Flashman comes to America (unwillingly, of course)

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	• Flash for Freedom! (Flashman) George MacDonald Fraser Plume, 1985 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 22 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Flashman comes to America (unwillingly, of course)

Among series characters, I'd have to guess that there are few as unredeemably roguish as Harry Flashman. Unlike most fictional cads, Harry is unrepentant, and those who expect him to see the light and become a better person are sure to be disappointed. But for those who understand Harry for what he is - a coward with no scruples, as he'd be the first to admit - the Flashman Papers are wonderfully fun historical novels.

Flash for Freedom! is the third volume of the Flashman Papers, and though the events in these volumes are not fully in the same order as their chronological publication, in this case, the third volume does immediately follow the events in the second one (Royal Flash). As this novel begins (in 1848), Harry is again enjoying his life of idleness, but when he tries to run for Parliament, things go very wrong, and he is forced to go into temporary exile. Harry is put aboard one of his wealthy father-in-law's ships and forced to work, something he never likes to do. Moreover, he is more than a little disturbed to find out that he is on a slave ship.

Not that Harry has moral qualms about the slave trade, but he just doesn't like to be put in a position where he could be convicted of a hanging offense. He will wind up going from Africa to Cuba and eventually to New Orleans (and other places in America), and throughout, he will be exposed to all sorts of sides of the slavery issue: besides smuggling, he will act as a slave driver and as an agent of the underground railroad. Throughout, Harry takes no real side, merely trying to survive to make it home to England.

Even those who are used to Harry's natural villainy may be a little put off by his casual racism, but this is actually nothing new for him; he's always looked down on other races (as well as most other non-English people). But Harry Flashman is not supposed to be a role model, and for all his bad qualities, he also has a charm and humor that is endearing. It is Flashman's narrative that makes this a great set of offbeat historical novels (a genre that is usually on the serious side), and Flash for Freedom! is as good as its predecessors.

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Challenging, brave and brilliant.

I can certainly see why some readers of this book have been put off by the difficult (and frought) subject matter; or rather by its treatment. Fraser's interpretation of these events, as revealed by his cynical and self-serving narrator can be challenging and unsettling. In FLASH FOR FREEDOM we are presented with a panoramic view of the slave trade both as an (horrific) economic process and as an expression of a deeply ingrained racism born out of what we now refer to as "Imperialist" attitudes.

But before you write this book off as a thinly veiled excuse for a misplaced and romantic nostalgia for an earlier age, take a moment and consider the not inconsiderable achievements in storytelling that the author has accomplished here. After all, something as fundamentally wrong as the slave trade required certain social and economic conditions to develop and to flourish. This, it seems to me, is one of Fraser's great strengths as a writer of so-called "historical fiction". More than most contemporary writers, he is able to divorce himself from the compulsive moralising that afflicts much of our public language today (not an offence in itself, except that most of it reeks of crowd pleasing "correctness" and insincerity), and recreate not only the events of an earlier age, but the attitudes that helped to foster them. We may find many of these repugnant by the standards of our own self-declared enlightenment, but it doesn't make them any the less true.

Therefore, the question becomes, "Does the author endorse or fail to codemn the brutailty that the novel graphically details?" The answer to this it seems to me is readily accessible in the text and in the working out of the plot. Without wanting to give anything away, as much of the fun is lies in its suspense, the final stages of Flashy's nightmare journey and his reaction to these events serve to personalise the full horror of the slave system and bring home the extent of its barbarity. If our narrator doesn't manage to summon up much sympathy for anyone but himself, well, Fraser is remaining true to Flashy's essential character - as he should. Anything else would be unconvincing.

What I really like about Fraser as a storyteller is his ability to spin a rattling good "yarn" that moves at a pace, his apparently effortless skill with language (and period language in particular), his ability to create lively and interesting characters and the depth of his research. So many recent attempts at historical fiction fail in one or more of these areas that I find myself to be immensely grateful to be in the hands of a master of the genre.

And Flashy remains, despite (or perhaps, because of) his apalling behaviour, a narrator of great interest. I couldn't help but feel sympathy for his plight and curiosity for his fate - although were he a personal acquaintance I wouldn't trust him with either my credit card or my girlfriend! What's more, Fraser has the rare skill of creating a varied cast of interesting and well drawn supporting players, from the monstrous to the heroic, and all shades in between. Even well known historical figures get their turn, and the author can throw a surprising light on them as well.

Highly recommended if you want your historical fiction to be more than just a grisly picture postcard of an earlier age. I look forward to many rereadings of the books in this wonderful series.

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Histories greatest scoundrel rides again!!!

Given that my introduction to the Flashmen series almost coincided with the tragic (although not unexpected) death of George Macdonald Frasier I have made it my news years resolution to let people know about his wonderful books.

They wouldn't be good without the main character Sir Harry Flashman VC; who without ever really meaning to became the most highly decorated solider of the Victorian Era. This is all of course just a byproduct of his attempts to save his own worthless hide, with the reader cheering him all the while. They are also outstanding in their great attention to historical accuracy backed up with a large amount of footnotes.

This particular installment "Flash for Freedom" involves a particular set of circumstances whereby Flash is forced out of London and takes passage to America on a slave smuggler under the command of the dubious personage of one "John Charity Spring." He meets some notable figures of the time most famous of who is probably a young Mr. Lincoln. As always my powers of description can never fully explain how good these books are and I would hope that you would give this series your full attention.

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Filthy Groveling Narcissistic Swine!

Hard to take! Bundle 3 of the Flashman Papers exposes Harry at his nauseating worst - smug and cowardly, vile in thought and deed, and appallingly callous in his racism. Racism is a touchy subject for me. If Harry or his creator had been physically accessible, there might never have been a volume 4. Only the perception that Flashman wasn't Fraser, but just a 'fallible narrator' in literary terms, helped me keep my anger until control long enough to wonder where the book was going. Sure enough, in the end, despite his cowardice, Flashman partially redeems himself - in his own eyes by getting out of scrape after scrape once again, in my eyes by at least recognizing and paying grudging tribute to the humanity and courage of two others - one a runaway woman slave whom he rescues utterly by chance; the other a historical personage, a back-country congressman named Abraham Lincoln. A major part of what makes Flashman a tolerable rogue is that his cynicism about himself is matched and bested by his cynicism about everyone else, from his miserly father-in-law to Bismark, Gladstone, and Disraeli, a cynicism that usually hits the mark.

Harry's description of conditions on the slave ship Balliol College are nightmare material but entirely factual, as is the sadistic racism of the slave traders. I suppose that hearing and seeing such horrors through the eyes of a partcipant, however unwilling, delivers an emotional jolt that many people will prefer to avoid. This is not one of the "funny" Flashman books, and in the end it's not entirely satisfying to find Harry saving his own hind quarters by saving those of the villain who captains the slaver. I'm giving the book its five stars for literary accomplishment, but I'd strongly recommend to anyone with a shred of innocence and susceptibility remaining to skip it and hope for less beastliness in volume 4.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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