I’d heard so much good about Fraser’s “Flashman” novels. And I adored his novel, “Pyrates.”
But I got 100 pages in to Flashman (which is not a long book) and bounced.
The character is too damned unlovable. (I’m reminded of “Tom the Dancing Bug” and “Dinkle, the Unlovable Loser.”) Flashy is cruel, bullying, mean-spirited. He beats one woman and attempts to rape her. He fixes a duel.
The scenarios are supposed to be funny. I’ll even grant that they are witty. But the character just puts me right off.
Then, too, the author uses the word “nigger” too freely – when I encountered it three times in one page, I pretty much decided the book isn’t for me. Yes, a soldier in India in 1850 would very likely use the word. But what I am willing to forgive Mark Twain in 1876, I cannot comfortably permit GMF in 1969.
I had a similar problem with Thackeray’s “Barry Lyndon.” The character is too nasty, too cruel, too mean-spirited. The movie softened this by making him tolerable, even vaguely likeable, but in the original book, he does not have a single moral or character virtue. But at least I was able to finish the Thackeray. The Fraser, alas, must escape me.
Flashman is at his very worst in the first novel. Fraser softened him considerably in subsequent ones. At least, IIRC he never again commits outright forcible rape, as he does with his father’s mistress. His partners may be under some kind or extortion or duress, but they are at least somewhat willing (at least, according to Flashy.)
But even a softened Flashman takes a strong appreciation for black humor to tolerate.
Thank’ee for that update; heartens me a bit. I’ll put the book back into a “maybe” stack, instead of rejecting it utterly and outright.
I can definitely see the literary value of the book; the bloke can write!
I guess I just prefer a more likeable rogue, such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Brigadier Gerard.” The guy is a churl, but dense as Osmium in a freezer. The stories work as comedies of misunderstanding.
Flashman, at least as far as I got, seemed more like comedy-of-cruelty.
(I did read Hughe’s “Tom Brown’s School Days,” which was a pleasant little nostalgia trip. I wish that Flashman were a slightly more worthy relict of that book.)
Don’t give up on Flashman just yet. I’m as liberal and feminist as they get, and I don’t morally approve of the character of Flashman in any way, but the books really are funny.
Even the later books, where the decidedly not-very-liberal Fraser has somewhat cleaned up and wised up Flashman’s character in order to make this cowardly rapist murderer liar thief come across as more honest and more sensible than all those bleating hypocritical Victorian liberals, still have really funny scenes and exciting plots and interesting history.
In the meantime, try reading some of Fraser’s “Private McAuslan” stories about a WWII Highland Scots regiment in The General Danced at Dawn and McAuslan in the Rough. In particular, “General Knowledge, Private Information” gets my vote as simply the funniest short story in the English language.
Also, if you read Tom Brown’s Schooldays you might be interested in Tom Brown at Oxford. If you want likeable characters, that’s the place to find them, and though it can be a bit heavy on the Victorian longwindedness, it’s a very interesting window on that historical world (and incidentally gives you a better perspective on the grimy underside of that world that Flashman represents).
Anyway, don’t worry about not enjoying Flashman to start with, and have fun!
I just went and bought The Complete McAuslan on Kindle, and, for good measure, just downloaded Tom Brown at Oxford from Project Gutenberg.
I’ll take a few days to think on’t, and will likely try to finish Flashman.
Thank’ee kindly! You and Colibri are people whose opinions I have learned, in my wayward sojourn here, to value very highly.
(And I adore Project Gutenberg beyond my ability to praise! They’re just doggone wonderful! I’ve been catching up on, of all people Euripides. Pure joy! The combination of P.G. and an e-reader is as close to heaven in a library as I’ve ever known.)
I loved the Flashman books but can absolutely understand why they’re not everyone’s cup of boiled leaves in water.
Having said that, the first book is probably the least good of them and the character does soften into a more relatable scoundrel in later stories - not that it helps if the character and the setting just don’t appeal, of course.
I do love me some Flashman, but I admit, as others have already, he’s not for everyone.
The conceit employed by the author is this: Flashman has only one virtue - he’s honest (at least, in his ‘memoirs’, if nowhere else). His cruelty, selfishness, racism and misogyny is simply an (accurate!) reflection of the similar traits dominant in the society of his time - where he differs, is that he’s self-aware of all that, and adds “self-conscious cowardice” to the mix.
No, Flashman covered the character’s younger days such as his expulsion from school, his marriage to Elsbeth, and his service in the First Anglo-Afghan War in 1842.
The impersonating plot was from the second book, Royal Flash, which was essentially a retelling of The Prisoner of Zenda. (In the Flashman universe, Pope found out about the real life incident involving Flashman and based his novel on it.)
The sleigh ride chase, if I recall correctly, was from the fourth book, Flashman at the Charge, where Flashman was captured by the Russians during the Crimean War.
Flashman is a racist, bully, coward who hides behind the flag and his uniform when he is about to get caught; in short, he is the embodiment of colonialism and is meant to be repugnant.
I’m a huge Flashman fan, but I can see how he wouldn’t appeal to a large number of folks. But I re-read Flashman and the Redskins at least once every couple of years.
I tried reading Flashman recently. I agree that the book is too dark and Flashman himself has no redeeming qualities. Sharpe could be an antihero at times, but he was never a rapist. I can’t figure out why the book is categorized as a comedy. If so, it is an extremely dark and nihilistic comedy. I was not a fan.
A Sharpe and Flashman crossover would have been epic (maybe Sharpe as an old codger running into Flashman as a young buck - fully possible, as Sharpre allegedly dies in 1860!).
Oh, how they would have hated each other.
There is precedent: Flashman runs into Sherlock Holmes and Colonel Moran …
I’m not sure I’d classify the books as “comedies”. They have elements of dark humor to be sure, but the primary focus is on a ‘warts and all’ exposure of history - Flashman is able to expose the truth, exactly because he’s an unrepentant rotter with nothing to hide (from the reader). He has no interest in covering up the greed and abuses of the era, because he revels in being greedy and abusive.
What made it work was the author’s meticulous knowledge and research of the period (reading the footnotes is mandatory … ).
