An Introduction to the Flashman series

Part 2: An Introduction to the Flashman series

Part 3: An Introduction to the Flashman series

Yet another video (or 3) which is inspired by my project of going back through my old reviews, but is not actually an old review.
I've now worked my way up to my Flashman phase of book reviews, and I thought it might be confusing to just jump into the book reviews without an introduction to the character first of all.  Especially since the Flashman series is largely unknown in the United States.  And especially since Flashman is based off of a public domain character from an old book which is also largely unknown in the United States.  So I wanted to give an overview of the whole series before doing the individual book reviews.  Plus I figured it might be fun.
It's in 3 videos, because my camera can only handle 30 minutes at a time.  (The second video is 25 minutes because the battery died.)
I ramble on a lot, as usual, but I did try to keep my comments somewhat focused by making an outline before hand.  The outline is on Google docs (docs, pub) and also copied and pasted below.

Introduction to Flashman Series

I. Brief Intro
A. Premise: Flashman very famous well-respected soldier--bravery and honor.  His papers discovered after he died--really a coward and scoundrel.  Presented by an editor--with footnotes
B. 12 books, 2 tie in books 1969 to 2005. (mostly in 1970s--pace slowed afterwards).  George MacDonald Fraser died in 2008, so now closed canon.
C. Genre: Historical Fiction
1. Specifically Victorian British Empire, e.g. British in Afghanistan, India, Punjab (1st Sikh War), British army in China (Arrow War--2nd Opium War), British army in Ethiopia, British army in South Africa (Zulu War), James Brooke in Borneo (Malaysia), Crimean War
2. But also other areas of interest in the 19th Century (3- books - take place in America, Madagascar, Congress of Berlin, etc.)
D. Dark ironic humor
E. Very popular in Britain and also Australia.  Not popular in America. (Or is it?)  Therefore, my introduction for Americans
II. My Experience
A. Books recommended to me by British friends (one in Japan, one in Cambodia)
B. Books easily available in Melbourne, Australia
C. Disclaimers
1. Part of my Scripted Review series--10 years old in memory now--Correct me if I misremember something
2. I’m going to repeat information when I review individual books
III. Origins of Flashman.  Tom Brown’s Schooldays
A. Flashman comes from an old 19th Century classic novel.  Tom Brown’s Schooldays
B. 1857 Novel by Thomas Hughes, but takes place in 1834 to 1842
C. Semi-autobiographical(?)--incorporates real places (Rugby school--yes, that rugby) and real people (Thomas Arnold)--this is why it works perfectly in Flashman universe--meta
D. Influential in 19th Century--Ulysses S. Grant was a fan
E. Largely forgotten in America (or am I wrong?), but I believe it’s still popular in Britain. 
1. Still adapted for film and television
2. British people use it as shorthand to describe traumatic boarding school experience--my friend, and Simon Sebag Montefiore
F. Premise of the book--Tom Brown goes to Rugby Boarding school, friend Harry Scud East.  Has to stand up against bullies,
G. Heavily moralizing in focus, but code of the schoolyard type morality: Never pick on boys smaller than you, but don't be afraid to stand up to bullies even if they are bigger than you. Never shirk from a fight if challenged. Always throw yourself fully into sports without worrying about getting injured. A certain amount of mischief is natural for a young boy, but never lie or be dishonest about it when caught.
H. Except for the second half--Bible study (P.G. Wodehouse--Tom Brown Question)
I. Flashman is the bully
J. Malfoy Comparison--Malfoy series 150 years from now, historical fiction--Analogy too on the nose?
K. Flashman’s qualities: Complete opposite of what the book is preaching.  Delights in tormenting younger boys (Sadist?), but toadies to older boys.  Runs when challenged.  Dominates 2nd quarter of the book, and then gets expelled.
L. Tom Brown’s Schooldays verdict--You should probably read it.  1st Flashman book starts directly from it.  (Flashman being expelled).  Flashman books are constantly referencing back to Tom Brown’s Schooldays.  1st 6 books especially.  Tom Brown, Scud East, Speedicut, etc.  Tom Brown and East exaggerated.  Typical?
M. Meta--Flashman is aware he’s portrayed by Thomas Hughes.  Complains about it.  Flashman in the Great Game--He finds out the book has been published.  Other books reference back.
N. Yes, it’s a bit slow and boring.  But this is booktube, you’re probably a classic nerd.  (I got about 50 pages in myself, and then read it alongside Flashman)
IV. Status
A. Historical fiction.  Forest Gump. At all key points.
B. 1st Flashman 1969.  Classic? Everyman library FLASHMAN, FLASH FOR FREEDOM!, FLASHMAN IN THE GREAT GAME
C. Orientalism (2005 HarperCollins trade paperback)
D. Historical notes. Great, detailed: sensationalism (Is it the best thing?  Fair enough for historical fiction.  Sometimes bias creeps in.  Flashman and the Mountain of Light: debauchery, orgies, and intrigue in the court of Lahore seem to read like they may have been exaggerated by credulous Victorians.  Flashman and the Angel of the Lord: Benjamin Franklin working for Benjamin Franklin)
V. Flashman book 
A. British in Afghanistan--First Anglo-Afghan War.  Timing works out perfectly (1842)
B. Afghanistan stand in for Vietnam in 1969
C. 2010, Afghanistan was a stand-in for Afghanistan
D. Assassination of Sir Alexander Burnes--backed up by footnotes
E. Comic--Flashman crying as he has to defend the fort
F. Rape
1. I didn’t notice until a couple years later--amazon
2. In character--and it comes back to bite him later--she gets her revenge
3. Off-hand description
4. 1969--more risque.  Lots of other politically incorrect stuff
5. 3 options. Don’t forgive, Dark but forgive, Perfectly fine--he’s an anti-hero after all
VI. Royal Flash--Parody of Prisoner of Zenda. Fictional kingdom.  but this is the only one (bookended by real history--1848.  Lola, Wagner, Marx)
VII. Goes in order until 6th book--1975 Flashman’s Lady.  Jumping around in order increases the joke about being at all the key places.
VIII. Politics?
A. Always took delight in being politically incorrect--especially by today’s Standards (Flashman and the Redskins).  Guilty pleasure
B. Honor of the British Empire--The Charge of the Light Brigade (Flashman at the Charge)
C. Flashman less of a threat
D. My own politics--anti-Imperialist.  Comfortable
E. Politics changed--defense of the British Empire
F. Afghanistan example--General Elphinston case.  Is it anti-war (Vietnam) or pro-war (Elphinston concessions) (History Buffs--but he probably got it from Flashman)
G. But hard to categorize, even later books
IX. Mr American
A. Not Cameo--dominates the middle part
B. 88-92 (But published in 1980)
C. Different book: War and Peace--very well written
D. No footnotes. But a lot of historical characters
E. Edward VII--some history with Flashman.  Falstaff and Prince Hal
X. Black Ajax
A. Flashman’s father, but Flashman himself is only alluded to
B. Problematic book--save that for another review
XI. Royal Flash movie
A. Hated by fans--not a lot of information online)
B. Skipped first one. (Money?  Problematic?)  2nd book not liked by fans.
C. Lots of talented people--Oliver Reed, Malcolm McDowell
D. Friend couldn’t watch it.   (Blond).  I thought it was okay.  Faithful to the book, but had the feeling of trudging through it.
E. But had its moments

Lots more to say, but… individual reviews

Anno Dracula 1918: The Bloody Red Baron by Kim Newman

(Book Review)

            So, after reading the original Anno Dracula, I have decided to continue on to the sequel: The Bloody Red Baron.

