
stretched to their potential and then given apparent narrative independence, to seamlessly dissemble
the author and freely engage with an individual. Its insistent concerns with memory and death,
contradiction and change, modernity borne by history and, quintessentially, narrative dominance, do
not however define this text as contemporary. Part of the essence of contemporaneity is freedom from
constraints, and so integrally it should not be definable. Henri Bergson said “the truth is that we change
without ceasing, and that the state itself is nothing but change” 19. And so it is only with the clarity of
time that we can look back at an overall pattern and find distinct change, and it is then that we can
define our memory and label our history.

16
Swift, Last Orders, pg 277 - “You can blame me that you were born...”
17
Such as: Vince the used car salesman, Jack the lad, the “coach and horses”
18
T. S. Eliot, Selected Poems, The Waste Land, Faber, 1961(2002), Pg 52, Ln 300
19
ed. Kolocotroni, Goldman, Taxidou, Modernism: An Anthology of Sources, Edinburgh University Press,
1998(2007), pg 69
LITE-2Z35: Contemporary Writing Candidate: 3534278

Bibliography:
G. Swift, Last Orders, Picador, 1996
P. Cooper, Graham Swift's Last Orders: A Reader's Guide, Continuum International, 2002
T. S. Eliot, Selected Poems, The Waste Land, Faber, 1961(2002)
ed. Kolocotroni, Goldman, Taxidou, Modernism: An Anthology of Sources, Edinburgh University Press, 1998(2007)