It is rather like a tenuously redacted set of novella plus two short stories to make a work that Flashman would have composed and compiled hurriedly before he passed on to his expected judgment and hoped for, yet undeserved, reprieve. It is loosely strung together with one large pearl adorned by two smaller ones. Fraser, at least in the nominal words of Flashman, cannot abide the heroic reputations of those who won their reputation through utter folly-often at the expense of those they commanded.įlashman and the Tiger is a rather different novel. In general, Fraser gets to put a dig in at historical figures such as Otto von Bismarck and Lord Asquith.
Flashman is amoral, lascivious, and as self-interested as an Ayn Rand protagonist, but somehow circumstances and those flashes of his humanity come together to make things interesting. His “risk management” strategies are as ill-fated as the battle plans which von Clauswitz proclaims will never survive contact with the enemy.Īnd therein lies the humor. The blunders are usually well-conceived plans that twist against him through fate, misunderstanding, and the egregiously poor decisions of others. Flashman is no 19th (and early 20th) century Maxwell Smart.
He is such a bald-faced liar and patented coward that he becomes ironically charming. The fact that he blunders into success and heroic stature in spite of being one-hundred-and-eighty degrees opposite to said stature is part of the comedic nature of the novels. To those who do not know Flashman, you should be aware that there is absolutely no redeeming value to this cowardly scoundrel except for the fact that he makes no bones about the fact (at least in these purported memoirs) that he is an irredeemable cowardly scoundrel. sense) bully in Tom Brown’s School Days by Thomas Hughes) as he draws misadventure like an electro-magnet and experiences more undeserved luck than an overpowered role-playing game character. The truth is that I revel in the alleged memoirs of Sir Harry Flashman (first introduced to us as a public school (in the English, not U.S.
Fraser was an advocate who contended that even Hollywood history with its inevitable bowdlerizing (or scandalizing, depending on the director/studio), synthesizing, and mythologizing for purposes of box office formula was better than no history at all (see The Hollywood History of the World: From One Million Years B.C. Fans of the intrepid poltroon, Sir Harry Flashman, will need no introduction to the scandal and intrigue laced comedies of the late George MacDonald Fraser.
0 kommentar(er)
