I read quite a bit, and am currently writing my first novel. While waiting for The Nutmeg of consolation by Patrick O’brian to finally make an apearence in my bookshop (They have the other 20 odd. Grr) I decided to buy the First in the Flashman series, I enjoy books set in the 1800’s so thought hey ho lets go…
As i began to read I thought this guy’s alright, quite funny, quick thinking and generally lands on his feet. But then he starts doing really not nice things…
Beats up his fathers woman.
Beats up his servants.
Treats Fiends badly
Rapes an Afgani Dancing girl (Very nasty and came as a shock)
Leaves a comrade to fight off an ambush then takes the credit after the other man dies.
This is as far as I have got.
I know they were different times, but what he does is plainly wrong. The man does have redeeming features I cant get a handle on what to make of him?
Have you tried the Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwall? It’s the Napoleonic war on foot, rather than at sea.
I agree with your indecision on Flashman. I first read George MacDonald Fraser’s The Pyrates, and loved it. It was hilarious. I thought then I should move on to Flashman, but never could make it easily through the books because of my mixed feelings for the main character.
Harry Flashman is about as antihero as you can get. My first attempt at reading that first Flashman novel ended about half way through… I couldn’t get my head around what an unredeemable bastard he was.
I eventually gave it a second try, and have now read and enjoyed all of the novels. No, he doesn’t get any better, doesn’t have any big changes of heart… he just continues to be a coward and a bully and very lucky.
It’s an aquired taste, especially for people who are used to having their heroes be, well, heroic. What it is, is very funny in a lot of places, as well as being very well researched (read the footnotes) and mostly believeable.
My favorite Flashman moment is when they’re fleeing from attacking natives with spears, and one of his comrades trips and falls. It’s the absolutely arch-typical situation, appears in every swash-buckler and every action movie ever made, how the hero stops to help the fallen guy. Not Flashie, he doesn’t break stride.
Or there’s the wonderful scene where he tells a fellow prisoners that the natives are looking for a volunteer to send for help; in fact, they’re asking for a volunteer to be the first to be slaughtered and eaten.
In short, Flashman is the absolute anti-hero, I’m with mungo, and he’s a stitch to read. George MacDonald Fraser takes every convention from every grand heroic epic and turns it on its head. Flashman lies, wheedles, and cajoles. Imprisoned and threatened with torture, he gives in immediately and tells all he knows. During battle, he finds the best hiding place he can. He bullies those weaker than he is, and brown-noses those stronger. He has no respect for authority or following orders. He’s racist and sexist (arguably, some of that is because the stories are set in the mid- and late 1800s, but he’s more racist and sexist than most, even for the times.) He’ll lie, cheat, or steal to save himself or to gain material advantage. He’s a thorough louse,and I love reading his adventures.
Have you ever read any of the old biographies of those heroes of the Victorian age? Actually “biography” isn’t really the word, it’s more like “hagiography”. You’d think men like McNaghten and Sleeman were hardly human. They helped the weak, faced down the tyrants and died content, knowing that a better place awaited.
In short, those bios are kind of sickening.
Harry Flashman, by comparison, is a breath of fresh air. While I know that I can never hope to be half the man that Henry Lawrence was reputed to be, at least I’m not as bad as old Flashie…
Flashman is a louse, through and through, but you do get a cynically accurate view of history from reading the books. They’re very thoroughly researched, and Flashman, kicking and protesting, is always in the midst of the action. And although he does his best to minimize them, he does a (very) few good qualities – if nothing else, he survives absolutely miserable situations.
Flashman never pretends he isn’t a coward and a bigot and a lecher, etc. In fact, he’s quite aware and even proud of his amorality. If he had any hypocrisy about it, or any qualms of conscience, the books would bog down into unreadability immediately. But that makes him likable in an admittedly-perverse way - the books aren’t about character development at all and it’s a mistake to ask for that; they’re about historical events from a personal view that - and this may be the key - presents the famous persons Flashy interacts with as real people with their own failings, as well. Not being under any pretense about himself, he has none about others either, no matter their rank.
But I love 'em all - I do wish Fraser, who’s getting on a bit, would give us more, like that American Civil War book he’s hinted at many times (not Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, that’s prior to it). His research is incredibly detailed, and his footnotes (in novels!) are as fun to read as his texts. I’ve tried a few of his non-Flashman books and been disappointed, though.
I think I am going too, carry on reading, he does have a certain charm… But still find it hard to come to terms with his actions. I’m used to Jack Aubrie and Sharpe (I have read them) they are nice heoric hero’s all daring do, Flashman is all daring good god noooo!
