A Dog of Flanders
A
Dog of Flanders is an 1872 novel by English author Marie Louise de la
Ramée published with her pseudonym "Ouida". It is about a Flemish boy named Nello and his dog, Patrasche and is set in Antwerp.
In
Japan, Korea
and the Philippines,
the novel has been an extremely popular children's classic for decades and has
been adapted into several Japanese films and anime.[1] Since the 1980s, the Belgian board of tourism caught on to
the phenomenon and built two monuments honoring the story to please East-Asian
tourists. There is a small statue of Nello and Patrasche at the Kapelstraat in
the Antwerp suburb of Hoboken,
and a commemorative plaque in front of the Antwerp
Cathedral donated by Toyota,[1] that was later replaced by a marble statue of the two
characters covered by a cobblestone blanket, created by the artist Batist
Vermeulen.
Summary
In
19th century Belgium, a boy named Nello becomes an orphan at the age of two when
his mother dies in the Ardennes.
His grandfather Jehan Daas, who lives in a small village near the city of
Antwerp, takes him in.
One
day, Nello and Jehan Daas find a dog who was almost beaten to death, and name
him Patrasche. Due to the good care of Jehan Daas, the dog recovers, and from
then on, Nello and Patrasche are inseparable. Since they are very poor, Nello
has to help his grandfather by selling milk. Patrasche helps Nello pull their
cart into town each morning.
Nello
falls in love with Aloise, the daughter of Nicholas Cogez, a well-off man in
the village, but Nicholas doesn't want his daughter to have a poor sweetheart.
Although Nello is illiterate, he is very talented in drawing. He enters a
junior drawing contest in Antwerp, hoping to win the first prize, 200 francs
per year. However, the jury selects somebody else.
Afterwards,
he is accused of causing a fire by Nicholas (the fire occurred on his property)
and his grandfather dies. His life becomes even more desperate. Having no place
to stay, Nello wishes to go to the cathedral
of Antwerp (to see Rubens' The Elevation of the
Cross and The Descent of the
Cross), but the exhibition held inside
the building is only for paying customers and he's out of money. On the night
of Christmas Eve, he and Patrasche go to Antwerp and, by chance, find the door
to the church open. The next morning, the boy and his dog are found frozen to
death in front of the triptych.
Popularity
The
novel shares a reasonable notability in both the United
Kingdom and the United
States and is extremely popular in Japan, Korea
and the Philippines
to the point where it is seen as a children's classic. It inspired film and anime adaptations, including the 1975 animated TV series Dog of Flanders which reached an audience of 30 million viewers on its
first broadcast.[2]
In
Belgium, the story is more obscure. Only in 1987 did it receive a
Dutch translation; this happened after the tale was adapted into a story of the
popular comic book series Suske
en Wiske. Since then, monuments were raised
to commemorate Nello and Patrasche to please tourists. In 2007 Didier Volckaert
and An van Dienderen directed a documentary about the international popularity
of the story: "Patrasche, A Dog of Flanders - Made in Japan". It
researches all available film adaptations of the story and interviews several
British, American and Japanese people about what attracts them to this novel.[2]
Film, TV and theatrical adaptations
The
novel has been adapted for cinema and television in live-action and animation:
- A Dog of Flanders (1914),[3] a short film directed by Howell Hansel
- A Boy of Flanders (1924),[4] directed by Victor Schertzinger and starring Jackie Coogan as Nello
- A Dog of Flanders (1935),[5] directed by Edward Sloman
- A Dog of Flanders (1959),[6] directed by James B. Clark and starring David Ladd as Nello.
- Dog of Flanders (1975), a Japanese animation TV series produced by Nippon Animation
- My Patrasche (1992), a Japanese animation TV series produced by Tokyo Movie Shinsha
- The Dog of Flanders (Japan, 1997),[7] a remake of the 1975 TV series directed by Yoshio Kuroda
- A Dog of Flanders (1999),[8] directed by Kevin Brodie
- Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000), a South Korean satirical version directed by Bong Joon-ho
- Snow Prince (Japan, 2009), directed by Joji Matsuoka.[9] (in Japanese)
- A Dog of Flanders, 2011, Minoto Studios[citation needed]
For
its authentic 19th century buildings, the Open Air Museum of Bokrijk, Flanders was used as scenery for the 1975 and 1992 anime
and the 1999 film.[citation needed]
None
of the film versions, excluding the 1997 Japanese movie and Snow Prince
(2009) uses the novel's ending, preferring to substitute a more optimistic one.
In Snow Prince (2009), the boy and the dog are found frozen to death
under a tree. In one of the film versions,[which?] Nello and his dog go to
the village church, where the pastor covers them with a woolen blanket, thus
saving their lives. Two days later, one of the judges comes. Because he thought
Nello was the true winner, he asks him to stay with him. As years pass
Patrasche dies, and Nello becomes a famous artist.
Documentary film
- Patrasche, a Dog of Flanders - Made in Japan (2007), a documentary film directed by Didier Volckaert and An van Dienderen.[10]
Comic book version
The
story was used as a plot device in the Suske
en Wiske comic book series, namely the album
Het Dreigende Dinges (The Threatening Thing) (1985). The album
was translated into Japanese.[11][2]
Monument
There
are three monuments built to commemorate the story. The first one was built in
1985 and can be seen in the Kapelstraat in Hoboken,
Antwerp.[12] Up until the end of 2016 a fictional grave stone stood near
the Antwerp Cathedral. It had text in English and Japanese that read:
"Nello, and his dog Patrasche, main characters from the story "A Dog
of Flanders", symbols of true and sternful friendship, loyalty and
devotion."[13]
On
December 10, 2016, a new monument was revealed on the Handschoenmarkt square in
front of the Antwerp Cathedral. A sculpture in white marble represents Nello
and Patrasche sleeping, covered by a blanket of cobble stones. The sculpture is
made by Belgian artist Batist Vermeulen (Tist).[14]
Location
In
1985 an employee of Antwerp tourism, Jan Corteel, wanted to promote "A Dog
of Flanders". He presumed the village of the story to be Hoboken,
even though this is never mentioned in the story itself. Ouida is believed to have visited Antwerp for four hours, and
spoke of having seen a village near a canal, not far from a windmill. This
vague explanation was used to claim the story took place in Hoboken, but other
people contest this.[15]
