Flashman And The Dragon by George MacDonald Frasier

Man, it’s good to come back to Flashman. After a period of trying to broaden my palate with other popular historical fiction writers of varying quality, it took less than one paragraph of Flashman And The Dragon to remind me of what I was missing. I was beginning to think that I was holding other writers to some unfair or impossible ideal; but no, I have been reminded that Flashman really is that good. This is what historical fiction is capable of, and there’s no excuse for anything less.

Chronologically, we meet Flashy here just after his pre-civil-war adventures with Tom Brown in the USA (that adventure is chronicled in Flashman and the Angel of the Lord). Somehow he has wound up in Hong Kong, awaiting a ship home. Of course, once again his attention for the ladies gets him into trouble, and our ‘hero’ winds up running opium into the Chinese mainland, hoping to make some quick cash and get some attention from a smitten clergyman’s wife. But it’s all a ruse, and Flashy ends up getting a much closer look than he intended at the fighting that has been tearing China apart for ten years…

By 1860, when Flashman foolishly drifts up the Yangtse, the rebels known as the Taipings were at their greatest strength. Years earlier, the movement had started when a humble clerk failed his exams and fell into a religious frenzy. He came up with his own crazed version of the Christianity that was being peddled by Westerners in China at the time, and gathered quite a following, which eventually snowballed into what was effectively the biggest and bloodiest civil war of all time, with an estimated death toll up to sixty million. The Taipings fought against the Imperial forces of the Manchu dynasty, the invaders from the north who had ruled China as a high caste for centuries, engulfing enormous swathes of China in their war. Somehow, this event has slipped off the radar in the intervening years, and Westerners, for the most part, have never even heard of this titanic conflict. Perhaps it’s because the Taiping Rebellion, as it’s known, had the misfortune to have occurred around the same time as the far more fashionable American Civil War (though it lasted eleven years longer than Lee and Grant’s little spat).

Please excuse the excessive use of italics, but the real-life figures and history that Fraser has to play with here are absolutely astonishing, especially given their little-known status in this part of the world.

But there’s more: in the midst of this mind-blowing struggle, Britain decided to step into to once again force the issue of trade with the stubborn Mandarins, inevitably causing more war. Hilariously, in cities like London and San Francisco, immigrant Chinese were scorned and feared for their spreading of the opium habit- ‘a heathen curse on Christendom,’ as Alan Moore satirically put it in his Victorian-era League of Extraordinary Gentlemen- when in reality, opium was outlawed and almost unknown in China before Britain fought two wars to be able to import it there.

And that’s where Flashman steps in. He soon becomes involved in his country’s efforts to negotiate (at the point of a bayonet, natch) with the Mandarins at Peking. One of the most interesting themes of the book (to an anti-colonial whelp like myself) is Flashy’s description of the Chinese at this time: arrogant, insolent and as racist as he is himself. What’s true is that before the mid-19^th century, China had existed in a kind of dream-world for centuries, believing itself to be literally the centre of the world (‘the middle kingdom’), with a god for an emperor.  It wasn’t until the First Opium War in the 1840’s that China was forced to accept that there were other powers in the world besides itself, and that it would sometimes have to respect those powers. But the belief that Westerners were sub-human barbarians (not aided, of course, by said wars) seems to have returned, and Fraser depicts them as treating the Westerners like scum, hampering their efforts every step of the way to Peking.

Now, my mindset would generally be that the Chinese had every right not to aid the British in getting their claws into the country. If they had any sense, they would obviously have seen what was happening in the rest of the world, and done everything they could to keep the foreigners out. But Frasier’s point here is that this policy was being proposed by a rotting structure of small-minded, bigoted Sino-centrists, to coin a phrase. And, to be fair, he goes a fair way towards convincing me that he has a point. If the Chinese had had a more realistic take on the world and its politics, perhaps they would have accepted a certain amount of trading (which was perhaps inevitable anyway) and played their advantage to maintain a more powerful position among the nations. Instead they were crushed and humiliated because they refused to accept the reality of the situation. As usual, Frasier manages to convince me at least that there is another side to the story, or that the nations crushed by the imperial powers didn't always behave like angels either.

There’s a very high level of Orientalism in the book too- quite enough to make Edward Said run crying to his harem. The Chinese court, and in particular the famous Summer Garden, are portrayed as being so alien as to be ‘not of this earth.’ It’s as evocative as it is convincing. I have a particular love for a slightly unreal take on exotic cultures, probably as a progression from my love of the alien worlds of science fiction when I was a kid. My heart sings as Flashman wanders through corridors of green jade and dragon temples, and however patronising it is, I will always love this kind of thing, even if I know that it's all slightly silly.