            These books will doubtless only appeal to certain readers, but I quite like them because it allows me to combine my interest in early modern history with my interest in pulp fiction.

            Set in the same universe as Anno Dracula (the universe in which Dracula defeated Van Helsing instead of vice-versa), this book takes place 30 years after Anno Dracula, during World War I.  Dracula is on the side of the Germans now, and there are vampires fighting on both sides of the war.

            Most of the same comments that I made about the first Anno Dracula also hold true here as well.  The fun of the book is a universe in which real historical characters are intermixed liberally with characters from many other stories.  So this novel features characters like Winston Churchill, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, General Jack Pershing, Mata Hari and Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron) interacting with H.G. Wells’s  Dr. Moreau, Jules Verne’s Robur the Conqueror, Paul Baumer from All Quiet on the Western Front, Mycroft Holmes and his more famous brother Sherlock Holmes.

[There are also brief references to The Greyfriars (which I’m familiar with because of George Orwell’s critiques of The Greyfriars stories ) and to Harry Flashman, who is mentioned as a public school graduate of disrepute.]

Although at first glance it may seem quite bizarre to re-tell the story of World War I with vampires, it does actually fit once you start reading it.  Since World War I was already one of the most horrific wars (from the soldier’s point of view), the subject matter is already quite macabre to begin with.  And into the slaughter fields, where Europe killed off an entire generation of its youth, why not add in vampires to increase the horror of it?  (Although actually, although my local bookstore had this book shelved in their horror section, it’s actually much more fantasy/adventure than horror.)

The writing style is, once again, highly readable.  So if you’re interested in this kind of book, it’s recommended.

Other Notes

* As luck would have it, a co-worker of mine is reading a history of World War I right now, so we chatted about the subject.  “I just finished a book on World War I myself,” I told him.  “Well, World War I with vampires mixed in.  The premise is that it takes place in a world where Dracula was never defeated, and Dracula goes over to fight with the Germans.”

            “That’s just the sort of thing Dracula would do,” my friend immediately said.

Annotations

            The 2012 re-print edition (the edition I read) contains annotations at the back, where author Kim Newman explains the origin of a selective some of his characters and references.

            Personally, I would have preferred a more complete set of notes.  But as Kim Newman writes: “I’m not going to tag every borrowed, misappropriated or historical character, setting or bit of business. … I want some mysteries to remain.” (p. 551).  I find this frustrating, but I suppose this is his prerogative as the author.

            Similarly, Kim Newman writes, “Obviously, this is a fantasy novel—but much of the most unbelievable material in it is true; I have refrained from too many ‘yes this really happened’ and ‘my god, they actually said that’ notes.” (p. 551)  What a shame!  I really love those “yes this really happened” and “my god they actually said that” notes.  And I’m a bit puzzled by Kim Newman’s reluctance to include them here. 

            I am, however, sympathetic to the fact that Kim Newman is writing these annotations at a distance of almost 20 years from his original book.  This book was originally published in 1995, and as Kim Newman admits: “It has been a sobering experience to re-read the book and realise how much of my research I’ve completely forgotten.  In some cases, others will have more luck tracking down what or who I meant than I have.”  (I can completely identify.  I have the same experience re-reading my old under-graduate papers, which are also at about a distance of 20 years remove now.)

            The Bloody Red Baron is even more packed with borrowed names and characters than its predecessor.  Just about every page has some new name on it.  And just about every name in the book is a reference to real history or some other fictional work.

            But fortunately this is where Wikipedia really comes into its own, because the Wikipedia page for this book (W) contains a (complete?) list of the borrowed characters, historical and fictional, that populate The Bloody Baron.  And so it was from Wikipedia that I learned that the English fighter pilot Albert Ball (W) was actually a real person, and that the character “Red” Albright came from the Captain Midnight (W) radio show, or that the character Kent Allard came from The Shadow series (W).

            But that being said, there are still plenty of interesting notes in Kim Newman’s annotations.  For example, it was in Kim Newman’s annotations that I learned about Biggles (W), a character in The Bloody Red Baron that comes from a series of novels by W.E. Johns.  Kim Newman claims that at one time Biggles was hugely popular in British culture, and furthermore suggests, “It is possible that their [the Biggles novels] pre-eminent position in British culture was shot down by devastating parodies of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. (‘I don’t understand your banter’), which Michael Palin at least must have come to regret.” (p. 559)

            So then, of course, I had to look up on Youtube the Monty Python parodies of Biggles.  For example, “Biggles Dictates a Letter”

And the “I can’t understand your banter” skit (which doesn’t explicitly mention Biggles by name, but Kim Newman seems sure is indirectly parodying the Biggles books.)

And the Spanish Inquisition sketch, featuring “Cardinal Biggles”.

            (I have actually seen all of these sketches before, but enjoy them much more now that I know what they’re parodying.)

            And that is the whole joy of a book like this.  It’s constantly opening up new areas of interest for the reader.

Link of the Day 

The Civil Rights Movement

Black Ajax by George MacDonald Fraser

(Book Review)

Why I Read This Book/Connections with Flashman

          I read this book because it is a tie-in to the Flashman series

.           In addition to the 12 official books ofthe Flashman series, George MacDonald Fraser wrote two more tie-in books: one is Mr American, in which Flashman is a supporting character (which I read previously) and the other is Black Ajax.

            Black Ajax takes place in the early 1800s, which is a few years before Flashman’s time.  (The first Flashman book  takes place in the 1840s.)  But Flashman’s father, Captain Buckley (“Mad Buck”) Flashman is one of the main characters. (And, since the whole story is told in the form of interviews looking back in time from a later perspective, a few brief references are made to the younger Flashman himself.)

The Plot

          Although historical fiction, this novel is based on a true story.  George MacDonald Fraser has rescued from the historical archives the strange but fascinating story of Tom Molineaux (W), a black American ex-slave who became a famous boxer in England during the Napoleonic Wars.

