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    Flashman
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    Flashman
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    Flashman
    Audiobook (abridged)5 hours

    Flashman

    Written by George MacDonald Fraser

    Narrated by Rupert Penry-Jones

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Harry Flashman: the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown’s schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross, has three main talents – horsemanship, facility with foreign languages and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century, despite trying his utmost to escape them all.

    Expelled from Rugby for drunkenness, and none too welcome at home after seducing his father’s mistress, the young Flashman embarks on a military career with Lord Cardigan’s Hussars.

    En route to Afghanistan, our hero hones his skills as a soldier, duellist, imposter, coward and amorist (mastering all 97 ways of Hindu love-making during a brief sojourn in Calcutta), before being pressed into reluctant service as a secret agent. His Afghan adventures culminate in a starring role in that great historic disaster, the Retreat from Kabul.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateSep 19, 2012
    ISBN9780007505623
    Unavailable
    Flashman
    Author

    George MacDonald Fraser

    The author of the famous ‘Flashman Papers’ and the ‘Private McAuslan’ stories, George MacDonald Fraser has worked on newspapers in Britain and Canada. In addition to his novels he has also written numeous films, most notably ‘The Three Musketeers’, ‘The Four Musketeers’, and the James Bond film, ‘Octopussy’. George Macdonald Fraser died in January 2008 at the age of 82.

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    Reviews for Flashman

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    • 5/5
      From Zero to Hero.. Another great Tale.. & 40 Guinea's should do it..?
    • 5/5
      This was great fun! Some might object to the dated colonial views expressed by Flashman. But to me it seems like a spoof of jingoism and the bogus heroism that goes along with.
    • 3/5
      For starters, Harry Flashman is expelled from school as a drunken bully. After seducing his father's mistress, he begins a secret life that leads from the boudoirs and bordellos of Victorian England to the erotic frontiers of her exotic Empire. Along the way he lies, cheats, steals, fights fixed duels, betrays his country and proves a coward on the battlefield.

      Let's face it: Flashman is not really a nice guy. He's a bully, a coward, a rapist, a racist and a drunk. His survival instinct means that he manages to get out of scrapes that can (and does) kill everyone around him. People around him mistake his cowardice, and resulting survival against all odds, as some form of heroism.

      Kicked out of Rugby, and having been blackmailed from one regiment to the next after marrying one of his conquests, he ends up in Afghanistan in the late 19th century - at a time when the British are to make one of their more ignoble retreats back to India. Whole regiments are slaugtered around Flashman, due in no small part to the incompitence of the officers around him. [written in 1969, decades before 9/11, this is a fictional illustration of why the West will never win in Afghanistan and would be lucky to come out with a draw].

      Did get a bit bored with the tediously long chapters and the constant battles, so not sure I'd like to read a sequel.
    • 3/5
      Well it does what it sets out to do in a sprightly manner, but not sprightly enough to make up for the determined ghastliness of its eponymous narrator. Spending time with the Flash is not time well spent.
    • 3/5
      > Possibly there has been a greater shambles in the history of warfare than our withdrawal from Kabul; probably there has not. Even now, after a lifetime of consideration, I am at a loss for words to describe the superhuman stupidity, the truly monumental incompetence, and the bland blindness to reason of Elphy Bey and his advisers. If you had taken the greatest military geniuses of the ages, placed them in command of our army, and asked them to ruin it utterly as speedily as possible, they could not - I mean it seriously - have done it as surely and swiftly as he did. And he believed he was doing his duty.> "Oh, Christ," says I, "out of the frying pan into the fire!" He stared at me, but I was past caring. There seemed no end to it; there was some evil genie pursuing me through Afghanistan, and he meant to get me in the end. To have come so far, yet again, and to be dragged down within sight of safety!> Heroism? Well, if they cared to think so, let 'em; I wouldn't contradict them - and it struck me that if I did, if I were idiot enough to let them know the truth, as I am writing it now, they would simply have thought me crazy as a result of my wounds. God alone knew what I was supposed to have done that was so brave, but doubtless I should learn in time. All I could see was that somehow appearances were heavily on my side - and who needs more than that? Give me the shadow every time, and you can keep the substance - it's a principle I've followed all my life, and it works if you know how to act on it.> Then she demanded that I go through it all again, and I did, but not before I had stripped off her gown and pulled her on top of me on the bed, so that between gasps and sighs the breathtaking tale was re-told. I lost track of it several times, I admit.
    • 5/5
      It's hard to explain why I enjoyed this book so much. The thing it has going against it is fairly obvious: the protagonist and narrator, Harry Paget Flashman, is a bully, liar, coward, cad, toady, racist, mysoginist, and, oh yeah, a rapist (just the once, if that mitigates it somewhat). But the reasons to love the book (and even admire the "hero") outweigh my natural tendency to be repulsed by such a, well, repulsive main character. The writing is topnotch. It's as fine an adventure story as you will find. It is equally engaging as a dramatic retelling of the history of the first Anglo-Afghan war, a subject I knew next to nothing about. To read about the blunders of the British in 1840s Afghanistan was both revelatory and disturbingly familiar.

