Posts Tagged ‘Flashman’

24 Apr

“Flashman’s Lady” by George Macdonald Fraser

Posted by argumentativeoldgit in literature. Tagged: , , , , .

To recap:

Flashman, the vicious school bully from Tom Brown’s Schooldays, and a nasty a piece of work lacking all moral compass, has found himself involved in some of the most striking and dramatic historic events of the 19th century, and, despite his appalling behaviour, has generally, through comic misunderstandings, been mistaken for a gallant hero. In his old age, he wrote disarmingly honest and gloriously colourful accounts of his various adventures; and George Macdonald Fraser has scrupulously edited these accounts, adding scholarly and well-researched footnotes and appendices, thus presenting them to the public as important historic documents; and, in the process of doing so, he has presented to the public also some of the very finest of adventure stories ever written, easily equalling and possibly at times even surpassing such masters of the genre as Dumas, Stevenson, Rider Haggard, Conan Doyle.

Flashman’s Lady is the sixth in a series of twelve. (I am reading through these marvellous novels in the order in which they were written: a quick survey of the first five may be found here.) In this novel, in the first hundred or so pages set still in Blighty, we are given some marvellous set pieces – most notably, cricket at Lords, and a wonderfully vivid and picturesque scene depicting a public hanging at Newgate. But then, we’re off: Macdonald Fraser whisks us off first into Malaysia and Borneo (where Flashman, most unwillingly, becomes involved in warfare against local pirates); and, in the latter part of the novel, into Madagascar, where, as a slave, he is appointed to train the army, and to be lover of the insatiable Queen Ranavalona, who, if Macdonald Fraser’s account is to be believed (and he certainly provides copious references, including several eye-witness accounts), was amongst the most vile and wicked mass-murderers in history.

In dealing with such historic events, there is always the danger that the historic background will overwhelm the story. This possibly happened in the fifth of the series – Flashman and the Great Game – which depicted various events of the Indian Mutiny. The historic events and the personalities involved were depicted with such tremendous vitality and vividness, that it was easy to overlook the fact that Flashman himself, for much of the novel, was little more than an onlooker. But Macdonald Fraser is determined not to let that happen here. To this end, he introduces as a major player Flashman’s wife, Elspeth. In previous novels, she had remained safely ensconced in Britain while Flashman whored and cheated his way through various scrapes, but here, she is in the midst of things, accompanying Flashman first to Malaysia, and later into Madagascar. We are even presented with extracts from her diary. Of course, she is as ignorant and as splendidly airheaded as ever, but, for all that, Flashman has developed an attachment of sorts to her. This doesn’t prevent him cheating on her whenever he can without the slightest pang of conscience; but it does mean that he can’t quite leave her to her fate. It means that he can at times risk even his own safety for her sake. Some readers may complain that this is a dilution, or even a betrayal, of the utterly amoral Flashman we had known from earlier novels: perhaps it is. But there isn’t really enough to his character as presented in the earlier narratives to sustain our interest across an entire series of full-length novels. Flashman from those earlier novels wasn’t capable of development, and to sustain our interest across so many novels, he does, I think, need to develop. I personally did not find this particular development unbelievable.

The presence of Elspeth in the main action also introduces the motif of the “damsel in distress”, thus giving this novel more a feel of the traditional Boys’ Own adventure story than in the previous five. This sense of the Boys’ Own adventure story is heightened by the extraordinary presence of James Brooke, one of the most colourful and remarkable of all historic figures, and who could so very easily have stepped out from one of those traditional Boys’ Own adventure stories. But he was real enough: an appendix tells of his astonishing campaigns to rid the islands of the Malay Archipelago of piracy. The depiction of his character would have appeared utterly fantastic had not Macdonald Fraser, with his usual care for historic authenticity, supplied so many scholarly references in the footnotes: James Brooke really was, it seems, as extraordinarily daring and quixotic a character as is presented here. Macdonald Fraser has a wonderful ability to depict charismatic figures from history, and reading this, one can but shake one’s head in disbelief that such a person could ever have existed.

