Crazy about…

George MacDonald Fraser

Specifically the Flashman books, Fraser’s masterwork.

The Flashman books are not romances. They are adventures. If the Lymond Chronicles can be described as the story of a Tudor mercenary, then the Flashman books are the story of a Victorian soldier.

The books purport to be a series of “packets discovered in a Leicestershire saleroom in 1966” where Flashman tells the true story of his life, as opposed to the sanitised “Dawns and Departures of a Soldier’s Life” which is his public face. An editor is assigned to the books, and he adds copious footnotes, some of them disapproving of Flashman’s behaviour and some elaborating on the many historical events Flashman throws out casually. After all, they were part of his life, not History. Occasionally his censorious sister-in-law, Grizel, has taken a hand too, but her main contributions are to criticise his scandalous behaviour.
The published books dot about in time, as they depend on when the ‘packets’ are opened so this is one series that doesn’t have to be read in order. Once you’ve read the first book, “Flashman,” you can pick the next one that takes your fancy.
Of course, all of these people are Fraser, although people have been known to take the series at face value. When the series came out in the States, several reviewers took the books at face value, as genuine memoirs, which delighted the author no end.
Reading Victorian history through the eyes of Flashman is an exhilarating ride, and he never puts on the brakes. From the battlefields of Europe and India to life on the slave ships and with the Apache, he never stops. And be warned – there is absolutely nothing of the politically correct in these books, any more than there was in the Victorian age. Suck it up.

When Fraser was asked about political incorrectness he said, “I think little of people who will deny their history because it doesn’t present the picture they would like.

My forebears from the Highlands of Scotland were a fairly primitive, treacherous, blood-thirsty bunch and, as Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote, would have been none the worse for washing. Fine, let them be so depicted, if any film maker feels like it; better that than insulting, inaccurate drivel like Braveheart.”

In the books, Flashman describes himself as a bully and a cad, but there is so much more to him than that. He’s intelligent, something he considers a curse, as when the Army discovers it, some highly dangerous covert operations come his way, and above all, he’s honest. Brutally honest. Not everything he does is admirable – no romance hero, our Flashy – but he recounts it in raw detail, along with the exploits of the people around him which are often no better and frequently worse than his.

Flashy has no illusions. He is the bully from Tom Brown’s Schooldays, and the only reason to read that awful book about the sanctimonious Victorian attitude to “play the game against the odds” which helped to lose the British Empire. Flashy is sent home in disgrace, is seduced by his father’s mistress, is sent to Scotland where he meets his amazing wife Elspeth (which doesn’t stop either of them playing away from home, but they remain sincerely in love) and then joins the army.

That’s just the start. Adventures in Afghanistan, the Crimea, the Old West, the Deep South, the Indian Mutiny, Imperial China (where he becomes the Empress’s favourite) follow on a breathtaking ride through the nineteenth century.

And these books are funny. I have never read a funnier sex scene than the Duchess Irma’s wedding night in “Royal Flash” (which wickedly parodies the “Prisoner of Zenda” and features Bismarck in the Rudy role). Through it all Flashy ruthlessly describes his less-than-heroic exploits which tend to end with him coming up smelling of roses. You have to read these. They’re a palate-cleanser after an angsty romance, a ride you’ll never forget, and an amazing example of how to write a pinpoint accurate historical novel without making it read like a text book.Just a taster – this is from “Flashman at the Charge” where Flashman is stuck with a German royal prince, trying to keep him out of trouble in London. Prince Willy wants to pop his cherry:

“I couldn’t budge him. So in the end I decided to let him have his way, and make sure there were no snags, and that it was done safe and quiet. I took him off to a very high-priced place I knew in St. John’s wood, swore the old bawd to secrecy, and stated the randy little pig’s requirements. She did him proud, too, with a strapping blonde wench–satin boots and all–and at the sight of her Willy moaned feverishly and pointed, quivering, like a setter. He was trying to clamber all over her almost before the door closed, and of course he made a fearful mess of it, thrashing away like a stoat in a sack, and getting nowhere. It made me quite sentimental to watch him–reminded me of my own ardent youth, when every coupling began with an eager stagger across the floor trying to disentangle one’s breeches from one’s ankles.”

Go thou and read.