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41 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A1, 100%, top-hole read, 10 Sep 2004
The first and possibly best of the Flashman tales. If you've not read and Flashman books then you've not lived. You've certainly not read anything like them. He's the original anti-hero. You've no doubt watched heroic action films and thought "why doesn't he just shoot the guy in the back right now and run for it?...I would" - well Flashman would too and a whole lot worse, if it gets him off the hook or into bed with his many lovers.It's a unique blend of historical research, incredible adventures, philandering, thieving, bullying and above all - brilliant story-telling shot through with a breath of refreshing cynicism. Utterly brilliant stuff. I just wish George McDonald Fraser could write some more. One caveat - GMF tells it like it is. If people in 1820 used a certain word for slaves then he uses it too. If you are a bit PC you might not like it.
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26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant first part of a romp through the history of the British Empire, 5 Jan 2008
Flashman is great reading and I recommend the novels thoroughly. George MacDonald Fraser (GMF) died just a week ago and some of the obituaries have hinted that one should be ashamed to have read this obscene, racist, nostalgic pulp fiction for men who should know better.
If you have read the books or other reviews, you will realise that Flashman is an "anti-hero". This first novel was set against the background of the disastrous 1841-2 campaign in Afghanistan, which led to the total destruction of a British Army. Synopses of the books regularly describe him as "impostor, coward, cad, blackguard, scoundrel, villain, arch-cad, poltroon and amorist". Nevertheless, the late Auberon Waugh wrote "twice as good as Buchan, and twenty times better than Fleming", but this points up an interesting distinction: John Buchan's Richard Hannay, though crafted from 1914 to the 1930s, was as conventional a Victorian hero as you might like to meet while Ian Fleming's James Bond was perhaps Britain's first "anti-hero", pre-dating Flashman by almost 15 years in print. While Bond was certainly ruthless, lucky, arguably cynical and even psychopathic, however, he was no coward. Flashman is a contrast both to the Victorian hero and the post-war anti-hero.
What makes them so readable? GMF wrote Flashman's dialogue idiomatically in a style that seems genuinely redolent of the Leicestershire "squirarchy" into which he was fictionally born. Supposedly the great-grandson of an East India Company "nabob", his father a bluff countryman MP who loses his seat after the Great Reform Act of 1832, and whose manners are (possibly) worse even than his own. "Dammee, Sir, d'ye know what a dragoon's commission costs?" The language gives rise to the suggestion of racism: the "n-" word is frequently used, although bear in mind that Flashman pretty well dislikes everyone, even those of his own background and class.
Then there is the sexism, evident as much from his lecherous conduct as his phraseology. I have always been surprised when I have seen women reading Flashman books, but many do, as can be seen from the list of reviewers. In fact, many of the (mostly historical) heroines of the Flashman books are far more effective creatures than the eponymous anti-hero, although (happily for the storyline) rarely any more moral.
I suspect that GMF was in part making a point about bravery: "This myth called bravery, which is half-panic, half-lunacy...pays for all." (p289) Flashman is entirely cowardly and his supposed acts of bravery happen only reactively when he has no other choice (where they are not mere misinterpretation). Was GMF, whose own wartime experiences (read McAuslan and Quartered Safe over Here) qualified him to comment, making the point that "bravery" may have been, in many cases, the result of the narrow victory of pride and fear of loss of reputation over Flashman-esque "funk".
In writing Flashman, GMF may achieved the same inadvertent effect of e.g. Harry Enfield's Loadsamoney and the Alex cartoon in the Daily Telegraph: he created a character readers were challenged to recognise and be disgusted by, but instead they loved him. GMF used Flashman to criticise both Victorian pride and racism, allowing him to rail against the "vastly conceited and indignant public [that] would clutch at any straw that might heal their national pride and enable them to repeat the old and nonsensical lie that one Englishman is worth twenty foreigners (p259)".
On re-reading Flashman, I was on the lookout for anachronisms; I am sure that there must be some, although I cannot claim to have found any myself. For example, I thought Flashman's description of himself, on reunion with his wife Elspeth, as "romantic and horny all at once" must surely have been an anachronism - when was "horny" - in that sense - first used in English? The answer, in fact, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was the late 19th Century, and there was therefore plenty of time for the ageing Flashman to have adopted the usage. GMF's historical precision is outstanding - there are thirty footnotes in this first novel, (and 61 longish ones in the last one).
I have regrets about GMF's low productivity of Flashman after 1990, when his attention turned to factual history. In "Flashman", the eponymous hero, looking back, refers to 4 inches in Who's Who. In the twelfth and last novel, "Flashman on the March", published 2005, there were 10 inches of Who's Who style "biographical note" at the beginning of the novel. Sadly, not all of these "exploits" made it into the novels, the principal omission being his involvement in the US Civil War, which was described as follows: "U.S. Army (major, Union forces, 1862, colonel (staff) Army of the Confederacy (1863)". I hope against hope that Flashman's Civil War episodes may emerge after GMF's death, but cannot imagine why the author would have held them back had he written them. Time will tell: perhaps there is an unfinished novel.
Meanwhile, though it certainly won't be for everyone, I unreservedly recommend "Flashman" (and the other Flashman novels) as a hilarious but informative romp through the history of the British Empire.
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40 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply The Best, 19 Feb 2003
A friend of mine last year had to spend some time in the delightful town of Kabul. Prior to his departure I managed to secure a copy of this book for him; I hoped that he would see the funny side of me giving him a story which involved one of the greatest military defeats ever retreating from the very place he was being sent to.I knew though that I was also giving him the start of the most enjoyable series of books I had ever read, and that if he gleaned even half as much enjoyment from it as I had, then he would have his stay brightened considerably. For those of you who have never heard of Harry Flashman before, he is the bully and cad from Tom Brown's Schooldays (and incidentally the only character worth remembering amongst the various hypocritical do-gooding manly little Christians that are otherwise described). The story starts where his exit from Rugby in Tom Brown had ended, his being expelled for drunkenness. He consequently joins the army, not with a view to doing any valuable service but as an occupation he could loaf and skive to his hearts content (not that much has changed at Horse Guards since). With a constant eye for the ladies his tale makes an interesting one (especially as he was such a nasty piece of work) even before he was posted to Afghanistan. When he arrives in India we discover, as he does, that he has a talent for horse-riding and languages as well as with the ladies, and so makes an interesting correspondent for us as readers, as he can be shifted to wherever the action is with relative ease. The fact that when the author does so he tends to either be chasing skirt, or running away like the coward he is (directly into trouble more often than not), again makes the whole thing more interesting. I do believe that although there are no redeeming qualities about Flashman's character we are dragged into liking him due to his honesty as a writer (for these papers are his recollections) and his bucket loads of style. He's also damnably funny. I recommend this book to all who love life being lived at full throttle (even if the gear selected is usually reverse), also all those who wish to learn about the Empire as it truly was. Go on, treat yourself today, buy a Flashman!
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