Mr. American (Flashman Papers) (Paperback)

I've been to England many times, and I love it. Unfortunately, my family's roots are not in the UK, nor have I had the longed-for opportunity to take up permanent residence there. In MR. AMERICAN, it's Franklin's great good luck to have made a fortune from a Nevada silver mine. This allows him to return to England in search of his roots - his forebears having immigrated to the Colonies hundreds of years before - and purchase the house, Manor Lancing, which dominates the Lincolnshire village of his ancestors, Castle Lancing.

I learned in English Lit 1A that every novel incorporates a conflict, which, in MR. AMERICAN, is subtle. To modern fiction readers, fed a steady diet of lurid murders-most-foul, global conspiracies, and courtroom duels, it may not seem like much of a conflict at all. Author George MacDonald Fraser, a Brit himself, has chosen to introduce into Edwardian society of pre- WWI England a rugged individualist matured in the late-19th century American West, and develop what happens. The WASP values that Franklin possesses from such a background - chivalry, self-reliance, forthrightness, loyalty, lack of class pretension, suspicion of authority - are occasionally at odds with the upper class social circle that soon adopts him.

For the reader, Mark will present as an appealing, stand-up fellow. The book is populated with interesting characters: Samson, Franklin's gentleman's gentleman; Pip, the effervescent West End stage actress; King Edward VII; Lady Helen Cessford, the militant suffragette; Peggy, the daughter of an impoverished country squire; Kid Curry, the unwelcome visitor from Franklin's ... um, shall we say, irregular past. And above all, there's the outrageous and aging rascal, General Harry Flashman, the hero of a whole other series of books by author Fraser.

I was undecided for a bit on the number of stars to award this novel - 3 or 4. At almost 600 pages, it isn't the type of book that keeps one riveted. The dramatic moments are occasional and of short duration, and there are a lot of loose ends that would have made an absorbing sequel inasmuch as the storyline ends in 1914 with the outbreak of the war. (Since MR. AMERICAN was published in 1981, no sequel has been written to my knowledge. Pity.) In the final reckoning, I gave it four stars because it's about an American who finds "home" and adventure of sorts in a green and pleasant land. I'm envious.

This technique is far from jarring, though, and serves to make the book seem well mannered, acknowledging the unpleasant side of life without dwelling on it.As Fraser explicitly states, such murderous fights take place in the countries of the British Empire, of course, but they are removed from the day to day life of England. This is nicely suggested in the character of Franklin himself.

The best set piece in the work, for me, is the hair raising game of bridge where Franklin has to learn the game, the social niceties of English drawing rooms and how to behave to royalty while striving and to maintain his own "face".A real tour de force.

The only element that let the book down, in my opinion, was the character of Harry Flashman.Roped in from the author's rather broader series of historical novels, the effect is a bit like Leslie Phillips appearing in a Jane Austen novel. Also, the Flashman we meet here is the one from the later works, like "Flashman and the Tiger", not nearly as two faced as in the earliest books, and not as interesting or amusing.