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Flashman (novel)

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Flashman
First edition cover
AuthorGeorge MacDonald Fraser
Cover artistArthur Barbosa
LanguageEnglish
GenreHistorical novel
PublisherBarrie & Jenkins
Publication date
1969
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (hardback and paperback)
Pages256
ISBN0-257-66799-7
OCLC29733
823/.9/14
LC ClassPZ4.F8418 Fp PR6056.R287
Preceded by- 
Followed byRoyal Flash 

Flashman is a 1969 novel by George MacDonald Fraser. It is the first of the Flashman novels.

Plot introduction

Presented within the frame of the discovery of the supposedly historical Flashman Papers, this book chronicles the subsequent career of the bully Flashman from Tom Brown's School Days. The book begins with a fictional note explaining that the Flashman Papers were discovered in 1965 during a sale of household furniture in Ashby, Leicestershire.

The papers are attributed to Harry Paget Flashman, the bully featured in Thomas Hughes' novel, who becomes a well-known Victorian military hero (in Fraser's fictional England). The papers were supposedly written between 1900 and 1905. The subsequent publishing of these papers, of which Flashman is the first instalment, contrasts the public image of a (fictional) hero with his own more scandalous account of his life as an amoral and cowardly bully.

Flashman begins with the eponymous hero's own account of his expulsion from Rugby and ends with his fame as "the Hector of Afghanistan". It details his life from 1839 to 1842 and his travels to Scotland, India, and Afghanistan.

It also contains a number of notes by the author, in the guise of a mere editor of the papers, providing additional historical glosses on the events described. The history in these books is largely accurate; most of the prominent figures Flashman meets were real people.

Plot summary

Flashman's expulsion from Rugby for drunkenness leads him to join the British Army in what he hopes will be a sinecure. He joins the 11th Regiment of Light Dragoons commanded by Lord Cardigan, to whom he toadies in his best style. After an affair with a fellow-officer's lover, he is challenged to a duel but wins after promising a large sum of money to the pistol loader to give his opponent a blank load in his gun. He does not kill his opponent but instead delopes and accidentally shoots the top off a bottle thirty yards away, an action that gives him instant fame and the respect of the Duke of Wellington.

Once the reason for fighting emerges, the army stations Flashman in Scotland. He is quartered with the family of textile industrialist Morrison and soon enough takes advantage of one of the daughters, Elspeth. After a forced marriage, Flashman is required to resign the Hussars due to marrying below his station. He is given another option, to make his reputation in India.

By showing off his language and riding skills in India, Flashman is assigned to the staff of Major General William George Keith Elphinstone, who is to command the garrison at the worst frontier of the British Empire at that time, Afghanistan. Upon arrival, he meets a soldier who relates the narrow escape he made in November 1842, on the first night of the Afghan Uprising. After Akbar Khan proclaims a general revolt which the citizens of Kabul immediately heed, a mob storms the house of Sir Alexander Burnes, one of the senior British political officers, and murders him and his staff. The soldier, stationed nearby, manages to flee in midst of the confusion.

This tale sets the tone for Flashman's proceeding adventures, including the 1842 retreat from Kabul and the Battle of Jellalabad, in the First Anglo-Afghan War. Despite being captured, tortured and escaping death numerous times, hiding and shirking his duty as much as possible, he comes through it with a hero's reputation ... although his triumph is tempered when he realises his wife might have been unfaithful while he was away.

Characters

Fictional characters

  • Harry Paget Flashman - The hero or anti-hero,
  • Elspeth Morrison - His adoring and possibly unfaithful wife,
  • Henry Buckley Flashman - His father,
  • John Morrison - His father-in-law,
  • Judy - His father's mistress and (briefly) Flashman's lover,
  • Bernier - The man he insults and duels with,
  • Josette - Bernier's lover, with whom Flashman has an affair,
  • Fetnab - Flashman's language and sexual tutor in India,
  • Sher Afzul - A Ghilzai Khan to whom Flashman is sent as an emissary,
  • Narreeman - An Afghan dancer whom Flashman rapes,
  • Gul Shah - Sher Afzul's nephew, Narreeman's lover and later husband, and Flashman's torturer,
  • Hudson - Flashman's sergeant on the retreat from Kabul who comes to realise Flashman is a coward but dies before he can expose him.

