Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Flashman and the Angel of the Lord by George MacDonald Fraser




            In this volume, Flashman joins John Brown and the raid on Harper’s Ferry.

            In my opinion, John Brown is one of the more fascinating characters in history (back in 2007, I listed him as one of the top ten Hollywood biopics I would like to see)  John Brown may have been slightly crazy, but he was also a figurehead for one of the great idealist movements in history.  Because much of human history is just greed and selfishness, stories of true of idealism are always refreshing to hear (and need to be told more).

            The problem is getting Flashman into the narrative.

            Since Flashman is first and foremost a self-preservationist, and since he despises all forms of altruism, joining John Brown’s suicidal raid into Harper’s Ferry is the last place you’d expect to find him.  It’s a problem acknowledged very early on in the book.

            You will wonder, if you’re familiar with my inglorious record, how I came to take part with John Brown at all.  Old Flashy, the bully and poltroon, cad and turncoat, lecher and toady—bearing Freedom’s banner aloft in the noblest cause of all, the liberation of the enslaved and the downtrodden?
….as any of you who have read my other memoirs will have guessed, I’d not have been within three thousand miles of Harper’s Ferry, or blasted Brown, but for the ghastliest series of mischances: three hellish coincidences—three mark you!—that even Dickens  wouldn’t have used for fear of being hooted at in the street. But they happened, with that damned Nemesis logic that has haunted me all my life, and landed me in more horrors than I can count
[Pages 20-21]

..and then after contemplating for a couple more pages how strange his life has been, Flashman finally gets around to beginning the strange story.

            It began (it usually does) with a wanton nymph in Calcutta at the back-end of ’58. (Page 23).

            And thus the wheels of the story are set in motion.
            Because of all the convoluted plot needed to force Flashman into (unwillingly) joining John Brown, 200 pages pass before Flashman and John Brown even meet.

            But the good news is that these 200 pages are not wasted.  They’re packed with the usual sort of fascinating historical details you’ve come to expect from these Flashman books.  And a full 40 pages of footnotes and appendixes further expanding on the historical events and personages that intrude into Flashman’s story.
            (A co-worker of mine who is also a Flashman fan commented that the detailed footnotes are the best part of a Flashman book, and I’m inclined to agree.)

            Which brings me to:
The History
           
            I thought I had known the history of John Brown and Harper’s Ferry, but reading this book I was continually surprised to realize just how much I hadn’t known. 
            George MacDonald Fraser has thoroughly researched the event to bring to life the little details surrounding Harpers Ferry that don’t usually make it into the history books.  Take for instance this description of one of the exchanges between John Brown’s men and the hostile town’s people.

            And then J.B. [John Brown] sent out another white flag.  There was a great howl of fury when it appeared in the armoury gateway, but a militia officer bawled to them to hold their fire, for it was borne by one of the hostages, who came marching towards the hotel with young Bill Thompson by his side.  The crowd surged out and surrounded them, drowning the hostage’s plea to be heard, the flag was torn from him, and Bill Thompson was dragged into the Wager House, battered and kicked with yells of “Lynch the bastard! No, no hangin’s too good for him—burn the son-of-a-bitch!” The drunken din from beneath was now so deafening that there wasn’t a word to be made out, but since they didn’t haul Thompson out for execution I guessed he was still alive—for the time being.
            You’d have thought J.B. would have learned from that incident, but not he—not long after, another white rag was seen waving in the armoury, the order to cease fire was shouted again, and this time it was Aaron Stevens and Watson Brown who came out, side by side.  You bloody fools, thinks I, you’re done for, but on they came towards the hotel, Watson stiff as a ramrod, with his head carried high, and big Aaron ploughing along with one hand raised like an Indian in greeting.  For a moment it was so still I could hear their boots squelching through the puddles—and then a rifle cracked, and Watson stumbled forward and fell on his hands and knees. A great cheer went up, a volley of shots followed, and Stevens seemed to hesitate, and then he came for the Wager House like a bull at a gate, hurling the flag away, and was cut down within twenty paces of the hotel—I absolutely saw his body jerk as the slugs hit him, and then the hostage who had been with Bill Thompson came running out, arms spread wide, turning to put himself between the two shot men and the mob.  Another hostage who must have been following Stevens and Watson from the armoury ran forward to join him, and together they dragged Stevens to the Wager House, one of them yelling: “You cowardly scum! Stop it, damn you—cain’t ye see the flag?” For a moment the firing stopped, and then it was seen that Watson was crawling on all fours back toward the armoury, and the mob set up a great yell and let fly again.  He scrambled up and ran, clutching his stomach, with the bullets churning the dirt around his feet, and went down again, but he still kept crawling and managed to roll to cover behind one of the gate posts.  That sent them wild, and they poured in fire harder than ever.

The following is a list of all the really interesting historical things I learned from reading this book:

*          I really had no idea about the various men who joined John Brown on his crusade, or what their various back stories and motivations were.  In many other histories of Harper's Ferry, all the other men besides John Brown are regulated to the background, but George MacDonald Fraser does a very nice job of rescuing the other 21 men from historical obscurity and telling their stories.  It’s historical fiction, of course, not hard history but through Fraser’s fiction we get very colorful pictures of John Kagi (W) (the young Swiss idealist who was one of John Brown’s best strategists) and Shields “Emperor” Green (W) (a freed slave, and one of Fredrick Douglass’s former companions, who ends up deciding to leave Douglas and join John Brown).