      Does Flashman ever get his comeuppance? Well, yes and no. Looking back on his life and many adventures from the safety of his manor in England and now in his 80s (around 1905), His Lordship obviously escaped with his life and was honored at home for his (mis)deeds abroad. On the other hand, in just this, the first installment of his memoirs, he is tortured twice and comes so close to death on two other occasions that he loses all hope. Through the valor and selflessness of others (whose bravery and derring-do are always afterward credited to him), he manages to survive. Does he feel guilty about any of it? Not in the slightest. Just the opposite, in fact.

      Part of what endears him to me (if "endears" is even the right word) is his brutal honesty. Because he's so unflinchingly candid about his own deficiencies (not that he always sees them as such), you feel secure in knowing that he's telling the truth about everything else. And what made me appreciate the humor of this story was the recognition of the absurdity of expecting good deeds to always be rewarded and the guilty to always be punished. In the novel's final third, we're introduced to a valiant enlisted man, Hudson, who repeatedly saves Flashman and leads him to safety. Hudson soon recognizes the gentleman and officer Flashman for what he is, but I think Fraser speaks volumes about the folly of these wars of adventure. Fate and chance don't discriminate between heroes and cads. Flashman survives through it all, so he's the one who gets to tell the story. At least he tells it straight, breaking, as he says in the opening lines of the novel, the habit of a lifetime.
    • 5/5
      Extremely un-P.C. Not really laugh-out-loud funny, but amusing nonetheless. Flashman is not your unreliable narrator -- he's unashamedly honest about his caddishness. Historically accurate, which means the utter ineptitude of the British Army is amply on display.
    • 2/5
      Alright I gave it a try, based on a recommended reading list by an author I like. But Flashman just isn't my kind of reading. Oh well.
    • 4/5
      It was sheer coincidence that I read this only a few months after The Far Pavilions... For those unfamiliar with either of these books, they both deal with 19th century British army in India & Afghanistan. Flashman is involved in the first Anglo-Afghan war while Ashton Pelham-Martyn was present for the second Anglo-Afghan war; neither of them were typical British Army but otherwise they are quite different characters!!