I always thought of anti-heroes like Rincewind… Or Arch-Chancellor Ridculley
What I enjoy most about the Flashman series is Fraser’s insistence on driving home the idea that historical events of every kind, everywhere, are about real people who’re doing whatever they’re doing for all kinds of motives, from the basest to the noblest, often with no notion whatever of the importance of their actions; indeed, only in rare circumstances is there any way of knowing as events are unfolding that they will end up making history.
The Flashman series, on a subtler level, also deflates any sort of conspiracy-theory view of history. You have Flashy, as the unseen hand (or at least an unwilling observer) at practically every major historical event (and lots of minor ones) of the Victorian era, not as the agent of any cabal of super-powerful figures, but purely by coincidence, and always with the same motives: to save his own skin, satisfy his carnal desires, pocket a bit of the ready, and take whatever credit may be within easy reach, in approximately that order. His self-proclaimed sexual prowess is what gets him out of the soup more often than not – what could be less ideological, or less Victorian?
Flashy’s a complete scoundrel - a liar, a coward, a hypocrite, a bully - no doubt about it. OTOH, he’s cynical enough to be honest about it - and he’s quite often surrounded by characters who are every bit as unprincipled as he is in pursuing their agendas. I really don’t want to like Flashman, but I can’t help admiring his unmitigated chutzpah in some dreadful fixes. (And his luck, of course.)
My favourite scene is the one at the siege of (IIRC) Jallalabad, where Flashy’s knocked out by a shell just as he’s lowering the flag to do the unthinkable and surrender his command - reinforcements arrive minutes after and find Flashy with the flag in his arms, immediately concluding that he was in fact planning to defend the flag to his last breath. (Of course, Flashy only survived the siege by hiding in the cellar of the fortress, well away from the line of fire.)
And I second the comments on the research that has gone into the books. What little i know of the Sepoy mutiny, for instance, I learned from those books. The description of the Crimean war is as precise as any textbook, and a good deal more readable.
For all the title character’s shortcomings. it’s a bloody good read.
And FWIW, I for one wouldn’t have minded knocking a few back with ole Flashy, as long as I didn’t have to trust him with anything more serious than the bar tab.
Maybe Fraser is saving the American Civil War chapter for last, but I wish he’d get on with it!
Flashman is the perfect antithesis of the Victorian hero. I think he’s more of a general misanthrope than a racist. I’d like to have his gifts for horsemanship and languages (not to mention being a chick magnet for a good half-century).
Perhap’s Flashy’s only redeeming quality is what seems to be a genuine love for his wife (though that doesn’t keep him from rogering his way across several continents).
Remember Squirebob, Flashman was a famous bully long before George MacDonald Fraser got hold of him! He was the school bully in Thomas Hughes’ Tom Brown’s School Days, published in 1857.
GM Fraser is one of the great storytellers of our time, no doubt.
His greatest feat is to weave his cad into real historical events (and GMF has done exhaustive research) with minute detail, without bending what you might call the outcome flowchart of history: Flashy becomes the hapless trigger of many of the most important military events, but GMF is to canny to change the real historical results of these incidents. Plus, he handles his real historical figures with real empathy for their humanity; they are neither saints nor devils entirely (Flashman aside, of course). Lincoln is a wise man, but also not above some shrewd manipulation in Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, for example.
Don’t overlook Fraser’s “non-fiction” autobiographical books on his own time in the British army, The General Danced at Dawn, MacAusaln in the Rough, The Sheik and the Dust-Bin, and perhaps his best, Quartered Safe Out Here, his wartime service in Burma. Brilliant stuff, funny and moving, very human, and not at all mere “military history.”
I always thought that the Flashman books were two-books-in-one: I got as much enjoyment from reading the footnotes as from the novel!
Rodd Hill hit the nail on the head. The point about Flashman is that he’s the most notorious school bully in literature, and Fraser aims to show that he got no better as time went on. Despite this, he manages to be the protagonist - you could hardly call him a hero - in a number of interesting scrapes. Circumstances conspire to cause him to be recognised as a hero even though he isn’t one… the Flashman stories are ostensibly written as confessions by the aged rogue knowing he’s soon for the grave and not giving a damn who knows the truth about him once he’s gone.
Flashman knows that he’s an utter scoundrel and he’s addressing the reader as a fellow-conspirator. You’re not supposed to approve of his actions necessarily, only to be entertained by them. It works, on that level; I must’ve read just about every Flashman story going. And, as stated, they provide excellent historical viewpoints.
“Flashman” isn’t the best. It’s not bad, but several of the sequels knock it into a cocked hat.
I can’t really add to what anyone else said here, I just want to say that I know a guy who got halfway through the third book in the series before he realized that it was fiction.