*          I also learned about the bizarre role that George Washington’s great-grandnephew, the sword of Lafayette and the pistol of Fredrick the Great all played in the Harper’s Ferry incident.

*          I had previously thought John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry failed because the black slaves didn’t rise up as he expected them to.  Although this is partly true, George MacDonald Fraser also makes very clear that the real reason the raid failed is because John Brown himself got caught up in indecision.  The original plan had been to simply raid the armoury at Harper’s Ferry and then retreat to the hills, but John Brown froze up and failed to do evacuate when the time came.  (Fraser portrays John Brown as a great charismatic leader who is great at exciting the passion of abolitionist crowds in the North, but not a great military leader.)

*          Speaking of which, I had previously thought that John Brown’s reputation was mostly made at Harper’s Ferry, but Fraser portrays him as already being a hero and celebrity in the North even before the disastrous raid.

*          This book also gives an interesting portrayal of the Secret Six (W), the group of Northern Abolitionists who funded much of John Brown’s activities.  Interestingly enough, the author of the infamous Battle Hymn of the Republic, Julia Ward Howe, was the wife of one of the Secret Six.

*          After John Brown was wounded and captured at Harper’s Ferry, there was a bizarre scene in which he got into a long discussion with the public and members of the press from his wounded cot.  (George MacDonald Fraser includes all this in his story, and also references it in his endnotes.)

*          The long prologue to the book (the 200 pages before Flashman even meets John Brown) affords George MacDonald Fraser the luxury of going on several historical digressions.  For those of us who love history, these various digressions (backed up by long endnotes in the back) are a real treat.  No doubt people who don’t care for history would find it annoying, but then people who don’t care for history probably wouldn’t bother reading the Flashman books.
            A throwaway comment by Flashman at the beginning of the book leads to a page and a half endnote in the back telling the story of Jack Johnson, the first black to win the heavy weight title, Arthur Conan Doyle and Jack London.
            Apparently Jack London was so appalled by the idea of a black man beating a white man at boxing that he started the “Whip the Nigger” campaign to “remove the golden smile from Johnson’s face”.  It’s a rather unflattering detail about Jack London which makes me think I was too nice to him in my review of The IronHeel  (I had heard before that Jack London was a white supremacist, but had always imagined he was a white supremacist in the way most people back then were racists of some stripe or another.  I had no idea Jack London had been such a vehement bigot.)

*          I also learned about William Seward, another character in this book, who was in 1858 widely believed to be the next President of the United States, but who would lose the 1860 Republican nomination to the relatively unknown Abraham Lincoln.  (Again, the endnotes give a brief but interesting political biography of Seward.)

*          And finally, the fascinating story of Allan Pinkerton.
            Everyone is familiar with the Pinkerton Detective Agency that was so infamous for breaking labor unions around the turn of the century.
            It turns out, however, that the founder of the agency, Allan Pinkerton (1819-94) was actually a member of the Chartist movement, a radical workers rights group in England in the 1830s and 40s.  He had to emigrate to America to avoid arrest after participating in violent Chartist protests.  George MacDonald Fraser notes the irony that the detective agency he set up was later used to suppress radical workers.
            Allan Pinkerton was also a friend and supporter of John Brown

*          This book also describes in detail the meeting between John Brown and Fredrick Douglass.  The meeting between the two men is a historical fact, although oddly enough George MacDonald Fraser breaks with his usual method and doesn’t include any endnotes for the meeting.
            He does, however, include some endnotes on the life of Fredrick Douglass.  Another interesting fact I learned is that although Fredrick Douglass had not been involved in Harper’s Ferry, the political fallout from the event was such that he still had to flee the United States afterwards.

*****************************************************

            When discussing the problems of slavery on page 103, Flashman offers the following theory:

…but what astonishes me today is that all the wiseacres who discuss its origins and inevitability, never give a thought to where it really began, back in 1776, with their idiotic Declaration of Independence. If they’d had the wit to stay in the Empire then, instead of getting drunk on humbug about “freedom” and letting a pack of firebrands (who had a fine eye to their own advantage) drag ‘em into a pointless rebellion, there would never have been an American Civil War, and that’s as sure as any “if” can be.  How so?  Well, Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807, and slavery in 1833, and the South would have been bound to go along with that, grumbling, to be sure, but helpless against the will of Britain and her northern American colonies.  It would all have happened quietly, no doubt with compensation, and there’d have been nothing for North and South to fight about. Q.E.D.

            Possibly.  But allow me to pick a few holes in this theory.