      Flashman could be called an anti-hero I suppose; he certainly describes himself that way, as a coward & scoundrel. His actions, particularly in regard to women, are awful but the reader can't help liking him. Perhaps it is because he is so open about all his weaknesses that one prefers him to the braver but stupider (or hypocritical) soldiers around him. In any case, as in Far Pavilions, the reader is left shaking his/her head at the incredible incompetence and arrogance of the leaders in the British army.
    • 5/5
      Der 17-jährige Harry Flashman wird in der Zeit des Viktorianischen Empire aus der Rugby School geworfen. Er startet eine erstaunliche Karriere beim Militär, die unverdient steil nach oben geht, denn er weiß: Bestimmte menschliche Fehler wie Dummheit, Arroganz und Engstirnigkeit sind militärische Vorzüge. Harry Flashman darf Elspeth, „das größte Flittchen, das je eine Matratze abgenutzt hat“ heiraten (außerdem ist ihr Vater reich), doch wird er zu seinem Entsetzen nach Afghanistan versetzt. Beim Rückzug der Briten und verbündeten Inder aus Kabul überleben nur zwei – Harry ist einer davon. Harry macht sich natürlich aus dem Staub und schlägt sich selbst durch. Das endet in höchsten militärischen Auszeichnungen als "Held von Dschalalabad" und bei den Afghanen wird er als „Bloody Lance“ geachtet (aufgrund eines weiteren Missverständnisses).Meine Güte, was für ein Buch!Harry Flashman ist ein schamloser Aufschneider und hemmungsloser Weiberheld, der stets nur eines im Sinn hat: sein eigenes Wohlergehen. Doch er ist auch ein einzigartiger Erzähler: Scharfsinnig, frech und schonungslos beschreibt er die Scheinheiligkeit und Schäbigkeit seiner Landsleute und zieht über die blutige Amoral, der von ihm erlebten, Geschichte her:„Ich habe in allzu vielen Ländern gedient und allzu viele Menschen kennengelernt, als dass ich so töricht wäre, mich zum Richter über sie aufwerfen zu wollen. Ich berichte nur, was ich gesehen habe – die Schlussfolgerungen überlasse ich ihnen.“ – so Flashman.Über Schottland schreibt er:„Schottland und die Schotten missfielen mir; das Klima war mir zu feucht, das Volk zu ungehobelt. Sie besitzen die guten Eigenschaften, die mich anöden – Sparsamkeit, Fleiß und ernste Frömmigkeit. Die jungen Frauen sind meist grobknochig, etepetete und unbändig, im Bett zweifellos recht brauchbar, je nach Geschmack. Die Männer fand ich muffig feindselig und habgierig, und sie fanden mich frech, arrogant und geschniegelt. Die Sympathien waren also auf beiden Seiten nicht groß.“Und später über Indien: „Es mag Länder geben, in denen der Soldat sich wohler fühlt als in Indien, aber ich habe sie nicht kennengelernt. Mögen Grünschnäbel noch so sehr über die Hitze, die Fliegen, den Schmutz, die Eingeborenen und die Seuchen klagen: An die drei ersteren muss man sich gewöhnen, vor Krankheiten muss man sich hüten (dazu reicht ein wenig gesunder Menschenverstand), und was die Eingeborenen betrifft, na, wo sonst auf der Welt findet man ein so fügsames, unterwürfiges Sklavenvolk?Falls das jemand als Schattenseiten sehen sollte: Es gab genug Lichtblicke. Erstens einmal die Macht – die Macht des weißen Mannes über den Farbigen -, und Macht ist eine schöne Sache, wenn man sie besitzt. Sodann das gemächliche Tempo, reichlich Zeit für jede Art von Sport, für frohe Geselligkeit, ohne die lästigen Fesseln, die man in England nicht los wird. Man kann sich sein Leben einrichten, wie es einem beliebt, und ist bei den Niggern ein großer Herr, und wenn man so wie ich ein gutes Einkommen hat und über die richtigen Beziehungen verfügt, verkehrt man in den besten Kreisen, die sich um den Generalgouverneur scharen. Weiber gibt es in Hülle und Fülle.“Die militärischen Befehlshaber werden als jämmerliche Dilettanten entlarvt, der Afghanistan-Feldzug als erbärmliche Stümperei:„Möglicherweise kennt die Kriegsgeschichte ein noch heilloseres Durcheinander als unseren Rückzug aus Kabul: wahrscheinlich ist es nicht. Noch heute, nachdem ich es mir ein Leben lang überlegt habe, fehlen mir die Worte, um die übermenschliche Stupidität, die wahrhaft monumentale Unfähigkeit und die allen Vernunftgründen unzugängliche Blindheit Elphy Beys und seiner Berater zu schildern. Wenn man die größten Militärgenies aller Zeiten zusammengeholt, ihnen den Befehl über unsere Armee übertragen und sie aufgefordert hätte, diese Armee so schnell wie möglich restlos zugrunde zu richten, würden sie es nicht – das meine ich ganz ernst – so zielsicher und rasch bewerkstelligt haben wie er. Und dabei bildete er sich ein, seine Pflicht zu tun. Der letzte Straßenkehrer in unserem Tross wäre ein geeigneterer Befehlshaber gewesen.