| |
|
Have rummaged around for a thread on George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series of novels, and having not found one decided to begin one myself.
For the unfamiliar, Flashman was originally the villain in Thomas Hughes' classic novel 'Tom Brown's School Days' - a bully and coward who is eventually expelled from Rugby School for drunkeness. Begun in 1969, Fraser's series of novels is presented as the memoirs of an aged Flashy, who recalls his adventures as cavalry officer (among other things) in Regency / Victorian Britain and its various colonies and ex-colonies and theatres of war. Secondary and tertiary characters include Sitting Bull, Queen Victoria, Abraham Lincoln, Lord Cardigan (of Light Brigade infamy), John Brown, Bismark, Oscar Wilde, Karl Marx, Xianfeng Emperor, and even Sherlock Holmes. One might think of Fraser's use of an out-of-copyright 19thC character as an antecedent of Alan Moore's 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'.
Again for those unfamiliar with the books, Fraser's world is very well researched, and his comedy is often very funny (the central joke, that Flashy is believed by all the world to be a hero but is in fact a sleazy coward, suprisingly never wears thin). However, Flashman's narrative voice is very much that of a 19thC member of British upper classes - with all the casual racism and sexism that that implies. 'Flash for Freedom', in which Flashy becomes a slave-trader's gang-master, is particularly tough on 21stC sensibilities. For me, it remains unclear just how much Fraser agrees with the deplorable world view of his creation, which makes the books a little problematic.
So, those of you who have read the Flashman series, do you have a favourite book, and if so why that one? Is Fraser sending up the project of colonialism, or indulging in nostalgia for Empire? Christopher Hitchens is a fan, as were PG Wodehouse and Kingsley Amis. Are you? |
|
|
