To Fraser (And Flashman)!
- 01.03.2008 - 4:30 PMI would like to join my contentions colleague Sam Munson in hoisting a tumbler of single-malt to salute the passing of George MacDonald Fraser, the crusty old Scot who produced a brilliant dozen of the Flashman novels.
Fraser has never really gotten his due. Another historical novelist of 19th century warfare—Patrick O’Brian—has received far more critical huzzahs. That is because his Aubrey/Maturin novels are more self-consciously literary, with relatively little action and lots of introspection, dialogue, and description. By contrast, Fraser’s books gallop along at the pace of a runaway mustang, with incident piled atop incident to keep the reader’s attention, many of them violent or salacious. There is also a humorous, mocking tone to Fraser’s work, a bit reminiscent of Thackeray, which contrasts with the somewhat dour mood of the Aubrey/Maturin books.
This is by no means meant to be an indictment of O’Brian, who was undoubtedly a novelist of great merit. Probably greater merit, in fact, than Fraser. But Fraser was more fun to read. And he was no less meticulous in his reconstructions of the past. A reader interested in Victorian history could do a lot worse than to pick up the Flashman series, which contain detailed descriptions of conflicts ranging from the U.S. Civil War to the First Afghan War. Flashman was a Victorian Zelig or Forrest Gump who showed up conveniently enough at every important event between 1840 and 1900.
In some ways, Fraser actually outdid most historians (and I say that as a historian myself): He captured the conversation and perspective of various historical characters in a way that is almost impossible to do for a conventional historian, who can’t embellish on the limited sources available. If there is a modern writer with a better ear for Victorian slang, I have yet to read his or her work.
One of the clever things about Fraser’s writing is that, since he started out in the Age of Aquarius (1969 to be exact), he made sure to gird himself against charges of racism, imperialism, and the like by making his protagonist, Harry Flashman, an anti-hero. The conceit of the books is that Flashman is a consummate coward who through a combination of luck and unscrupulous scheming becomes known as a great hero—winner of the Victoria Cross, the Congressional Medal of Honor, and every other honor known to 19th century man. Yet a careful reader of the books, especially the later ones, will see that for all his protestations of buffoonery, Sir Harry often does in fact act the hero.
While Fraser gently pokes fun at the conventions of G.A. Henty and other “boy’s own” authors who glorified the British Empire, it is pretty clear that he in fact shared many of their pro-imperial prejudices. Like great satirists from Swift to Waugh, Fraser, though he was not in their class by any stretch, was essentially a conservative who managed to poke fun at various poltroons while upholding the age-old order of things.
His views were evident in his first-rate memoir of his days serving in the British army in Burma in World War II: Quartered Safe Out Here. Although written decades after the fact, it paints a convincing picture of how a young soldier reacted to his first taste of combat. It also gives his robust, old-fashioned views on a number of questions. I don’t have my copy in front of me, but this Daily Telegraph obit gives a good summary:
He was particularly firm in his conviction that the use of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima was justified, believing that among the lives it had saved had been his own.
Nor did he have much time for fashionable attitudes about the emotional delicacy of soldiers and their need for counselling. His experience, in what he acknowledged was another age, was that war was a job that needed to be done, one accomplished by his generation without relish but with a common sense and resolve since vanished from the public spirit.
We will not see his like again, and more’s the pity.
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January 4th, 2008 at 8:59 PM
I came rather late to the Aubrey /Maturin series.And while I enjoyed it greatly,it just didn’t have the zest of the “Flashman” series.My favorite was Royal Flash,but I also enjoyed Gen Flashman’s
appearance in “Mr.American”.I always assumed GMcFwould live into his 90’s ,like the General.And I do agrre with you,the he was heroic in the later novels-despite his protestations to the contrary.
BY the way,I recall reading a WSJ editorial by a former State Dept officer,who began it;
“Like many of us,my introduction to the problems od Afghanistan was via General Flashman’s efforts in ‘The Great Game’.Asidde from the intimations of my own mortality,it’s like losing a friend.Thanks for the tribute.
Sincerely,Colin Elliott
January 5th, 2008 at 8:21 AM
And here is Mr Fraser’s opinion of modern Britain in his own words
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=506219&in_page_id=1770
January 5th, 2008 at 9:00 AM
Fraser’s oeuvre is indeed impressive. Few modern writers display his wit, range of language or his moral sense. The comparison to O’Brian is I think, inept. Fraser is a far better writer and displays a much more developed intellect. Comparisons to Thackeray or perhaps Henry Fielding are, I believe more correct (particularly if you equate Fraser’s work on film scripts to Fielding’s plays). We’ll be reading Fraser long after O’Brian, in my humble opinion.
And what’s more, Fraser’s work should be read as the devastating critique of our hypocrisies aka political correctness. His is a sovereign antidote to the pitiful self-loathing modern “liberal.” Crusty? Only to those who have lost their spirit and given in to their cowardice.
“… we knew who we were and we lived in the knowledge that certain values and standards held true, and that our country, with all its faults and need for reforms, was sound at heart.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=506219&in_page_id=1770
January 5th, 2008 at 9:19 AM
The final paragraph sums everything up and really requires no further comment. Bravo.
January 5th, 2008 at 10:10 AM
I had two occasions to write to Mr. Fraser. He answered both times. I could not find the word “deloped” in any American dictionary althought I teased out something of its meaning. He wrote a very generous reply explaining the word’s meaning as well as a primer on dueling. The second time I wrote was to point out an error on one of the maps (Flashman and the Avenging Angel, perhaps) that showed the boundary betwen Virginia and Maryland as the thread of the Potomac whereas it’s at mean low water on the Virginia shore. He wrote back to say, “Damn, I knew that. I’ll have my cartographer repair the map in the next edition.” No more evocative sentence than this: “[W]henever I think back on those few minutes when the whiz-bangs caught us, and see again those unfaltering green lines swinging steadily on, one word comes to my Scottish head: Englishmen.”
January 5th, 2008 at 10:52 AM
…one of my favorites…a great discovery of my teen years…RIP, Mr. Fraser…I, too, will raise a glass in your memory…
tap
ny, ny
January 5th, 2008 at 2:54 PM
Forgive me for being a nit-picker but I would point out that none of the Flashman books actually tells the story of his service in the Civil War. There are many references to this episode in his scandalous career in the twelve published volumes of his memoirs but, sadly, we will now never learn just how he served with both the Union and Confederate armies, was blackmailed by Lincoln into saving the Union (by his account) and won the Congressional Medal of Honor.
The Civil War is only one of number of stories that Flashman mentions but never gets around to telling: how he came to enlist in the French Foreign Legion, what ill luck found him in Peking just in time for the Boxer Rebellion, how he survived the fall of Khartoum to the Mahdi’s bloodthirsty fanatics, his service as a deputy U.S. Marshal or just how he won the “San Serafino Order of Purity and Truth, 4th Class”.
January 5th, 2008 at 10:21 PM
Yeah, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the Civil War story. I loved the characterization of Lincoln in either Flash for Freedom! or Flashman and the Angel of the Lord ( I can’t recall which one it was). But then I’ve loved all the Flashman books.
At least I have a few more to read before I’ve completed the series as written.
January 5th, 2008 at 11:48 PM
I read the Hornblower books when I was a teen-ager.
Are they now unread?
January 6th, 2008 at 12:29 AM
Fraser is a sad loss. His book on the Border reivers, The Steel Bonnets, is a very good one, a history of a subject not often covered.