“"In England kann man nicht gleichzeitig ein Held und ein schlechter Mensch sein. Es ist so gut wie gesetzlich verboten." – so Flashmans Konklusion, nachdem er von Queen Victoria ausgezeichnet und von Wellington gelobt wurde. Dass am Ende gerade ein selbstsüchtiger, feiger Gauner wie er zum großen Kriegshelden avanciert, das ist wohl die bitterböse Pointe dieses furiosen Romans.Auch wenn man mit Superlativen vorsichtig sein sollte, hier kann man nicht anders, als die Höchstwertung zu vergeben. Flashman ist alles in einem: Ein gewaltiges Historienabenteuer voller aufregender Schlachten, spannender Duelle, finsterer Hinterhalte, undurchsichtiger Intrigen und allerlei (exotischer) Liebschaften; eine herrlich boshafte Satire auf das britische Kolonialzeitalter und die äußerlich prüde, aber innerlich verdorbene viktorianische Epoche und nicht zuletzt eine äußerst lehrreiche und höchst unterhaltsame Geschichtsstunde. (Die Parallelen zur Gegenwart sind geradezu erschreckend, die Lage in Afghanistan scheint sich seit 200 Jahren kaum verändert zu haben.)Aber es ist auch der erste Teil einer zwölfbändigen Reihe, was bedeutet, das ich mich noch auf jede Menge vergnüglicher Lesestunden in der Zukunft freuen kann.
    • 4/5
      We meet Flashman as a seventeen year-old who is being expelled from his prestigious school for drunkenness. He goes home to his widowed father, who has a new woman living with him that young Flashman beds at the first opportunity. Suspecting this, father buys his son an officer's position in a regiment and Flashman's military career begins.He's the first to point out that he's a coward and all around horrible excuse for a man. Sent to Afghanistan to keep peace, Flashman is put into harrowing situations in which better men around him fall while he does anything to keep himself alive, which inadvertently earns him a reputation for courage and skill, as he's often the only survivor.
    • 1/5
      You cannot fault the writing. It is sublime and quick, funny and easy to read but not see easy it is only a quick-read (if you get me). But hell the character of Flashman is an utter arse. I don't care how well written it is, or how unlike the author is to the character (one would hope) but I am struggling to not use the C-word right now. I hope there is some resolve to him and that he does indeed repent for everything he had ever done, but nothing would make me read any more of it. Historical fiction is lovely, but the fiction part doesn't always have to follow the candour of the history part.
    • 2/5
      I'm not sure what to make of this. As a story it has all the elements of a swashbuckler, with Flashman getting into all sorts of scrapes and coming through to find himself finding himself proclaimed a hero. The thing is, he really isn't, he's a coward, a liar and a thoroughly bad hat. Initially the books sets this up as being a packet of remembrances written by an elderly ex military man. It also sets up a link between the author of the memoirs and Tom Brown's Schooldays, with this Flashman being the self same who features in that work. He finds himself expelled from Rugby, and turns to the Army. Not to serve his country, but to look good in the uniform and while riding a horse. Due to an unfortunate incident, he finds himself sent to Afghanistan just as trouble breaks out between the British (and their puppet king) and the local tribes. I could probably cope with him being a liar and cheat and a disgraceful individual, as the story is told with a certain amount of flair and a sort of brutal honesty. The thing I can't cope with is that he (or his author, I can't decide which) is a dreadful misogynist. The women who feature are all 2D cutouts, placed purely for Flashman to bed (or worse) or to belittle, or both. And the language is derogatory throughout. He refers to riding his women, he thinks nothing of raping one of them and dismissing it as a non-event, he describes being kept in a cell without even "an Afghan bint" to keep him company. I try very much not to judge a book from an earlier time by the standards of today, but i find it impossible to accept the treatment of the female characters in this book. It could be a rip-roaring tale told by an anti-hero, and that would see it sitting at 3 to 4 stars. But I find myself unable to not take offence at the depiction of women, and so this one gets an OK (at best) 2 stars and a decision to not bother tackling the rest of the series.
    • 4/5