            The story is told in the form of interviews with a number of witnesses, some real (Paddington Jones (W) and Bill Richmond (W)) and some fictional (Buckley Flashman).

The Review

          This is the 14th book I’ve read by George MacDonald Fraser, so I guess it should come as no surprise that I find his prose highly readable.  And that’s the case here as well.  I found this book very readable, and George MacDonald Fraser’s storytelling abilities to be as engrossing as usual.

            The fact that I wasn’t interested in the subject matter of the book—I have absolutely no interest in boxing— was a minor impediment, but the story is well-told enough that you don’t really have to be a sports fan.

            Enjoyability of the book aside, there are 3 areas of the book that caught my attention

1) Boxing and British culture

2) Regency Britain

3) and George MacDonald Fraser’s handling of slavery and racism.

            I’ll deal with these in order. First

Boxing and British Culture

            I don’t know a lot about boxing.  A few years ago, I thought that boxing was an American sport.  After all, all the boxing greats are always Americans, right?

            But apparently boxing is primarily a properly British institution. At least according to George MacDonald Fraser.

            Actually this idea has popped up a few times before in my reading list.  It was a major plot point of Royal Flash (both the book and the movie) that the German Otto Von Bismarck can not appreciate the British sport of boxing, and has to be taught a painful lesson by a British boxer in order to acknowledge the level of skill involved.

            In Twenty Years After, the French author Alexandre Dumas also describes the British fascination with boxing.  After the Musketeers demonstrate their talent in boxing in London, they are acclaimed by the English mob. 

            Dumas, who was writing in the 1840s but describing the 1640s, may have been committing an anachronism here.  Or not—I don’t know.  (How far back does the history of boxing culture in Britain go?) But at any rate, by the 1840s boxing was apparently regarded as a well established part of British culture on the continent.

            In this book, one of the major themes George MacDonald Fraser wants to emphasize is how important boxing was to the British during the Napoleonic Wars:

            As Buckley Flashman says:

            The war had much to do with that [the popularity of boxing], you know. Well ‘twas natural enough to compare the mills [boxing matches] with the sterner battles abroad and see in the pugs the sterner stuff that had held the French at bay so many years. I remember Clarence, our late king, holding forth for the hundredth time about the set-to between Gully and Pearce, which fell in the same month as Trafalgar.

            “Was not one an echo of t’other?” says he. “Damme, I say it was! Could anyone doubt, who saw those two noble fellows at blows, that we were better men than the French or the Spaniards or the dam’ Danes an’ the rest o’ that continental rabble? No, sir! Why sir? ‘Cos we learn from our cradle to fight like men, not like back-stabbin’ dagoes or throat-slittin’ Frogs. They have their stilettos, we have our fists. We fight clean, sir, an’ hard, an’ don’t cry quits while we can stand on our feet! Why, sir? ‘Cos we’re Englishmen, an’ boxin’s our game, an’ makes us what we are, an’ be damned to ‘em!” (p. 63-64).

            One of the themes of this book is that what is remembered in history books isn’t necessarily what the people of the time were concerned with.  History remembers the early 1800s as the time of the madness of King George, and the Napoleonic Wars.  But people in England were obsessed with the scandals of the fashionable set, and the boxing matches.  George MacDonald Fraser (through his characters) asserts that people of the time were more concerned about the outcome of the boxing matches in England than about the war in Europe.

            It’s an interesting little piece of cultural history, that even a non-sports fan like me can appreciate.

            As interesting as all this is, however, I’m still not a fan of boxing.  If two men are in a boxing ring, and I don’t know either of them, I really don’t care which one of them beats the other senseless.  And the idea of two men beating each other senseless for the amusement of the spectators revolts me.

            This was especially true back in the 1800s, when the boxing match would last for a (seemingly) unlimited number of rounds.  When describing the fight between Tom Molineaux and Tom Cribb, George MacDonald Fraser details a fight that went on for 34 rounds, fifty-five minutes, and which wrecked the bodies of both men.  And I’m thinking: “This is just cruel!   Why not just stop the fight after 3 rounds and 15 minutes?”

            It’s difficult to tell exactly where George MacDonald Fraser stands on the issue.  On the one hand, he gives in graphic detail the brutality of the boxing matches.  On the other hand, he (or at least his characters) spend a lot of time praising the skill and science of boxing.

            I suppose this is the sign of a good author—he’s skilled enough to leave some ambiguity about the subject and let the reader make their own decisions.

Regency Britain

          This ties in a bit with the above section, but one of the delights of reading any of George MacDonald Fraser’s books is the historical details and digressions he gives on any story he is telling.

            And so, although this story is nominally about the boxer Tom Molineaux, Fraser also uses the story as a launching point for various digressions on English culture. 

            This is especially true in the interviews with Buckley Flashman, who seems to share his son’s habit of going on long digressions, much to the annoyance of his interviewer.  After the interviewers asks Buckley Flashman about Tom Molineaux, Flashman instead goes off for several pages describing society in Regency Britain, until he is finally pressed by his interviewer to return to the subject, at which point Flashman exclaims:

            What’s this to do with Molineaux? Why, to impress upon you what a light-minded crew of sensation-seekers Society was, ripe for any novelty—female, criminal or sporting for choice—and because it pleases me to hold forth at length while sampling this excellent drop o’ short. So don’t dam’ well interrupt. We’ll come to the Dusky Miller presently.

            Speaking of sport, there was a mighty stink at Newmarket about that time….

            (p.53-54)

            ….And it’s another 10 pages before Flashman gets around to finally talking about Tom Molineaux.

            If you’re interested in this sort of thing, it’s all fascinating period detail.

            Buckley Flashman advances the theory that the reason Victorian Britain was so uptight in its morals, and Regency Britain was so loose in its morals, was all because of the examples that the respective monarchs set for their subjects.

            As Buckley Flashman says to his interviewer:

            Now, you’re too young, I take it, to remember London in the old days—in the French war, I mean, before the Regency? Just so. Well, if you’re to understand about Molineaux, and how he came to make such an almighty stir, and so forth, I must set you right about that time. ‘Twas as different from today as junk from Offley’s beef. Free and easy and jolly, no one giving a dam, churches half-empty and hells packed full, fashion and frolic the occupations, and sport the religion…A few sobersides fretted about morality and revolution, but since most o’ the country was three-parts drunk, nobody minded them. The Town was on the spree, and we were “on the Town”.

