Flashman’s Lady by George MacDonald Fraser

(Book Review)

Yes, I come to yet another Flashman book. (See also: Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Flashman, Royal Flash, Flash for Freedom, Flashman at the Charge, and Flashman and the Great Game.)

So far I’m still having fun with this series, so I’m still continuing on with it.

Although I should add, by way of disclaimer, that these books are definitely guilty pleasures. There’s some of Orientalism in them (using the Far East as an exotic backdrop for Westerners to have adventures in). And there’s probably a bit of sexism in them as well. (The books are meant to parody Flashman’s misogyny, not endorse it, but there’s a fine line that perhaps occasionally gets crossed.) But as much as I’d hate to have to defend everything in these books, I certainly enjoy reading them. They’re a very fun way to learn history.

It’s common for these books to cover about two or three different topics as Flashman runs from one danger point into another. This book can be roughly divided into about 3 equal parts (each little more than a 100 pages):
1). Cricket in England during the 1840s,
2). Singapore and Malaysia in the 1840s,
3). Madagascar during the 1840s.

Not being a big sports fan, the first 3rd of the book, in which Flashman interacts with some of the great Cricket players of the 1840s, was slightly dry for me. It wasn’t terrible (there’s a gambling scandal and a personal rivalry to keep things interesting) but I felt like it went on for too long, and I was eager to get to the more exotic parts of the story. (Despite having lived in a cricket playing nation for one year, I never did catch the fever.)
But that’s just me. If you’re a sports fan, you might enjoy it more than I did.

There’s a brief detour in the storyline for Flashman and his friends to witness a public execution. The scene described there reminded me very much of Charles Dickens' description of a public hanging in 1849, and indeed Dickens' account is cited as one of the sources in the footnotes.
The bloodlust of the English mob described here is used later in the story to put some perspective on the cruelties Flashman will witness in Madagascar.

The second part of the story takes place in Singapore and Malaysia.
This past year I’ve met a lot of people from Singapore and Malaysia, and through talking to them my interest in these countries has greatly increased. The history of Singapore and Malaysia seems to be a fascinating mix of Asian culture and British colonialism.

Unfortunately, George MacDonald Fraser, who can be wonderfully descriptive when he wants to be, doesn’t really get into the local culture in much detail. Nor is there much history of the British involvement in these areas. So that was slightly disappointing.

What Fraser does focus on is one of the forgotten heroes of the Victorian Empire, James Brooke, who apparently was famous for going up and down Malaysia and Indonesia battling pirates.

In one of the afterwards to the book, Fraser hints that James Brooke has been left out of the history books as part of a politically correct plot to cover up the good that the British Empire did. “Nowadays, when it is fashionable to look only on the dark side of imperialism, not much is heard of James Brooke. He was one of those Victorians who gave empire-building a good name,” (p355).

Although I don’t know anything about James Brooke myself, this kind of language makes me feel slightly uneasy. Up until now, I’ve always felt like I agreed more or less with George MacDonald Fraser’s politics, but I’m reluctant to concede that imperial military intervention has its good points. But, like I said, I don’t know anything about the subject, so I’ll just let it go at that.

Politics aside, I did get swept up in the whole adventure of the story. James Brooke was fighting pirates on the Batang Lupar River, and engaging in what was known as “river fighting.” I had never heard of river fighting before, but I guess it means taking these big ships that were designed for battle on the high seas and maneuvering them down through the rivers instead to battle other pirate ships also hiding along the river.
Needless to say, river fighting is a lot different than traditional ocean fighting, and Fraser does a good job of describing it, including the different spy boats that would run up and down the river ahead of the main boat and the ambushes when the enemy ships come out from behind the jungle foliage.

And, although Flashman himself is a fictional character, the campaign actually did take place. As usual, in his footnotes Fraser backs up most of what he says by references to diaries from the surviving members of the expedition, indicating that even some of the more unbelievable sounding episodes are straight out of history.

The last 3rd of the book takes place in Madagascar, which was ruled in the 1840s by the terrible Queen Ranavalo.
I had never heard of Ranavalo before, nor read much of anything about any of the history of Madagascar come to that. But I was happy enough to go along for the ride and learn a few new things about a different part of the world.

Once again, these Flashman books end up being a thoroughly enjoyable read.

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Up until now, the books have proceeded in chronological order. This book breaks chronology, and jumps back to the years 1842-1845 (after the first Flashman book, but before the second one.) I’m also given to understand that many of the later books in this series also jump around a lot in chronologically.

The author can get away with this to a certain extent, because in Flashman’s first person narration it’s been clear all along that he’s had many more adventures than he has been telling us.

But it is difficult to write a prequel that fits into continuity flawlessly. And if you want to be nitpicky about it, there are a lot of things you can point out. (As a former Trekkie, I’m trained to get anal about continuity errors.)

For example, Flashman runs into his old rival Tom Brown at the beginning of the book. And he obviously seems to remember the confrontation, because he wrote it in his memoirs. This appears to contradict the ending of the previous book, in which Flashman had to be reminded who Tom Brown was. (Also, presumably Scud East would have heard about this encounter, but the impression given in “Flashman at the Charge” is that neither Tom Brown nor Scud East have run into Flashman since their school days.)

Somewhat more serious is that Flashman and his wife go through a number of shared experiences, which you think would alter their relationship slightly, or at the very least have been referenced in the other books.

But having said all that, none of that really spoiled the fun. The point of these books is just to have some fun historical fiction, it’s not to obsess about every continuity point. (And also, these are admittedly pretty minor points.)

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This is the 6th book in series, and to mix things up slightly, in addition to Flashman’s own first person narrative, pages from his wife’s diary are also mixed in. This is an interesting way to keep things fresh. His wife is so airheaded and clueless about everything that the portrayal might well border on sexist (yet another point where I would be hard pressed to defend these books) but there is added humor in reading through her version of events, and seeing how little she grasps of what is happening around her.
Her diaries are edited by her sister, who will occasionally make marginal notes into them when she loses patience with her sister’s narration.

Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky on 9-11 and the New War on Terrorism (2002)

Flashman’s Lady by George MacDonald Fraser: Book Review (Scripted)