As ever, Macdonald Fraser admires heroism. Brooke’s associates – some historical, others products of the author’s imagination – are brought superbly to life, none more so than the marvellous figure of Paitangi, half Scots and half Arab, an unlikely Muslim-Calvinist, who ends up sacrificing himself for the good of the expedition. He does so without any self-conscious heroics: it is simply a job he has been engaged to do, and he does it. The narrator Flashman may not value this, but it is precisely this sort of heroism that Macdonald Fraser celebrates throughout this series of novels.

Of course, despite all the elements of the Boys’ Own adventure stories, these are serious novels for grown-up readers. The covers may give the impression of light entertainment, but the covers are misleading. Amongst other things, these are blood-drenched novels. Given the events they relate, they could hardly be otherwise. In children’s adventure stories, characters can be wounded, or can die, without the author having to give any detailed account of their suffering: that is not possible here. Not that Macdonald Fraser wallows in detailed description: far from it. When a pirates’ ship is taken, for instance, he mentions some of the corpses recovered of women who had been tortured to death; but mercifully, he leaves out the details of the torture: it is not the purpose of these novels to nauseate the reader. But the horrors cannot be overlooked either. These are not, after all, children’s books. And horrors don’t really come much more horrific than the reign of Queen Ranavalona in Madagascar.

As with the depiction of James Brooke, but for different reasons, the depiction of Ranavalona can stretch credulity. But once again, copious references, often to eye-witness accounts, are cited. It appears that Ranavalona was a sadistic psychopath, delighting in inflicting upon her subjects the most hideous tortures and executions on a massive scale. Perhaps, with our knowledge of Nazi Germany and of Soviet Russia, or of Khmer Rouge or of Assad or of any of the other brutal despotic regimes with which this world continues to be plagued, we should not be surprised: but it is hard not to recoil in horror in reading these chapters. Once again, it is not Macdonald Fraser’s purpose to nauseate us: he is writing, first and foremost, an adventure story. And he uses all his considerable skills as a narrator to ensure that this novel remains, first and foremost, an adventure story, without descending into torture-porn. Nonetheless, I doubt I have read anything more horrific in fiction.

Ranavalona may be seen as mad, but Flashman has his own views on this:

Her wants are simple: just give her an ample supply of victims to mutilate and gloat over and she was happy – not that you’d have guessed it to look at her, and indeed I’ve heard some say that she was just plain mad and didn’t know what she was doing. That’s an old excuse which ordinary folk take refuge in because they don’t care to believe there are people who enjoy inflicting pain. “He’s mad,” they’ll say – but they only say because they see a little of themselves in the tyrant, too, and want to shudder away from it quickly, like well-bred little Christians. Mad? Aye, Ranavalona was mad as a hatter in many ways – but not where cruelty was concerned. She knew quite what she was doing, and studied to so it better, and was deeply gratified by it, and that’s the professional opinion of kindly old Dr Flashy, who’s a time-served bully himself.

***

I grew up with Boys’ Own adventure stories, and I suppose I am predisposed towards the genre. But I have never believed in applying different standards to genre literature and to non-genre literature: by any standard, this novel is a triumph, and, like its predecessors in the series, it really makes me wonder whether there has been a more skilled novelist in the last fifty or so years than George Macdonald Fraser. What the likes of Dumas or Stevenson had been to their generations, Macdonald Fraser is, I think, to mine. And the best of it is that I am only half way through this series: there are six more novels to go, and, if reports are to be believed, the standard does not flag.

9 Jul

The Flashman novels

Posted by argumentativeoldgit in literature. Tagged: , , , .