Something else I love about this book is that it’s one of the Flashman novels that really focuses on the history. While Flashy himself is the glue that holds the series together, I have always felt that the books fall apart whenever the emphasis is on too many of Frasier’s fictional characters or unlikely coincidences (I rather loathe fan-favourite John Charity Spring, for example). I far prefer the books in which Flashy is thrust through a series of real events, and Flashman And The Dragon is played almost completely straight in this regard. Almost all the impossible events that the anti-hero bumbles through really happened, which adds a certain frisson to the proceedings. The only serious fictional intrusion is Flashy’s dealings with the scheming Trooper Nolan (of note to those looking for the Irish connection!), which falls rather flat compared to the rest of the novel.

Alongside tantalising hints as to an elderly Flashman’s presence at the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, and a brief walk-on part for ‘Chinese’ Gordon (whom Flashy seems to have come to know better later on- surely at Khartoum?), possibly the saddest missed opportunity here occurs at the very end of the book, when Flashman’s American contacts catch up with him, and shanghai him into what is surely the most lusted-after of Frasier’s unwritten books: the scoundrel’s adventures during the American Civil War.

Flashman And The Dragon is an epic adventure through a never-never-land that really was, and will likely introduce the reader to a world of extraordinary events and characters. Not to be missed.

Flashman and the Mountain of Light

The British Empire- as some wit once said (probably a Belgian, too)- was acquired in a sort of ‘fit of absence of mind’. In this volume of old Flash’s adventures, G. M. Fraser shows his distain for this particular myth, and attempts to educate the reader (by way of Edgar Rice Burroughs) as to the real state of affairs in many of the Indian native states before they were ‘invited’ into the civilizing embrace of the British. Dipping once again into his well-thumbed volume of ‘Queen Victoria’s Little Wars’, Fraser comes out with an almost forgotten campaign to chronicle- the Anglo-Sikh War of 1845.

As the novel begins, the Punjab is in a state of unrest. Incompetent leaders shamble drunkenly on and off the throne as their own relations scheme against them. The Khalsa- the living embodiment of the Sikh nation and the most powerful, well-trained native army East of Suez, is spoiling for a fight, with its beady eye on the power-hungry East India Company to the south. And into this hellish situation is thrust one Harry Flashman. The table is set for a rare feast of literary delights.

As usual for late-period (though chronologically early: why doesn’t Flashman remember meeting John Nickelson again in 1857?) Flashman, there’s a political point to be made. See, in this case the British don’t want to own the Punjab. In fact, it’s useful to them as a buffer state against the hostile Mohammadan hordes of Afghanistan. It’s just that the damn Sikhs, being Oriental and all, can’t keep their affairs in order. Their rulers are so corrupt and debauched, with endless drinking and rutting going on at the Lahore durbar (court) that the country is about to tear itself apart. It all sounds rather jolly to Flashman of course, until he hears about the wanton cruelty of the ravishing Maharani. Yep, the Orientalism factor here is high enough to make Edward Said snap his hookah in half with anger. Oriental rulers are, by and large, barbarous, decadent and sensous; with Fraser’s famous historical accuracy, it's difficult to know how much of this is true and how much is Imperialist bilge. Many of the excesses of the native Indian state rulers were absolutely mind-boggling-witness the recent Victoria & Albert exhibition of Nabob finery. Regular parades, with elephants bedecked with jewels as big as your head, were the order of the day- and this at a time when most Indians were lucky if they could afford a nice patch of dirt to burn their wives on, as Flashman might have put it.

So eventually the British have to step in and sort all this out. How will it end?

Now while almost every Flashman book serves up a delightful curry of exotic thrills, Mountain of Light does a particularly sterling job of keeping historical accuracy and Fraser’s political commentary firmly within the boundaries of telling a rip-roaring good story. ‘Like a page out of Burton’s Arabian Nights’, says Flash frequently as he languishes next to dusky maidens in moonlit pleasure gardens, or clashes steel with blackguards and badmashes in a Lahore dungeon. Of course, he’s referring to the lavasciously-illustrated versions you could only get on the continent (that Burton, eh? Chap had a touch of the Flashman himself, I’d say). And the rub is that it was all- more or less- real. Palaces, beauties, dungeons, back-stabbing Viziers- it’s all in the history books. As if to make this point clear, Fraser includes Dr Josiah Harlan and Alexander Gardner (and comes close, by association, to including the incredible Joseph Wolff), both adventurers whose real-life careers were, if anything, more incredible that Flashman’s own. Sometimes the reader’s just gotta be reminded how strange truth is before (s)he’ll accept the fiction.