      Accidental hero, self-admitted cad, coward, sexist, racist, and all-round asshat, Flashman stumbles into situations which kill better men and leave him looking like a shining example of the British Empire at her best.A satire of Victorian ideals and prejudices, it is painfully funny and takes no prisoners.
    • 5/5
      Audiobook read by Timothy West. Read the real thing about 20 years ago. Just an amazingly detailed story told by a an incredibly compelling narrator. Absolutely hilarious. Full of contempt for everything.
    • 2/5
      very clever idea -memoirs of the complete Victorian cad. Unfortunately in the first volume he is so thoroughly caddish --especially betraying his faithful native servant -- that is is hard to enjoy the story. In later volumes he is more picaresque --lecherous and opportunistic but not so vile --and they are much more enjoyable.
    • 5/5
      This is a man who could single-handedly give Empire a bad name. Wildly politically incorrect, this is the first in the series of the adventures of Flashman, the naughty nemesis of Tom Brown's School Days. A cad's cad, he is the epitome of the worst qualities of wealth, class and military elitism. The historical accuracy of Flashman's observations in 1840s Afghanistan reveal that not much has changed even today. Perhaps if western leaders had read Flashman they might have had second thoughts about treading the same ground. Wickedly funny despite the deadly seriousness of the consequences, Flashy's advice would have been to run away as fast as you can.
    • 4/5
      This is a sharp, brilliant, and painful satire of colonialist Britain. The depictions of casual brutality of the British towards the Indians and Afghans make it hard to read at times, but the story told from the point of view of an unapologetic British thug from the upper-class sends up all the supposed virtues of the British Empire - ennoblement of the "savages," military honor, and bravery.
    • 3/5
      The main character, Harry Flashman is a foolish, self-preserving, bigoted, womanizing coward. I didn't like him at all, yet couldn't help but laugh at the scrapes he would get into, and through no real effort of his own, get out of. I enjoyed the adventure, humor, and history. In its way, it was a fun read. I'm not sure if I'll read more in this series.
    • 5/5
      I'm outing myself here, but the Flashman books are one of my favorite fictional series! They combine accurate historical detail (I *do* love my historical education delivered via light entertainment whenever possible) with fabulously bawdy, outrageously offensive plots that make me laugh out loud even as I pray that no one is watching me so I don't have to explain why I am laughing (because it's almost always something emphatically NOT politically correct). Flashman is the anti-Beau Geste/"noble Englishman" archetype - a coward, a bully, a fraud, a bigot, and a shameless opportunist - and yet, no matter how many ignoble situations he becomes entangled in, he always manages to emerge smelling of roses. Jolly good fun - and don't make the mistake of skipping the footnotes, either!
    • 5/5
      The start of the Victorian cad's adventures. Fraser manages to create a hilarious, loathsome, corrupt character who you come to love.
    • 5/5
      Harry Flashman, bon vivant wastrel and ne’er do well, is the protagonist in this satire of mid-19th century English society and colonialism. Published over 40 years ago, the story is as raucous and entertaining as the day it went to print.In this, the original Flashman novel, we are introduced to the primary school bully who is bounced from Rugby School at age 17 for drunkenness (among numerous other faults) and subsequently enlists in the 11th Light Dragoons. From this point, hilarity ensues as we follow the exploits of what can only be described as one of the most character deficient cads ever in print.From a comfortable home office posting with the Dragoons, Flashman is relegated to the colony of India after a brief, disastrous stint in Scotland. Destined for a miserable position with the company troops of the East India Company, Flashman uses his charm and wiles to attach himself to a high ranking British officer, only to discover he is bound for Kabul, Afghanistan. What follows is one of the most humiliating chapters in British military history, and Flashman is in the center of the debacle. Never before have I encountered such a likeable cad. At every juncture, Flashman seeks fame, pleasure and riches at the least risk to him, and is not above larceny to acquire them. Most refreshing is his candor and self recognition, expressing scorn and disbelief at those willing to risk life and fortune for noble or selfless causes. A rollicking good read.
    • 4/5