We may think that Flashman, the vicious and cowardly bully in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, was a fictional character. Not so. While Thomas Hughes, the author, presents the novel as a fiction, Flashman was real enough. After expulsion from Rugby School, he led a colourful life. Despite being a coward and a bully and an all-round bad egg, he was accidentally mistaken for a hero, and became famous throughout the British Empire. And, despite all his efforts to keep out of trouble, he found himself witnessing some of the most momentous events in history, and even taking his part in them.

Some time in the late 1960s, author George Macdonald Fraser came across the Flashman papers – detailed accounts of his eventful life written by Flashman in his old age, in inimitable style. Macdonald Fraser then devoted several years of his life editing these papers, adding scholarly introductions and notes. In these notes, he often corroborates Flashman’s accounts, and adds related points of historical interest; at other times, he points out some inevitable errors in Flashman’s accounts – errors both of historical fact, which may be put down to Flashman’s weakening memory in his old age; and also possible errors of perception: a man whose moral compass is as flawed as is Flashman’s is hardly likely, after all, to see things with the impartial eye of the scholar.

Such, at least, is the conceit that informs the twelve Flashman novels. So far, I have read five of the twelve, and it seems quite obvious to me that as far as adventure stories are concerned, George Macdonald Fraser, whom we may, I think, consider the author rather than merely a scrupulous editor, was up there with the very best: not R. L. Stevenson, nor Arthur Conan Doyle, nor even Alexandre Dumas, surpassed this for sheer panache and excitement. The technical skills are unerring: Flashman’s tone of voice is unmistakable, and never shades into that of the novelist’s; the historical details are scrupulously accurate, without ever becoming pedantic or getting in the way of the narrative; the pacing is immaculate; the sense of place superbly conveyed at all times; and the characters – whether real life people such as the Rani of Jhansi or Abraham Lincoln, or such wonderful fictional creations as the scholarly but psychopathic slave-trader John Charity Spring – are brought to life with tremendous colour and vividness. With most modern novels, I read and wonder what all the fuss is about: these, I read and think to myself that never in a million years would I have had the skill to have written anything like this.

In the five novels I have read so far, we have seen Flashman in the Afghan campaign (Flashman); involved with Bismark and Lola Montez in European intrigue (Royal Flash – a wonderful , affectionate pastiche of Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda, which, to my mind, surpasses its model); Flash for Freedom, which sees Flashman on an illegal slave ship, and, later, in the slave states of America; at the Charge of the Light Brigade in Balaclava (one of the very finest depictions I have ever come across of a scene of battle), and with the guerrilla freedom fighters of Central Asia (Flashman at the Charge); and, most recently, at the Indian Mutiny (Flashman in the Great Game). Future volumes, which I look forward to reading, will see Flashman at the Zulu War, at the Battle of Little Big Horn, in the company of John Brown, etc.

However, it is not possible to speak of these novels purely as adventure novels. And, while much of it is very funny indeed, neither is it possible to speak of them as comedies. These are blood-drenched novels: Flashman is witness to some of the most horrendous events of history, and, while Macdonald Fraser never evokes disgust merely for its own sake, it is hard to read of the slave ship, say, or of the appalling massacres during the Indian Mutiny, without feeling disgusted. Indeed, Flash for Freedom is among the post powerful indictments I have come across of slavery – and all the more so as it is narrated by someone who not only feels no compassion for the slaves, but who even finds enjoyment in bullying them.

Inevitably, perhaps, there is the question of “political correctness”. Flashman, at least in the earlier novels, is a nasty piece of work without any redeeming moral feature: to what extent can we read a narrative from such a viewpoint without becoming implicated in his amorality? In the first novel, Flashman actually rapes someone. True, the person whom he rapes is herself an assassin who had previously tried to murder him; but this hardly mitigates the horrendous nature of the act. I, personally, do not have a problem with this, as Flashman’s voice is clearly not that of the narrator’s: only a reader as lacking in moral compass as Flashman himself could fail to be disgusted by Flashman’s action. To confuse the voice of the first person narrator with that of the author is at best naïve. Yes, it leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth, but the nasty taste is intentional on the author’s part.