Though all the usual treats are present and correct, including Frasier’s ability to make the events of the past seem alive and real (they were, you know), Mountain of Light reads like the most fantastic adventure story ever concocted. In fact, when he hits this kind of magic equilibrium, his writing provides the kind of thrills that Edgar Rice Burroughs fails to provide for anyone above the age of 14 (I was intensely let down by Burroughs when I finally read him. Can you tell?).

No, it isn’t just the sex, juvenile and Flemming-ish as it is. There’s more to being ‘adult’ than that, I hope. Mountain of Light is simply an adventure story that functions on a higher level- it takes the basic framework of a Burroughs novel, but adds great writing, emotion, historical interest, politics and fully-rounded characters. There’s no reason why anyone who was intensely affected by John Carter of Mars or The Lost World as a teenager shouldn’t be able to get the same thrill as an adult, but the writing must rise to the occasion. Flashman and the Mountain of Light is the answer to this conundrum, and is simply one of the most enjoyable entries in the series.

Flashman and the Redskins

(Note: For my overview of the Flashman series, click here)

The wild west has always been of the classic stock settings for tales of high adventure. Incidentally, I've been there to see what's left of the place myself, and it's still an awe-inspiring part of the world. Truly an extreme environment in every sense of the word. Areas of vast emptiness incomparable to any part of western Europe are punctuated only by the occasional ghost town or abandoned mine to remind travelers of the tough hombres who once eked out a life in this parched country. And, as with most hellish parts of the Earth, it was probably inevitable that Harry Paget Flashman would wind up spending a little time there.

While most of Harry Flashman's transatlantic exploits have resulted in some of the more disappointing books, it seems that his creator, the late G. M. Fraser, had a bit of a soft spot for the bastard child of the British Empire. He really went to town on this one. For this book truly is the epic of the series- over 400 pages and 81 friggin' notes. Being a direct sequel to the much-inferior Flash for Freedom, this tome finds our 'hero' in need of a quick exit from New Orleans, circa 1849. After accepting passage with a traveling brothel (what else?), the old lecher effectively becomes one of the 'forty-niners'- those first colonists who headed west in that year following the discovery of gold in the Sunshine State. Thus, in his own words, he has seen the West 'almost from the very beginning'. To Fraser's credit, many hoary tropes now associated with Westerns are avoided- there are no sheriffs, saloon brawls or shoot-outs at noon. Instead, the first half of the book takes Flashy through largely wild, Indian-controlled country. The second part picks up over twenty years later, as he returns just in time to visit his old comrade-in-arms General Custer in the fateful year of 1875...

As usual with Flashman, anyone with leanings further left than the port side of a Nazi U-boat on its way to a BNP meeting will probably find something to be offended by in this chronicle of the old cad Flash Harry's adventures way out west. But in Flashman and the Redskins, the old apologist has his boistrous Briton produce possibly more racism than even I thought he had in him. Yep, as usual old Flashy is not shy about expressing his disdain for the natives of a foreign land, but this time I finally couldn't chuckle along with him. Perhaps it's because in this book above all the other, Fraser really sets down his agenda regarding the treatment of natives by the western nations, and the reader can no longer entertain the fantasy that the opinions expressed are there for 'period accuracy' alone.





























But behind all this, there are places in the book where Flashy really engages the reader in some honest debate, and leaves one feeling that there is at least another side to the story. An opening debate between an aging, experienced Flashman and a clueless strawman liberal about the treatment of the native Americans in particular is fantastically written. The conservative old goat is truly allowed to vent his bile in this set-piece scene, and with all the authority of someone who was actually there, he mercilessly destroys the dewy-eyed romanticism his nemesis holds for the Indians. A quote might be in order-

'"-try to enlighten a Cumanche war party, why don't you? Suggest humanity and restraint to the Jicarillas who carved up Mrs. White and her baby on Rock Creek? Have you ever seen a Del Norte Rancho after the Mimbrenos have left their calling cards?"'

Despite such sentiments, it seems Flashy does possess a little respect for the red man. His overall attitude regarding the winning of the West for the white man seems to be-

'"I don't condone it", says I, holding my temper. "And I don't condemn it either. It happened, just as the tide comes in, and since I saw it happen, I know better than to jump to the damnfool sentimental conclusions that are fashionable in college cloisters, let me tell you-"'

And as usual, it's Fraser's remarkable storytelling ability which carries the reader safely through the sea of racism, misogyny and ambiguous morality. And in this book, I think Fraser may have shown once and for all that he is one of the greats. As comedy, as historical fiction, as an adventure story, and as a piece to prompt some serious discussion about our changing attitudes towards race, Empire, and history, Flashman and the Redskins is distinctly top-class. The reader may not agree with his ideas, but rarely will he or she have encountered 400 pages that fly by so easily. Admittedly, the first part of the book is far superior- after Flashy's early Western adventures end, the novel seems to come to a natural, satisfying conclusion. The second part of the book occasionally feels like an overly-long tacked-on afterthought. But containing as it does a fascinating portrait of General George Custer, it is certainly not lacking in merit.