      Frogged jackets, side-whiskers, droopy moustaches, trips to Afghanistan, 1969 - yes we're slap-bang in the Sergeant Pepper era here. Of course, neither Flashman nor his creator would approve of the comparison, but there is something very sixties about this sophisticated piece of historical fiction that also manages to be a bawdy, irreverent send-up of the pieties of Victorian imperialism. This couldn't have been written ten years earlier, when Britain was still getting over the humiliation of Suez, and it wouldn't have had anything like the same impact had it been written ten years later. As it was, it changed the rules for a rather staid genre practically overnight. From Edward Waverley to Horatio Hornblower, heroes of military historical fiction were almost invariably driven by duty, loyalty and morality. Flashman's only motivations are pleasure and self-preservation. He's a throwback to the anti-heroes of eighteenth-century novels, cunningly planted in an era when evangelical piety was becoming the new political correctness. Although Flashman clearly owes something to Lucky Jim and the rest of the angry young men, his closest predecessor in historical fiction is probably in Thackeray's spoof 18th century novel The luck of Barry Lyndon (which Kubrick borrowed as basis for a Flashmanesque film in 1975). Fraser adds authentic 1960s bawdiness (1969 was the year of Ken Russell's Women in Love, after all), and an attention to historical accuracy that would put even Scott to shame. His great trick, in this as in later books, was to mine the primary sources (contemporary memoirs, etc.) for nooks and crannies where Flashman could plausibly be fitted into the historical record, and show us great events in a new and discreditable light.There's a more serious side to the books as well. This is also the era of Vietnam, Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse-Five. War is nasty, dangerous, and brings out the worst in all those affected by it: in Flashman's unsentimental gaze, the only sensible response to battle is flight. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool or a hypocrite. And it's perfectly clear to him that the only good reason for foreign travel is to collect loot. If the "lesser breeds without the law" happen to be well-armed and able to resist, we should leave them to run their own affairs, especially if they don't have anything worth nicking. It's probably this no-nonsense view of the world that makes Flashman as narrator a bearable companion over the long timescale of these books. His selfishness, bullying and womanising would soon get to be a bore, but he's always a wonderfully acute observer, disarmingly frank about his own human failings and merciless with the failings of his contemporaries. If you haven't met him yet, it does make sense to start with this first book, which builds the link from the villain of Tom Brown's Schooldays to the "hero of Piper's Fort" and tells you things it's helpful to know before you come to the later books. But you should be aware that Fraser hasn't quite found Flashman's voice yet here - from the second book onwards there's a bit more depth to him, and a bit more complexity to the plots. The book advances in a fairly straightforward way through the chain of circumstances that land Flashman where he least wants to be (in the thick of the action), but there are plenty of little jokes and savage insights along the way.
    • 3/5
      Discovering Flashman has been my highlight for 2010. Fraser’s skills as a novelist and historian is such that he created a character who remains ultimately likeable, despite his treatment of women. Indeed, there have been many such men in life – why not in art? Admittedly, had I leapt into Flashman chronologically, with this book first, I might not have been so enamoured, as we view him at his abusive worst in this most youthful of his adventures. Best of all, Flashy’s account of his service in Afghanistan and the grim retreat from Kabul is fabulous, gripping writing.
    • 3/5
      This is one of those giggly books. The main character is so awful you can't help but laugh at him and dare I say, even like him a little for his brazen attitude. The premise is Flashman is the first installment of the "Flashman Papers 1839-1842" a sort of journal of Harry Flashman's. Readers get a taste of Harry's storytelling from the very start: British boy Harry Flashman manages to get himself drunk, expelled from school and into his father's mistress's bed in less than the first dozen pages. What first appears as a punishment for another indiscretionary roll in the hay ultimately becomes Harry's greatest triumph. He is sent to be a secret agent in Afghanistan and manages to emerge a brave hero after the Retreat from Kabul. Harry is so shameless he basks in the honor despite the fact his cowardice is the only thing that saved him. But, his story is told with such honest sarcasm you can't help but enjoy his villainy.