The other point that is often raised is that Macdonald Fraser’s view of history is reactionary. That may be so: I don’t see why that should disqualify his novels. But, reactionary or not, his view of history does seem to me scrupulously fair. He can show in all its brutal detail the horrors of slavery in the southern states, but he is perfectly clear that the West African societies from which slaves were captured also practised slavery, were extraordinarily cruel, and took a very active role in the transatlantic slave trade. The British Empire, too, seems to me to be depicted fairly, and if Macdonald Fraser has any ideological axe to grind, he certainly does not make it obvious. He loves history, and quite clearly takes immense pride in depicting the past accurately, witout fear or favour.

In depicting the Indian Mutiny, Macdonald Fraser does, as he himself admits in a note in the appendix, step into potentially sensitive territory, as, some 150 years and more after the event, feelings on both sides remain high. There was appalling bloodshed on all sides, borne of intolerance and wanton cruelty, and, once again, Macdonald Fraser strikes me as scrupulously fair. Flashman reports on the horrendous atrocities at Meerut and at Cawnpore (now Kanpur), and, while he doesn’t think of these events in wider moral terms, he does make it clear that equally savage “reprisals” were visited on innocent Indians. Ultimately, what Macdonald Fraser admires most, no matter whom it comes from, is heroism: the spirit of heroic defiance that was apparent amongst the besieged British at Cawnpore, he tells us, was the same spirit that was shown by the besieged mutineers at Gwalior; and, whatever the extent of the Rani of Jhansi’s involvement in the Mutiny (both in history, and also in Flashman’s narrative, the exact nature of her involvement remains unclear), her heroism is never in question; and Macdonald Fraser honours it.

And this, I think, is why he had to make someone like Flashman the narrator. A Victorian writer could celebrate heroism openly; nowadays, we can’t: we are more suspicious of it. So heroism is depicted here at a remove, as it were, from the perspective of one who is far from heroic himself; from the perspective of one who can, perhaps, admire heroism from a distance, but who nonetheless feels it to be essentially foolish.

Not that Flashman is necessarily a coward, as such: he will not willingly risk his life, true, but most of us perhaps will fall in that category; he perhaps goes further than the rest of us in that he is quite happy, without any moral scruple at all, to betray even those close to him for the sake of his own skin. But Flashman is far from the Bob Hope figure in The Paleface, say: when he is in danger, he keeps his head, and often escapes with no little courage and ingenuity. But yes – he would much prefer to be boozing and whoring rather than to be playing the hero.

I have been told that Macdonald Fraser softened somewhat towards Flashman in the later novels. Perhaps that is inevitable: the Flashman character, utterly amoral and unscrupulous, was a marvellous protagonist in the earlier novels, but to repeat the same thing over twelve novels can, I suppose, become tiresome. It is not, though, that Macdonald Fraser begins to admire qualities he had previously deplored: rather, Flashman is not quite, perhaps, the complete cad that he had previously been. In the marvellous ending to Flashman in the Great Game, he shows an unexpected streak of humanity. This can partly be explained by the circumstances: he has just been saved at the last minute from a terrible death, and he naturally has some compassion for the others who are still facing that fate; but it shows also a certain deepening of characterisation. I look forward to seeing how the character develops in the later novels: Macdonald Fraser was, I’m sure, too fine a writer merely to go on repeating himself.

***

For anyone who has a taste for adventure stories written with dash and panache and humour; for anyone who has grown up, as I have done, with the likes of Dumas and Stevenson and Rider Haggard; the Flashman novels of George Macdonald Fraser can be recommended without hesitation. In this genre, he is up there with the very best, and sometimes, I think, even surpasses them. And those who object to his alleged “political incorrectness” could perhaps do worse than read this. As he himself says of his own ancestors:

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.

And I, for one, wouldn’t argue with that!