Now, to finish- a little story. I once read a Ray Bradbury tale about a man from the future who brought novelist Thomas Wolf back from the past, because he believed there was no man alive in his own time with the ability to convey, in words, the incredible future world he lived in. Rockets leaping from star to star, with tongues of fire in their belly (you know what Bradbury's like, right?)- what man had imagination enough to capture this time? No man since Tom Wolf, apparently.

Conversely, I reckon that almost no writer before Fraser could convey the old West in quite the same way. This book is not simply the obligatory 'Wild West' entry in a series of 19th century-set adventures. Instead, it should be an important entry in anyone's collection of Western-themed literature. So why not mosey on down the trail, hang em high, and break out the Back to the Future Part 3 soundtrack as Flashy heads West?

The Flashman Series

Huzzah, pish-posh and tally ho. If I hesitate to label the late George Macdonald Frasier an empire apologist, that’s only because ‘apologist’ is too soft a word to describe a man who reckoned the British Empire was the best thing ever to have happened to an ungrateful world. It’s not an attitude that fits in very well with today’s world of globalisation and political correctness. But damn could the man write.

To whit- Britain today is not a bad place to live, overall. A bit grey perhaps, a bit twee. Not so much better or worse than here, really (Ireland, that is). It’s certainly not the stuff fantasies are made of. And yet, not more than a century ago, Britain was the beating-heart of a globe-spanning Empire, the setting-off point for thousands of well-meaning stiff-upper-lipped adventurers who departed for exotic climes in order to civilize the world. In the face of malaria, cannibals, hostile tribes and common sense, these brave souls sought to paint the map red (quite often literally) in order to spread the virtues of christianity and afternoon tea to all the most exciting, alien parts of the earth. The contradictions and mores of this time are fascinating, and are particularly relevant to the Irish, having been (in many cases) on both sides of the great colonial ‘adventure’. No wonder the British are getting a kind of ‘Empire nostalgia’.

In 1969 George MacDonald Fraser had a capitol idea- what if there was one man who had been through all this? One unsung hero, present at every major offensive of the nineteenth century, somehow absent from the history books, to act as our guide to this turbulent time? His name is Harry Flashman. He’s fought Afghans, Sikhs, African slave traders and Indian Mutineers. He was at the charge of the light brigade, and fought alongside Michael Caine against those dastardly Zulus at Rorke’s Drift. So far, so Young Indiana Jones.

But this man is no hero. He poxes around the empire with no thought in his head beyond where his next wench is coming from. He skewers the hypocrisy of the age through his own lack of artifice- he’ll cheerfully tell you that he’s only looking out for number one, and he’s got nothing but scorn for the pious Empire-builders that surround him, all trying to mask their greed, ambition or racism. Flashman feels no need to mask his greed, ambition or racism. He may admire the bravery of others in battle, but through a film of wonder that anyone could be so careless about their own well-being. He’s cheerfully racist against anyone who’s not English, and makes no excuses for it. Anything less would have been unconvincing during this period, especially from such a cad.

And yet, Fraser’s own politics do come to the fore. Flashman claims that his brutal honesty and acceptance of his own shallowness make him a reliable narrator (he has no real biases, and calls it as he sees it). He is likely to respect a brave Afghan chieftain, or to deplore a fellow British officer, and accepts that other peoples are not all savages, but he at no point questions Britain’s right to colonise or control other countries. This viewpoint is to be expected from Harry Flashman circa 1857, but it occurs so frequently that it must be close to what Fraser himself believed over one hundred years later. Thus, as well as being stirring reading, the Flashman books provide plenty of opportunity for discuss about the morality of Empire (if you’re into such things).

The books read fantastically, the attention to historical detail combined with Flashman’s more earthy thoughts remind you that the past was a real place, peopled with persons just as mortal and flawed as yourself. Battle scenes are vivid and memorable, characters are hilarious, and the dialogue is incredible. Flashman uses a catchy but period-appropriate vocabulary of salty terms, including more than a few you won’t have heard before but will use after. And the best news of all is that there are twelve books in the series. Many of the same elements re-occur throughout the series, and if they become a bit Iain-Flemming-crank-em-out, well, they’re the best damn crank-em-out books ever written.

George MacDonald Fraser died in 2006, so we’ll now never know if Flashman was sent across the pond to sort out those beastly Fenians. Perhaps it's for the best.