            Hard to swallow, eh, for your serious generation, taking your lead from our sedate young Queen, God bless her, and her pump-faced German noodle—ah, there’s the difference, in a nutshell! You  have the muff Albert, God help you, pious, worthy, dull as a wet Sabbath and dressed like a dead Quaker; we had fat Prinny, boozy and cheery and chasing skirt, in the pink of fashion as cut by Scott and approved by Brummel. That’s the difference thirty years has made. Your statesmen don’t gamble or fight duels; there ain’t one trace-kciker among your Society women; royalty don’t fornicate or have turn-ups at coronations nowadays; and what noble lord trains a prize pug or flees to France with the duns in full cry? (p.49-50)

            I’ve heard this explanation before by other writers. (In fact, this is pretty much the standard explanation, isn’t it?)  Personally, I find it a bit hard to credit that the morals of the monarch would have that much of an influence on something as large as society, but I’m not expert enough to contest it.

And finally, one last point:

George MacDonald Fraser’s Handling of Slavery and Racism

            This is a story that touches on not a few sensitive issues in British and American history—the horrors of slavery, and the more subtle issues of racism.

            George MacDonald Fraser, who used to take pride in being politically incorrect [SEE ARTICLE HERE] might not be the best person to handle this story.

            As with all issues of political sensitivity, this is ultimately a judgment call.  Some people will have no problem with this book, others will cringe slightly when reading the descriptions of slavery.

            I’m reminded of the controversy surrounding the Quentin Tarantino film Django.  (As of this writing, I haven’t yet gotten around to seeing Django, but I followed the controversy when it came out.)  Some people praised Django for faithfully depicting the brutality of slavery.  Others wondered if Django wasn’t exploiting the tragedy of slavery to make a trashy revenge movie.

            The same question could be raised of this book.  On the one hand, George MacDonald Fraser fully brings home the brutality of a system in which human beings are simply treated as a piece of property.

            But on the other hand…

            There is a perverted French character in this novel, someone who is obviously meant to act like a stand-in for the Marquis de Sade, who takes sadistic pleasure in sexually tormenting the female slaves.  I’m sure some people would argue that this depiction is meant as a condemnation of the slavery system, but reading those sections I wondered whether we might have crossed the line from a serious examination of the subject into something else entirely.

            (Well, love him or hate him, nothing George MacDonald Fraser writes is ever boring—I’ll give him that much.)

            Once the action switches to Britain, there’s a bit of a conflicted message about racism in 19th century England.  George MacDonald Fraser is never shy about praising his native country, and he is at pains to emphasize the contrast between British and American racial attitudes.  In America, Tom Molineaux was nothing more than a piece of property.  In Britain, he was able to achieve fame, fortune, and even rub shoulders with the aristocracy and royalty.  This point is emphasized a few times over.

            However there was a color barrier even in Britain, and Tom Molineaux did run up against it.  As one character describes it:

            He [Tom Molineaux] did not like us….  He did not believe we treated him fair. Nor did we, sir.  We robbed him o’ the Championship of England, and we abused and insulted and made mock of him when he was doing his best and showing us milling [boxing] as good as any … he was a stranger in a strange land, and the Fancy [boxing fraternity] at his fights was never what you’d call even-handed, were they?  Natural enough…but we could ha’ been kinder. (p.227-228)

            The story of a struggle against racism is sympathetic to black people, but sometimes the language this story is told in is not so sympathetic.

            Like the Flashman novels, this book is told from the perspective of the participants themselves, without an omniscient narrator.  And the participants tell their stories through the prism of their own language and prejudices.  As with the Flashman series, this narrative device means the book is filled with politically incorrect language and ideas, but the reader is meant to understand that this represents 19th century prejudices, and not objective reality.  Nevertheless, if racially insensitive language makes you uncomfortable, then best to avoid this book.  The “N-word” is used not a few times in this book.  (But then, it would be used by characters of that time, wouldn’t it?)

            For me, it’s the character of Tom Molineaux that made me more uncomfortable than anything else.  The way he’s written in this book, he could easily have been a 19th century Black Sambo stereotype.  He’s repeatedly described as simple, stupid, obstinate, completely lacking in self-control, over-sexed (with an obsession for white women), and an alcoholic.

            How much criticism should George MacDonald Fraser get for this? How much of this portrayal is based on historical fact?  (And how accurate were 19th century sources?) 

            Must all black people always be treated as saints? And if not, how much leeway does a novelist have to portray a black character in a negative light before a line is crossed? 

           

            The saving grace of this novel is that Tom Molineaux’s flaws are never portrayed as being representative of his whole race—other black characters, like Bill Richmond, are portrayed as being much more intelligent and rational.

            And as the real Tom Molineaux did die from alcoholism at a young age (W), it can’t be denied that at least some of his character flaws are a matter of history. 

            And yet, even so, George MacDonald Fraser’s portrayal of Tom Molineaux struck me as too simplistic and too close to traditional stereotypes.  A complex negative portrait of Tom Molineaux I could have lived with, but this portrayal of him as being simple-minded, over-sexed, and out of control around alcohol and white women, made me uncomfortable.

            Yet another Flashman book that I found to be highly readable, but that I’d think twice about before recommending.

Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky: Can Civilization Survive Capitalism? Capitalism as it exists today is radically incompatible with democracy.

Royal Flash

(Movie Review)

Why I Watched This Movie

          Regular readers of this blog know that I discovered the Flashman series late.  However, once I did discover Flashman, I became an enthusiastic fan and read through the whole series.

            This is the only movie adaptation of the Flashman series.  It came out in 1975, and It doesn’t have a very good reputation (more on that below), but being a completeist I wanted to check it out anyway.  For curiosity’s sake, if nothing else.

            So, when I found this movie at the DVD stores in Cambodia, I wasted no time in buying it and taking it home.

This Movie’s Reputation

            This movie was a huge flop, and is furthermore regarded as a disappointment by Flashman fans everywhere, including Flashman’s creator, George MacDonald Fraser, who afterwards said that he would never let another Flashman movie be made because, after the experience of Royal Flash,  he "will not let anyone else have control of the script ... and that simply does not happen in Hollywood."

            One of my British friends and fellow Flashman fans, (someone who’s a bigger Flashman fan than me actually) even went so far as to tell me not to watch the movie, because it would ruin Flashman for me.  (He said he actually turned the movie off halfway through, because he was worried the film would ruin the books for him if he kept watching it.)

            The sins of this movie are many in the eyes of Flashman fans, but the principle complaint is that it skipped over the first book of the series and adapted the second book instead.

            As my friend said, “When you think of Flashman, you want to see him fighting the pirates in Borneo, or sailing to Madagascar.  You don’t want to see him stuck inside of that dark castle for the whole movie.  What fun is that?”

            Also, for us history geeks who enjoy Flashman because of all the little historical tidbits, Royal Flash is the least historical of the books—it’s the only one of the Flashman books that takes place in a fictitious setting. 

            The story is bookended by some real historical material (the Revolutions of 1848, the Schleswig-Holstein Question and real life characters Lola Montez, and Otto von Bismarck), but it’s primarily a spoof on The Prisoner of Zenda, and as such largely takes place in the fictional country of Strackenz.