            For one thing, although Britain abolished the slavery about 30 years ahead of America, both countries abolished the slave trade at around the same time.  And in fact, Britain was motivated to abolish the slave trade because America was also abolishing it, at least according to The Decline and Fall of the British Empire by Piers Brendon (A),

            For various reasons they [British parliamentarians] believed it [abolishing the slave trade] would no longer be economically damaging, particularly as America was also outlawing the slave trade and other countries were expected to follow suit.
(page 31)

            So if America had never left the British Empire, the slave trade might not have been abolished.  Or at the very least, it might have continued for much longer.  And then perhaps Britain might not have abolished slavery in 1833.
            Besides which, Britain was able to painlessly abolish slavery in 1833 because the American South (whose economy depended on slavery) had cut itself loose.  If America had still been part of the British Empire, would slavery still have been outlawed in 1833?
            I’m not sure myself, but it’s certainly not as simple as Flashman (and George MacDonald Fraser) are making it out.

***************************************************************************

            The abolitionists and underground railroad workers are not always favorably portrayed in this book, and often come off looking like crackpots in this book.  

            For example, on page 198 Flashman observes Franklin Sanborn (W) (a member of the secret six):

            He was one of your tiptop babblers, I could see, smiling, fidgeting, and suddenly remembering to offer us refreshment, with more prattle about the fatigue of travelling, and the crowded of railway cars. If this is a sample of our abolitionist conspirators, I can see American slavery flourishing for a century or two yet, thinks I

            The poor Northern abolitionists—historians and historical fiction writers  seem to have never really forgiven them for being on the right side of history, and so they always get portrayed as preachy and insufferable and often cowardly.
           
            But if Fraser is a bit harsh on the abolitionists, he also balances things out by showing the extreme violence and hatred on the other side.  The citizens of Virginia are so outraged by the abolitionists that the mob shoots down John Brown’s men who come out under a flag of truce.  One of the men who comes out under a flag of truce, Bill Thompson, is lynched by the mob, and then his dead body is used by them as target practice.

            In one of the appendixes at the end of the book, Fraser debates the question of John Brown’s sanity, but then concludes with these words:
           
            The question of his sanity cannot be answered now. He was held fit to plead at his trial; rightly, so far as we can tell, but not many layman would, on the evidence, call him normal or balanced. “Reasoning insanity” is the judgment of one eminent historian, and it will do as well as any other. We cannot know him, but it does not matter.  He is part of history and historic legend, and if what he tried to do was not heroic, then the word has no meaning. (From Appendix I, page 354).

Sensationalism?

          On page 24, Flashman says:
            It’s always been the same. Suppose some learned scholar were to discover a Fifth Gospel which proved beyond a doubt that Our Lord survived the Cross and became a bandit or a slave-trader, or a politician, even—d’you think it would disturb the Christian faith one little bit? Of course not; ‘twouldn’t even be denied, likely, just ignored. Hang it, I’ve seen evidence, in black and white in our secret files, that Benjamin Franklin was a British spy right through the American Revolution, selling out patriots for all he was worth—but would any Yankee believe that, if ‘twas published? Never, because it’s not what they want to believe.



            Fraser attempts to back this up in his footnotes:
            For evidence that Benjamin Franklin (“Agent No. 72”) and his assistant, Edward Bancroft, were working for British Intelligence during their time at the American Embassy in Paris, and passed information to London which resulted in heavy American shipping losses, see Richard Deacon A History of British Secret Service, 1980.
(Endnote #4, p. 365)

            It’s a shocking charge, but my own research (10 minutes on Google) seems to indicate that this isn’t really a credible mainstream theory on Benjamin Franklin.
            In the context of the book, this is a throwaway comment by Flashman which has no impact on the rest of the story.  All the same, this may be an indication that George MacDonald Fraser has a weakness for using sensationalist sources, and that perhaps I should take start taking him with more of a grain of salt?
            There is another conspiracy theory advanced in this book that is much more central to the story—the idea that the United States Government had known in advance about the raid on Harper’s Ferry, but chose not to do anything.
            How credible is this?  I’m not really qualified to say.

Connections with Other Flashman Books
          Previously I had said (in my review of Flashman on the March) that it doesn’t really matter what order you read these books in.
            I now wish to take that back.  It does matter.  This book makes repeated references back to Flashman’s previous to adventures in America: Flash for Freedom and Flashman and the Redskins.  Both books should really be read before this one.

Connections with other Books I’ve Been Reading

*        A couple times in this book Flashman makes references to his friend Richard Burton. 
            Richard Burton never appears as a character in any of the Flashman books.  (Which is a shame.  It would have been really cool to have a story about Flashman going along on one of Richard Burton’s expeditions.)  But in many of the Flashman books Flashman will namedrop Richard Burton as a friend of his.

*          In the beginning of the book, there’s about a 40 page digression where Flashman is in South Africa, and talks about what South Africa was like in 1858.
            This is close to 20 years before the events described in Thomas Pakenham’s The Scramble for Africa, but the politics seem to be largely the same.  The same problems, balancing the interests of the Boers, the British, and native Africans, are already present.

Link of the Day 
Noam Chomsky on Palestine and Israel

Flashman and the Angel of the Lord by George MacDonald Fraser: Book Review (Scripted)


Part 2: Flashman and the Angel of the Lord by George MacDonald Fraser: Book Review (Scripted)

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