Historical characters

Background

George MacDonald Fraser was a journalist who dreamt of becoming a novelist. He wrote a straight historical novel in the mid-1950s which no one would publish and came to feel that he would achieve success only if he did something in a more comical vein. In 1966 he came up with the idea of basing a novel around Harry Flashman from Tom Brown's School Days; he later said he was inspired to put pen to paper by two events: going on a recent trip to Borneo and Malaya during the Indonesian Confrontation which re-ignited his interest in Asia and soldiering, and having just completed a stint as acting editor of his paper, which re-enforced his determination to get out of journalism. He told his wife "I'll write us out of this".[1]

Fraser wrote the book after work in nightly bursts, taking ninety hours all up with no advance plotting or revisions. Half way through he broke his arm and could not type; he might have given up but his wife read it, was enthusiastic, and encouraged him to continue. He took two years to find a publisher, before it was taken up by Herbert Jenkins.[1]

Reception

When the book was published in America, several reviewers thought it was true.[2]

Reviews were generally positive.[3] By 1970 the book had sold over 200,000 copies in paperback and its success – notably the sale of the film rights – enabled Fraser to leave journalism and become a full-time writer. It also compelled him to move to the Isle of Man to avoid income tax.[4][5]

Proposed film version

Film rights were sold to Bob Booker and George Foster's Cinema Organization company, and initial plans called for a movie to be directed by Richard Lester. In August 1969 it was announced the script would be written by Charles Wood with filming to start early the following year.[6][7]

Lester admired the book greatly, saying "it was an extraordinary period of British history and it was a marvellously interesting premise... There were lots of things in it that made sense to me—about soldiering, about the military, about the economics of military politics. And I also had various notions about the Victorian ethic and the Protestant, John Foster Dulles ethic and the relationship of one to the other."[8]

Lester obtained funds from United Artists and John Alderton was cast as Flashman. Frank Muir, who worked on the script, said that because Alderton was not known in America he had to do a screen test but United Artists approved him.[9] In February 1970 it was reported Joan Collins was in talks with Lester to play a role.[10]

Lester was scouting locations in Spain to stand in for Afghanistan and was about to start casting when there was a change of management at United Artists and the film was cancelled. Muir later wrote "I think the unfortunate loser was John Alderton. If ever it was a case of the right actor finding the right part and then losing it through no fault of his own with was John."[9]

The British film industry was in crisis at the time due to the withdrawal of American finance. By March 1970 the project was cancelled.[11]

Lester said it "came about at the time when the film industry began to collapse within itself. A sort of implosion. It’s a very expensive project, a period film where at one point 13,000 of the British Army have to retreat in January from Kabul into India, being attacked by hordes of Afghans. It’s not the sort of thing that you can do on a shoestring... To do it properly it would be a very expensive film; and I don’t think one should do it improperly. "[8]

Lester later said, "it came in that very bad year for United Artists when they wrote off 90 million and cancelled nearly everything." After the failure of The Bed Sitting Room Lester did not make a film for five years.[12]

In August 1971 Stanley Baker was attached as producer with Lester still to direct.[13] However, the film was not made.[8]

Lester admired Fraser's writing and later hired the author to write the screenplay for The Three Musketeers (1973). This launched Fraser's scriptwriting career and he and Lester collaborated on the one film (to date) made from a Flashman novel, Royal Flash (1975). Diabolique magazine argued that Flashman would have been a better introduction to the character.[14]

References

  1. ^ a b Fraser, George MacDonald (2002). The Light's On at Signpost. HarperCollins. pp. 304–307. ISBN 978-0-00713-646-9.
  2. ^ Whitman, Alden (29 July 1969). "Gen. Sir Harry Flashman and Aide Con the Experts". The New York Times. p. 26.
  3. ^ Glanville, Brian (26 October 1969). "Flashman: From the Flashman Papers 1839-1842. By George Macdonald Fraser. 256 pp. New York: NAL-World Publishing Company. $5.95". The New York Times. p. BR62.
  4. ^ O'Callaghan, John (22 August 1970). "Flashman: John O'Callaghan Interviews George Macdonald Fraser, Creator of Harry Flashman". The Guardian. p. 6.
  5. ^ Clements, Toby (8 August 2015). "Flashman flies the Jolly Roger: George MacDonald Fraser's lost pirate novel". The Daily Telegraph.
  6. ^ Pearson, Kenneth (3 August 1969). "News in the Arts". The Sunday Times. No. 7627. p. 41.
  7. ^ MOVIE CALL SHEET: Lester to Direct 'Flashman' Martin, Betty. Los Angeles Times 2 Aug 1969: a9.
  8. ^ a b c McBride, Joseph (Spring 1973). "An interview with Richard Lester". Sight and Sound. p. 77.
  9. ^ a b Muir, Frank (2012). A Kentish Lad. Random House. ISBN 9781448109104.
  10. ^ Double Valentine for Mia Farrow? Haber, Joyce. Los Angeles Times 9 Feb 1970: c22.
  11. ^ Gloomy Upheaval Dogs British Movie Industry By BERNARD WEINRAUB Special to The New York Times30 Mar 1970: 52.
  12. ^ Cardinal virtuoso The Guardian 19 Oct 1973: 11.
  13. ^ Blume, Mary (14 August 1971). "Stanley Baker Likes to Act". Los Angeles Times. p. a8.
  14. ^ Vagg, Stephen (18 May 2020). "Trying to Make a Case for Royal Flash". Diabolique.
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