            The AVclub interview with Malcolm McDowell offers some insight into why the producers chose to adapt the second book instead of the first book.

Royal Flash, it was a lot of fun to do it. It was really sad that we didn’t start that franchise with the first book. But there was so much baggage attached to it that Dick Lester said, “To hell with it, let’s just do the second one.” That’s why there’s this whole thing at the beginning with him at the fort—that’s the whole of the first book, right there. Awarded the V.C., because he had the Union Jack draped around him. Of course it fell on him, hit him, knocked him out, and he got entwined in it. It was a great part, but it didn’t really quite gel. The script was a bit overlong, then they introduced the partisans halfway through. Just a bit too much going on, I think. But Oliver Reed was wonderful as Bismarck.

AVC: The books aren’t that well known in the U.S., but that must have been a hugely anticipated film in Britain.

MM: Yes, I think so. But in Britain, there again, it should have been the first one, and I think people just went, “That’s weird.” So they didn’t go see it.

            It’s not specified what the extra baggage is, but I’m guessing that in the 1970s the British quagmire in Afghanistan was all too similar to the American quagmire in Vietnam. 

            There is also some abuse of women in the first Flashman book (one of George MacDonald Fraser’s more questionable gambits, and something makes the book very difficult to adapt to film.)

            And of course, one suspects budget constraints were also a factor.

The Review

          Well…it’s not a terrible film.

            Once you forgive the fact that they skipped over the first book in the series, it’s actually very faithful to the original source material (for those of us who care about such things.)  The story of Flashman bumbling into Otto von Bismarck, and Lola Montez, and then getting on both of their bad sides and becoming the victim of their machinations  in the fictional kingdom of  Strackenz all unfolds pretty much the way it happens in the book.

            And yet, I hate to say it, but the film is pretty boring to watch.

            Exactly what went wrong here is hard for me to put my finger on.  All the right elements seem to be in place, but the comedy just isn’t that funny, and the swashbuckling just isn’t that exciting.

            In other words, there’s nothing really wrong with this film, but there’s nothing really right with it either.  It plods along, dutifully hitting all the plot points from the original novel, but just never manages to become engaging in its own right.  Roger Ebert said of this movie: It's as if Lester and Fraser had such faith in the intrinsic funniness of a comic swashbuckler that they didn't work to make this particular one funny. So all the elements are in place, but nothing seems to work and nobody seems much concerned.

            Film history is littered with literary adaptations that appeared to have all the right elements from the book, and yet failed to work as films.  And this is but another example.

            Part of the problem is that in a Flashman book, the actual story is really only half the pleasure.  The long historical footnotes, which give the biographies of all the historical figures and background to the events, are what really make the book.

            In the book Royal Flash, Fraser, in his footnotes, gives the whole fascinating story of the real life Lola Montez (W).  In the movie, you don’t get any of this.  And without knowing her historical background, there’s very little of her in the movie that would appear interesting in its own right.  She just appears as a slightly crazy angry woman.

Cast and Crew

          The movie is directed by Richard Lester (W), who is most famous as the director of the Beatles movies A Hard Days Night and Help!.  And if you’ve seen the Beatles movies (and back in my Beatles - fan phase, I watched those movies not a few times) you can pick up on some of the same humor techniques being used in Royal Flash—for example having a character say something loudly, and then add a humorous aside in a much softer voice.

            (Also something that is reminiscent of the Beatles’ movies: in many of the scenes, there’s something a little bit off about the audio.  I’m fairly sure in some of these scenes the audio must have been recorded separately, and later synched onto the film.  Whatever it is, it’s just enough to be distracting.  But I think this was fairly common of British films from this era.)

            Bismarck is played by Oliver Reed (W), who is a famous British actor best known for playing imposing tough characters (I remember him as Bill Sykes the musical Oliver! (W) which I saw as a kid) and he does an excellent job here.

            For Bob Hoskins (W) fans, this movie was one of his first rules, and he’s got a little bit part in this movie as a Cockney London police officer.

            Roger Ebert gives a little interesting tidbit on many of the extras in this movie: The cast also is populated with a gallery of British character actors who've made a specialty of dressing up as Victorian officers, twirling their moustaches, strutting about and blustering. Just as Hollywood has a dozen or so standard Western character actors who always look at home on a horse or in a saloon, so England has Alastair Sim and Lionel Jeffries and Michael Hordern (and the best of all at this sort of thing, Trevor Howard, although he's not in "Royal Flash"). They add background and personality and a nice hokey quality I wish the movie had more of.

            And Flashman is played by Malcolm McDowell (Clockwork Orange, Star Trek: Generations).  Since the casting of Malcolm McDowell is somewhat controversial among Flashman fans, I’ll deal with that next.

The Portrayal of Flashman

          One of the reasons my friend hates this movie so much is because of Malcolm McDowell’s portrayal of Flashman.  “The thing is,” he said to me, “in the novels Flashman is always able to bluff his way through and look brave.  Of course, because you know his thoughts, you know he’s absolutely terrified on the inside.  But he’s able to keep that all hidden underneath and pretend to be brave.  They didn’t show that in the movie.”

            George MacDonald Fraser was also reportedly unhappy with the casting choice. It wasn't just his looks and his style. He had that shifty quality

            And Roger Ebert said of Flashman: McDowell just doesn't seem focused enough. Flashman, at least as he comes through in such Fraser stories as the current Playboy serial, is maniacally devoted to his own cause and needs. McDowell doesn't project the ego. He seems like an observer at his own outrages.

           

            …Me?  I actually thought the Flashman in this movie was alright.

            This is a problem with any cinematic adaptation of a book.  The reader has used the author’s descriptions to create their own portraits of the character in their minds.  Not all readers create the same image in their mind, and every time a book gets adopted as a movie, you have some readers who are upset because the portrayal on film doesn’t match what they’ve created in their heads.

            But my own internal image of Flashman was very similar to what I saw being portrayed on the screen.

            Flashman is very good at bluffing, it’s true.  But once he realizes he’s in a situation where pretending to be brave is not going to do him very good, he’ll very quickly resort to begging, pleading, crying and whining.  This was very clear in the books.  And I thought Malcolm McDowell’s portrayal of Flashman was very much in line with this.

            And yes, I suppose Malcolm McDowell is a little bit on the skinny side, and ideally you want Flashman to look a bit more like the swashbuckling hero he pretends to be.  But to me it’s a minor complaint.

            The opening scene especially I thought was very good, in which Malcolm McDowell does a good job of showing how sanctimonious Flashman can pretend to be, and then quickly juxtaposes this with Flashman’s actual character in a gambling and whore house.