    • 4/5
      Memorable "memoir" of an incorrigible coward who in his haste to run away from danger as fast as he possibly can frequently ends up the bloodied and battered sole survivor who is taken for a hero. Most of the story takes place in Afghanistan, which doesn't seem to have changed much since 1842, when this story is set. I'm not sure I would call it "hilariously funny" as the blurb on the cover does--the violent parts are told in blood-curdling detail and it's also hard to laugh in the midst of the British Army's retreat from Afghanistan.
    • 5/5
      My all time favourite anti-hero. The bastard you love to hate (and hate yourself for loving!). And why? Because probably in the midst of Upper-Middle class Victorian prudery, sanctemonious righteousness and hypocrisy, he turns out to be the most honest cads of all time. Learn about nineteenth century history from a historian, and all with that naughty flashy slant. Such a shame he died before all of the stories were told. (oh and because he taught me what 'poonts' were!)
    • 5/5
      This series by George MacDonald Fraser has been on so many threads, and it is one which I would never have picked up on my own. I loved this man! He is rude, a self-proclaimed coward, and amazingly enough, an English hero by the time of the series based on his “papers.” Flashy is so unredeemly Politically Incorrect he is great fun to follow. I bought the first book after reading it and have sent it to my son for some post-graduation reading of non-correct, non-curriculum, non-economic books. I myself have the second book ready to open.
    • 3/5
      I was rather disappointed by Flashman. A number of people had recommended the series to me and the first book seemed like the obvious place to start.In case you're not aware, the basic conceit behind the Flashman series is that a set of papers, representing the journal of one Harry Flashman, were discovered in an attic in Leicestershire. This Flashman turns out to be a character in Thomas Hughes' novel "Tom Brown's Schooldays" who was expelled from Rugby for drunkenness and bullying. He goes on to a future military career where his cowardice allows him to preserve his life at the cost of others but good chance always allows him to claim to be the hero - mainly because anybody who could give an alternative retelling of events is dead.The story is well told and Fraser paints both historic and fictional characters well, but two things grated enough that it spoilt the book for me and left me feeling that I probably wouldn't read another. The first is the sheer level of good luck that Flashman is on the receiving end; I found my innate sense of justice appalled by that way he'd managed to get away with things *again*! The other is that Flashman is so unpleasant to women and foreigners, though probably an accurate depiction of the colonial mind, that I really could relate to the character at all.Interestingly, all the people who recommended Flashman to me are people who push the rules to the limit. I wonder if they like the books because they see in him a role model...?
    • 5/5
      Despite the adulation many reviewers have for this book I avoided it for years, thinking it either a hammy romance or a tiresome historical novel. Having read the author's own memoirs (Quartered Safe out Here) i resolved to read it, being impressed with his skillful writing and wonderful self-deprecating sense of humour.Gladly my original expectations were overturned in a ... um, flash.Fraser's voice is pitch-perfect, and he sets the anti-hero on the romantic mid-19th century world with cynical abandon. Flashman is a cad, and early on in the book we cheer to see him caught out by a future in-law (my pealing laughter at his comeuppance did startle my fellow commuters!).When later on we clasp our hands to our heads hoping that this very same cad escapes from the terrible fate which surely awaits him it is Fraser's writing which makes our volte-face possible.Flashman's role in the First Afghan War is writ large. We do not believe Flashman's part in it to be because he is especially competent or deserving, but that he is simply (if astoundingly) lucky, and we are only slightly embarassed (no less than he is) by the plaudits and honours he receives at journey's end.