Shakespeare References in Berserk!

Yes, Shakespeare references continue to appear in basically every book I read. Graham Chester’s Berserk! contains a couple of references. The book is about mass shootings, something that is currently a huge problem, but it was published back in 1993. So I guess this trouble with guns isn’t all that new (though none of the shootings described here take place in high schools or grammar schools). Anyway, the first reference is in the book’s first chapter, and comes in a description of a man who shot several people: “He compared himself to Shakespeare, Schiller and Goethe” (p. 7). The second reference is to an often misquoted line from Hamlet. The line is “The cat will mew and dog will have his day,” but many people quote it as “Every dog has his day.” Well, that is exactly how shooter Frank Vitkovic wrote the line in his journal. Graham Chester includes several brief passages from that diary, including this: “Every dog has his day. Diary: 26 October 1987” (p. 177).

Berserk! was originally published in Great Britain in 1993. The edition I read was the St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition, published in 1995.