            This was from the early days of the Flashman series, back when the books still served as a parody on the Victorian cult of duty and honor.  In an excellent parody of Patton,  Flashman stands in front of a giant British flag, and while proud patriotic music is playing in the background, Flashman spouts out meaningless platitudes about country and duty.  It’s all nonsense, and of course Flashman himself doesn’t believe a word of it, but Malcolm McDowell sells it so well. There appears to be a zealot’s fever in his eyes as he yells out this stuff, and his fervent demeanor so completely fools his audience.

            So, the last thing I have to tell you young fellows is this: play-up, and play the game! Honour your Queen and country! Mind what your Masters tell you.  Say your prayers each night.  Keep your minds and your bodies clean! Take a cold bath each day, and you’ll find you can always look the world in the eye like an English gentleman.

            Now my lads, I’m just a simple soldier….Yes, I am though.  But I tell you, if you follow these rules, then, when the last role call comes, you’ll be able to go up before the great headmaster with a clean British conscience and say: “Well sir, I tried to do my duty.”

            And I think… I think you’ll find, that’s good enough for him

            (You really do need to watch the video to get the full flavor of this though.  Watch the first minute of the video below.)

Trivia
IMDB has an interesting little bit of trivia.  In addition to being famous for the Beatles movies, Richard Lester is also responsible for coming into work on Superman II and III after Richard Donner got removed from production.  According to IMDB, Richard Lester worked in a character named Flashman in Superman III as an homage to this earlier work. (I've seen Superman III.  I don't remember this character, but I'll watch out for it when I see it again.)

Link of the Day
Chomsky at the United Nations

Mr American by George MacDonald Fraser

(Book Review)

Why I Read This Book

          After finishing the Flashman series (for all my Flashman reviews see here), I decided I might as well knock this book off too.

            This book is not officially part of the Flashman series, but it’s by the same author, and Flashman is one of the characters.  (I had previously characterized Flashman’s role in this book as a cameo, but after having read the book, I think Flashman plays a big enough role that it is safe to call him one of the supporting characters.)

The Review

          Not at all what I expected, but a wonderful book nonetheless.

            I imagine that, like me, many people track down and read this book solely because of the Flashman connection.  So it’s a little bit of a surprise to discover how unlike the Flashman series this book actually is.

            The Flashman books were fast paced, often adventurous or humorous, always irreverent, mostly exotic, with lots of scandalous liaisons with foreign women and grizzly deaths.  In other words: they’re pretty low brow.

            This book, by contrast, is much more serious. 

           

            But the biggest difference between this and the regular Flashman series is the pacing.  Flashman usually moved at a pretty fast clip from one disaster to another.  This book is intent on taking its time. 

            The slow pace of the book, and the in depth, blow by blow description of old fashioned aristocratic parties and social gatherings, reminded me a lot of War and Peace.

            I know, it’s probably sacrilege to compare a Flashman book to War and Peace. And yet it strikes me that even if the two books are dissimilar in talent, they are at least similar in ambition.

            In both books, the plot is only of secondary importance.  The real purpose, in both books, is to describe, in as much detail as possible, all the aspects of life during a certain time period.

            Both authors were removed from their subject material by roughly the same amount of time.  (Tolstoy was writing in 1869 to describe Russia in the early 1800s, Fraser was writing in 1980 to describe England in the early 1900s.)  And consequently, both were trying to describe a period that had only just gone out of living memory.

            Fraser is intent on recreating as much of Edwardian England as is possible within the pages of his book.  He recreates everything from the local taverns, to the political discussions, to the streets of London, to the aristocratic parties, to the theater, to the cab drivers.

            As with War and Peace, the key to enjoying this book is be in the right frame of mind.  If you start to get impatient, you’re going to hate this book.  But if you just allow yourself to get absorbed in all the period details, you’ll love this book.

            The good news is that George MacDonald Fraser pulls the thing off.  Like Tolstoy in War and Peace, Fraser accomplishes his recreation of the past not with long boring descriptions, but by recreating scenes of life.  And he does it well.

            For example in one section Fraser spends 30 pages just describing a party.  I know that sounds pretty boring, but when you actually read those pages, it’s not boring at all.  In fact I was glued to those pages as I read them.  (I’m usually a pretty slow reader, but I got completely absorbed in this book and couldn’t put it down.)

            Although I thoroughly enjoyed the Flashman series, this is a whole different side of Fraser, and it’s apparent he was much more talented as a writer than I had previously given him credit for.

            It’s always difficult to dissect good prose and determine what exactly makes it work (especially for us non-literary types), but whatever it is, Fraser has it.

            The style of the book is probably best illustrated with an excerpt.  This is from page 14-16, just after Mr. Franklin has gotten off the boat at Liverpool:

            Once outside the Customs shed, Mr Franklin paused to examine the railway timetable board; there were, he saw, five companies competing to carry him to London on Monday. After some deliberation, he decided on London and North-western, which undertook to convey him to Euston in something over four hours, via Crewe and Rugby, for 29 shillings first-class. Just under six dollars, in fact. It was the fastest train, not that that could matter to a man who had not taken the special vestibuled boat-train for Atlantic passengers which was even now pulling out of Riverside Station with a shrilling of steam.

            His porter was waiting at the cab rank, and on his inquiring whether the gentleman wish to travel by taxi or horse cab, Mr Franklin fixed him with a thoughtful grey eye and asked what the fare might be.

            “Cab’s a shillin’ a mile, taxi’s sixpence a half-mile an’ twopence every sixth of a mile after that,” replied the porter.

            “And how far is the Adelphi Hotel?” asked Mr Franklin.

            This innocent question caused some consternation among the taxi-men and cab drivers; some thought it would be about a mile, if not slightly more, but there was a school of thought that held it was a bare mile by the shortest route. No one knew for certain, and finally the porter, a practical man who wanted to get back to the Customs shed for another client, settled the matter by spitting and declaring emphatically:

            “It’ll cost you a shillin’ anyways.”

            Mr Franklin nodded judiciously, indicated a horse-cab, and then paid the porter. He seemed to be having some difficulty with the massive British copper coins, to which he was plainly unaccustomed, and the tiny silver “doll’s-eye” threepence which he eventually bestowed; the porter sighed and reflected that this was a damned queer Yank; most of them scattered their money like water.

            This was not lost on the cabby, who mentally abandoned the notion of suggesting that he take his passenger by way of Rodney Street—which would have added at least sixpence to the fare—there to gaze on Number 62, the birthplace of the late Mr Gladstone. Americans, in his experience, loved to see the sights, and would exclaim at the Grand Old Man’s childhood home and add as much as a shilling to the tip. An even better bet was the house in Brunswick Street where Nathaniel Hawthorne had kept his office as U.S. Consul in the middle of the previous century, but somehow, the cabby reflected morosely, this particular American didn’t look as though he’d be interested in the author of Tanglewood and the Scarlet Letter either.

