Bernard Cornwell, durch seine SHARPE-Serie den Lesern historischer Abenteuerromane lange ein Begriff, war mit MacDonald Fraser befreundet. Im Nachruf der TIMES fand ich folgende interessante Bemerkungen:

“There was an awful lot of Flashy in George,” says Fraser’s friend and fellow author Bernard Cornwell, creator of the Sharpe series. “You wouldn’t think it because he was such a kind, decent man, happily married, not given to caddishness, cowardice or philandering. But it was there, all right, bubbling beneath the surface.”

Shortly before he died, Fraser sent Cornwell his two favourite quotes from Flashman. The first was: “You think twice about committing murder when you’re over 70”; the second: “We all live under false pretences. You just have to put on a bold front and brazen it through.”

Cornwell believes the choice was significant. Flashman was inspired by Fraser’s fury with the cant and dishonesty of the world and the compromises one has to make to live successfully in it. Flashy – the cheat, liar and scoundrel who prospers – was born of bitterness and cynicism…

What Fraser also learnt from the military was the joy of male camaraderie in times of extreme hardship, the language and ribald wit of soldiers, the taste of true fear and the random-ness of fate. Fraser killed at least one Japanese and fought in a battle where the two comrades either side of him were killed as they advanced. The knowledge of what war is like, Cornwell believes, is what gives the Flashman series its true power.
“I’m just a storyteller, an entertainer, but George is something much more than that,” Cornwell says. “There is in Flashman a wisdom, a deeper truth, that you probably won’t find in Sharpe. I tend to make my characters heroic, whereas George, because he has ‘seen the elephant’, knows better than that. Those who’ve never been to war think it’s a boy’s game and a big adventure. George knows that what it’s really about is terror and fear and horrible accidents.”