For someone as educated as I am, I am horribly gullible. You tell me something, and you look earnest, odds are I’ll believe you. I watch crime shows, and the guilty party will look at the interviewer as say “I didn’t do it” and my immediate response is “the story checks out.” This gullibility is something my dad played on for years – and he still does. All through my childhood, he ‘pulled my leg’ over one story or another, and I always fell for it. I realized, though, that my susceptibility didn’t end with childhood when he suggested I read the Flashman Papers, by George MacDonald Fraser. He assured me (in fact, he swore up and down), that these were a true account of the life of Harry Flashman, Victorian hero of the British Empire .
It wasn’t until I was sitting in a fourth-year undergrad seminar on British history (run by the prof who eventually became my Master’s thesis supervisor), that the penny dropped – in that class, I started to suggest that the books were non-fiction, and caught myself right before I committed to saying something out loud about it. But I’m pretty sure the prof knew what I was thinking, and I still think it’s miraculous that he agreed to be my supervisor after that incident. When I related it to my dad, he chuckled. Because he’s a jerk. And that’s why I love him so much.
Having had this experience, it might be considered a small miracle that I had any interest in reading the series, but it was Christmas time, and that’s the time of year when I love digging into a series of books. With nothing else in the offing, it seemed a perfect time to get started on these books. The Flashman Papers are a series of 12 books, based on the memoires of on Harry Flashman, aged 92 at the time they were written, which George MacDonald Fraser ‘chose to discover’ – MacDonald Fraser took the packets of memoires, and put them into the current format for the reading pleasure of the general public, and historians alike, as they shed much needed information on various events in British and world history. The world first met Flashman in Tom Brown’s School Days, when he was portrayed (correctly, he’d tell you) as the school bully at Rugy. When he’s writing his memoires, Flashman is a former soldier in Her Majesty’s army, and served in a variety of postings around the world, some in an official capacity and some unofficially (he would have called it a ‘political’ position, but these adventures were usually commissioned as secret), and all for the glory of the British Empire.
With that kind of summary, it seems like Harry is a 19th century James Bond, out to do glory to Britain London
If I’m going to spend time reading 12 books, then you know the characters have to be engaging. Harry Flashman is a treat. He is portrayed with a wicked sense of humour, a great deal of self-confidence, and a level head on his shoulders. As you read through the series, there’s no denying that Harry is a coward, but every so often, you ask yourself, is that really the case? Yes, he does what he does to preserve his public image, but if he were a true coward, he could just run and hide and that would be the end of it. So, you start to polish your opinion of Harry. And sure, he cheats unrelentingly on his wife, but she might be doing the same to him, and besides, he hasn’t seen her in three years because he’s been travelling around the world for his queen and country – so you might wish he was sleeping with all these women with less abandon, but he is only human and your opinion of Harry gets a little bit better. And look, he clearly loves kids and treats them with a lot of care and respect, and if they cross his path, he’s always trying to keep them safe. And you opinion of Harry gets a little more glowing. And then Harry arranges for the death of a soldier to keep them from spreading the truth that he ran from a battle; or he sells one of his mistresses to an Indian chief to keep as a concubine; or he uses a child as a human shield during a skirmish. It’s hard to keep going back and forth on the character that is Harry Flashman, but this dynamic makes him engaging, and keeps the reader coming back for more.
What’s clear about these books is the amount of research that MacDonald Fraser put into them. While I now acknowledge that these books are fiction (so there, Dad), one could almost believe they are fact because of the level of casual detail (and casual racism, which is really hard to put up with) and authenticity that is threaded throughout. But that level of detail and authenticity would make these books almost inaccessible for those without a really good understanding of British imperial history and Victorian culture; there are just so many throw away comments and allusions to various pieces of daily life or world events of the time, that if you don’t know what MacDonald Fraser is talking about, then you can loose the train of events very quickly. I think MacDonald Fraser recognized this and so included a lot of foot notes and explanations of the larger ideas, but a lot is left unexplained as well. Even I missed about 10% of the allusions at first, and either had to Google them, or let them slide.
So, final verdict? I would say these books are a great read, but not for everyone. If you know your history of the period, I think you’d enjoy them, but otherwise I think you’d find them slow moving and confusing. These weren’t my favourite books, but I read them all because that’s what you do with book series. What really bumed me out though, was learning that George MacDonald Fraser died several years ago, so there won’t be anymore of Harry’s stories, and because the books are presented as a memoire, there were multiple allusions to Harry’s experiences in the American Civil War and in Mexico that the reader will never learn about. But, while we had MacDonald Fraser, he gave us an amazing body of work about a Victorian (non)hero that, for all the author’s hard work and skills, could very well have existed. But he didn’t, so don’t believe my dad if he tries to convince you otherwise.
With 12 books, it would take a lot of space in my review to list them, but here’s the list, presented chronologically, though you could read them in almost any order, as they weren’t published chronologically:
Flashman (1839-1842. the First Anglo-Afghan War.)Flashman's Lady (1843-1845. Madagascar Mountain of Light Battle Peking Expedition.)Flashman on the March (1868. British invasion of Abyssinia to rescue hostages.)Flashman and the Tiger (Three short stories - The Road to Charing Cross : 1877-1878. The Congress of Berlin
I also greatly enjoyed the Harry Flashman series, much of what I know of the early Victorian age was at lest prompted by the series. I have found the early nineteenth century even more colourful and when I thought about writing on this era the Flashman books came to mind. I have therefore started writing a series of books based on the life of Harry Flashman's Uncle Thomas. Based firmly on historical fact, Thomas shares his nephew's knack of getting reluctantly embroiled with some of the most interesting characters of his age. I particularly enjoy shining light on some of the less well known but extraordinary people of the age. The first book is based on the early career of Thomas Cochrane, the second is set in India during the Mahratta wars and the third brings to life some of the less well known events and personalities of the Peninsular War.
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