            The cab drew out of the quayside gates and up the long pier to the main street at the top, where the electric trams clanged and rumbled and a slow-moving stream of traffic, most of it horse-drawn, but with the occasional motor here and there, slowed the cab to a walk.  The cabby noted that his fare was sitting forward, surveying the scene with the air of a man who is intent on drinking everything in, but giving no sign of whether he found it pleasing or otherwise. For the cabby’s money, central Liverpool was not an inspiring sight in any weather, with its bustling pavements and dirty over-crowded streets and he was genuinely startled when after some little distance his passenger called out sharply to him to hold on. He was staring intently down the street which they were crossing, a long, grimy thoroughfare of chandlers’ shops and warehouses; he was smiling, the wondering cabby noticed, in a strange, faraway fashion, as though seeing something that wasn’t there at all.  He was humming, too, gently under his breath, as he surveyed the long seedy stretch of ugly buildings and cobbles on which the rain was beginning to fall.

            The book is heavy on description, but it’s never too much.  There’s just the right amount of eye for detail that absorbs you in the scene without losing momentum entirely.

            And although it’s not evident in the section I quoted above, there’s also a lot of dialogue in this book.  Much of the dialogue has little bearing on the plot, but the characters are fun to listen to, and the dialogue does serve the purpose of creating the scene.  Every so often a couple of important plot points are dropped into the dialogue to pique your interest a little bit more, but then once the plot is hinted at, the dialogue will go off in another direction, and the plot of this novel is only gradually revealed. 

            Because the book is heavy on description and dialogue, there isn’t much plot in this 585 page book. But what little plot there is, is teased out only gradually, and part of the pleasure of reading this book is to have the plot gradually revealed. Knowing too  much of the plot in advance would spoil the book, so for that reason I’ll carry on  further discussion about the plot below the spoiler warning.

SPOILERS (and other observations)

* Given that the tone of this book is completely different than the Flashman series, I suppose the usual detailed Flashman footnotes would have spoiled everything.  The footnotes would have taken you out of the story, and Fraser has done so much work to absorb you into the setting.

            But that being said, I kind of missed the footnotes a little bit.  In the Flashman books, Fraser always let you know how much of the story was based on real history, and what his sources were.

            Since there are real historical characters and events mixed in with the plot of Mr American, it would be nice to know where Fraser’s sources come from.  How much of his detailed description of Edward VII, for example, is based on research, and how much of it is creative license?

* As I said above, there isn’t much plot in this book, but Fraser does a remarkably good job of creating a lot of interest in a small bit of story by setting up little mysteries and points of suspense, and then letting these points simmer for long periods of time as they are only gradually revealed.  Who is this strange American? Why did he come to England?  How did he get his money?  What secrets is he hiding about his past?

            And then a whole other set of questions is created about his relationship with Peggy.  Does Peggy really love him?  Is she being faithful?  What did she really want the money for?

            In my opinion, however, once all the initial mysteries and questions have been resolved, the book lags a little bit.  In the middle section (the whole section with Pip and the art show, and then the trial of Helen Cessford), I found I was losing interest in the plot because most of the mysterious questions had been answered.  I wasn’t sure what the point of the book was anymore, and I had lost my reason to keep turning the pages.

            I think in the middle section Fraser slightly overplays his hand.  In the beginning of the book, the plot unfolds very slowly, but he’s still able to keep interest because the reader knows he’s setting up a story, and the reader want to see where he’s going.

            However once all the chess pieces are on the table, then the same pacing doesn’t work.  It’s a small complaint, but I think the book would have been better if the pacing of the story had gradually speeded up as you went along.

            Also I confess that I just wasn’t that interested in Helen Cessford or her story arch.  (I didn’t care about Helen Cessford because Fraser didn’t give me a reason to care. Fraser apparently has a bit of an axe to grind against the suffragette movement, so Helen Cessford comes across as loud, arrogant, hypocritical, and unlikeable.  Although the appearance of Helen’s great uncle, Flashman, in this section does make up for a lot.)

            The good news is that my interest in the story returned near the end, once the murder investigation began.

            The ending of the book is slightly disappointing because it’s so anti climatic.  And yet, I can’t really complain about it, because the whole style of the book is so subdued that I had suspected all along there would be no big climax at the end.

* More War and Peace connections:

            I half suspect that the connections between War and Peace are not coincidental, and that Fraser may have had War and Peace in his mind as a model when he wrote this book.

            In addition to the similarities mentioned above, both books integrate historical characters and real characters, and provide fictional portraits of the ruling monarchs or their period.  Both books are primarily focused on the lifestyles of the upper-classes, but both books provide portraits of the privileged class at just a time when their way of life was about to be turned upside down by a world war.

            Fraser even explicitly states this theme at times, for example in describing the week just before the outbreak of World War I:

            This week like so many others, that generations would back on with a kind of disbelief and wonder, because it belonged to a world that no one would ever see again, the last ray of a setting sun that had risen in some misty, historic time before anyone could remember and had shone brightly over a gradually changing but still comfortingly consistent scene, and was now about to go down at last. And what everyone would remember was how calm and untroubled it had been, with no possible hint of how the gears of time were about to change for millions of ordinary folk, clashing into a new and frightening revolution as the human race rushed suddenly into a new dark age.  But in that week nobody knew. Nobody could possibly know. (p. 518).

            Also, the marriage between Mark Franklin and Peggy Clayton reminded me a lot of the marriage between Pierre Bezukhov and Princess Helen.  In both cases, a rich man is seduced into marrying a beautiful woman, and only afterwards discovers that their relationship is based on money, and that she doesn’t care for him at all (or in Peggy’s case, only cares for the relationship on her own terms).

            Also, just as Pierre falls in love with Natasha Rostova while trapped in his marriage, so Mark Franklin finds himself intrigued (if not in love) with both Pip and Helen Cessford. 

            I thought Franklin was going to end up escaping from his marriage with Peggy and ending up with one of these other women as Pierre did in War and Peace, but to my surprise Fraser went for a different ending.

            Another difference is that Fraser uses the character of an outsider to allow him an excuse to go into detailed descriptions of Edwardian English society.  Mark Franklin, fresh off the boat from America, needs to learn everything, from how to interact at the local small town pub to how to behave at a royal party.  Tolstoy, of course, gives us a description of early 1800s Russian society entirely from an insider’s view.

* Flashman connections:  

            This book, taking place between 1910 and 1914, shows Flashman at age 88 to 92, what I can only assume is near the end of his life, and is the last chronological appearance of Flashman in Fraser’s fiction.

            However, in terms of publication order, this book is right in the middle of the Flashman canon.  It was published in 1980, and Fraser would go on to write 6 more Flashman books before he died in 2008.

            Some of the later books would go on to better flesh out Flashman’s relationship with Edward VII. 

            In Mr American, we see that Flashman and Edward VII know each other (both speak of the other distastefully) but they hardly seem to have been intimates or have much of a shared history.

            In one of the later books, Flashman and the Redskins, however, Flashman reminisces:
King Teddy's company is something I'd sooner avoid than not, anyway, for he's no better than an upper-class hooligan. Of course, he's been pretty leery of me for forty-odd years (ever since I misguided his youthful footsteps into an actress's bed, in fact, and brought Papa Albert's divine wrath down on his fat head) and when he finally wheezed his way on to the throne I gather he thought of dropping me altogether - said something about my being Falstaff to his Prince Hal.

            In Flashman and the Tiger a whole chapter of the book is devoted to Flashman helping Edward VII (then the Prince of Wales) out of the Baccarat scandal (W).  (Actually being Flashman, he just ends up making the scandal worse, but he was supposed to be helping.)

           In retrospect then, it seems a little strange that none of this was mentioned by either party in Mr American.  (Granted this isn’t a hard example of a continuity error.  You could easily just explain this away by positing that neither Flashman nor Edward VII cared to be reminded of their shared history with each other.  And yet, I’m pretty sure that if Mr American had been written after the other Flashman books instead of before, Fraser would have included some passing reference to this history.)

*The politics of Flashman:

            In this section I rely heavily on inferences, and don’t really know what I’m talking about, so feel free to skip this last part.

            But if you’ve been following my Flashman reviews, you’ll know that I imagine a shift in political opinion between the early Flashman books and the late Flashman books.  The early Flashman books seem to be anti-interventionalist. However the later Flashman books seem to take a pro-interventionalist view of the British Empire—the idea that the world has a lot of problems, and many of these problems are best sorted out by sending in the British Army.

            In terms of publication date Mr American is one of the earlier Flashman books, and it seems more in company with the anti-interventionalist politics of the other early Flashman books, as evidenced in this Flashman speech:

            Mr Franklin….asked the General [Flashman] what he thought of the war situation.  The old man shrugged.

            “Contemptible—but of course it always is.  We should stay out, and to hell with Belgium. After all, it’s stretching things to say we’re committed to ’em, and we’d be doing ’em a favour—and the Frogs, too.”

            “By not protecting them, you mean?  I don’t quite see that.*

            “You wouldn’t—because like most idiots you think of war as being between states—coloured blobs on the map. You think if we can keep Belgium green, or whatever colour it is, instead of Prussian blue, then hurrah for everyone.  But war ain’t between coloured blobs—it’s between people.  You know what people are, I suppose?—chaps in trousers and women in skirts, and kids in small clothes. … imagine yourself a Belgian—in Liege, say.  Along come the Prussians, and invade you. What about it?—a few cars commandeered, a shop or two looted, half a dozen girls knocked up, a provost marshal installed, and the storm’s passed.  Fierce fighting with the Frogs, who squeal like hell because Britain refuses to help, the Germans reach Paris, peace concluded and that’s that.  And there you are, getting on with your garden in Liege. But—” the General waged a bony finger. “Suppose Britain helps—sends forces to aid little Belgium—and the Frogs—against the Teuton horde?  What then?  Belgian resistance is stiffened, the Frogs manage to stop the invaders, a hell of a war is waged all over Belgium and north-east France, and after God knows how much slaughter and destruction the Germans are beat—or not, as the case may be.  How’s Liege doing?  I’ll tell you—it’s a bloody shambles.  You’re lying mangled in your cabbage patch, you’re wife’s had her legs blown off, your daughters have been raped, and your house is a mass or rubble. You’re a lot better off for British intervention, ain’t you?” (p. 530)

            And on the following page Flashman continues:

            “…I could take all the asses who’ll be waving flags and cheering and crowding the recruiting office—take ’em all by one collective arm, and say: ‘Now then, Jack, you know what you’re cheering for? You’re cheering at the prospect of having a soft-nosed bullet fired into your pelvis, shattering the bone and spreading it in splinters all through your intestines, and dying in agony two days later—or, if you’re really unlucky, surviving for a lifetime of pain, unable to walk, a burden to everyone and a dam’ nuisance to the country that will pay you a pension you can’t live off.  That, Jack,’ I’d tell ’em, ‘is what you’re cheering for.’…”

            So it seems to me that this book is much more in line with the earlier anti-interventionalist politics of the earlier Flashman books, and that Fraser’s views might have changed with the subject over time.

            All that being said, I must admit that there is a hole in my theory.  There was at least one pro-interventionalist Flashman book published before this one: Flashman’s Lady, published in 1977--which took a positive view of the British intervention in Borneo (albeit in that case by James Brooks, a private adventurer and not an official government representative, but still….)

            So, how to explain that?  Well, it could be the change was gradual. Flashman’s Lady was at first just an aberration from Fraser’s usual views, but later on these views became more and more the norm.

            Or, it could be that I’ve been looking at this thing all wrong.  I’ve been trying to cram Fraser into my own ideological lens (which is anti-imperialist and non-interventionalist) and only analyzing him by the narrow criteria of whether he is for or against my views.

            But it could be that Fraser takes a more nuanced view of war than I do.  Perhaps he believes in some wars, he just doesn’t believe in stupid wars (like the Afghanistan War, the Crimean War and World War I)

.

            I may not even be fairly characterizing him, but let me offer a quick rebuttal to this point of view anyway:

            When writing historical fiction, Fraser is writing with the full benefit of hindsight.  He’s able to argue against the stupidity of World War I, because in hindsight everyone knows how stupid and pointless that war was.

            At the time, however, it was not so clear.  At the beginning of the war this seemed to people like something that was really important.  There was a real sense of urgency, and people believed the very fate of Western civilization and democracy were at stake, and this swept up even people who should have known better (like the Second Socialist International  (W) and Kropotkin (W).)  There was also so much propaganda and misinformation at the outbreak of the War that supporters of the war were not making fully informed decisions.

            And in fact we’ve seen the same pattern of misinformation at the beginning of the Vietnam War and the most recent Iraq War.

            So if you take the position that war is sometimes justified, sooner or later you’re going to find yourself supporting a stupid war, and then regretting it.

            But like I said, I may not be even fairly characterizing Fraser’s views. 

            If anyone out there knows more about Fraser’s politics, or can put the Flashman series into a consistent ideological framework, let me

Link of the Day
Fantasies

Mr American by George MacDonald Fraser: Book Review

Links to stuff mentioned: 

* Introduction to the Flashman series: https://youtu.be/K2EH55L1Zsw

* My review of War and Peace: https://youtu.be/4dtCa_0GbK8

Check out this movie on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3BX69ZN       (This is an Amazon Associate's Link.  If you buy anything through that link, I get a commission.)