Flashman

The Flashman books are written as satire of the classic Victorian schoolboy / military character. They are presented as the compiled memoir, looking back across his life at the age of around 80, written by Flashman. The original Flashman character is taken from the book ‘Tom Brown's Schooldays' by Thomas Hughes, where he was the school bully.

Flashman's story here (and the remainder of the series, I understand), is bedded in accurate history. The main characters and events are all real, just with Flashman embedded in them. It is incredibly clever, and well pulled off.

No getting around it, Flashman - is a horrible character. He is a caricature of all the bad parts of your typical British public schoolboy. He is vain, cowardly (and a bully), manipulative, racist, misogynistic and self-entitled. He is a true anti-hero. And yet, the saving grace of all these character flaws, is that he is completely aware of them, and in his story he does nothing to hide them. He willingly lies to the other characters, but not to the reader, and this makes him, in a strange way, a subject for pity.

This is the first of the Flashman Papers series, and primarily covers the period 1839 to 1842. As the first book, it outlines his expulsion from Rugby School (similar to the story in Hughes' book, but from Flashman's perspective, he irons out some untruths), and his subsequent enlistment in the Eleventh Light Dragoons. There was clear reasoning in his choosing the Dragoons, as they had recently returned from India, and there was little chance of them being sent back in the near future - cowardly Flashman wanted only to draw his salary and look good in his uniform, not engage in any battles!

Events of course transpire such that he must be transferred, and he find himself packed off to India, and henceforth Afghanistan as a herald to Major-General Elphinstone. As we know (me from reading Dalrymple's Return of a King), the first Anglo-Afghan war ended with the entire British garrison be massacred. Flashman, of course, finds a way to survive, and becomes one of only two survivors to make it out of Kabul, and is subsequently invalided back to England, and his young wife.

I thought the weaving of history and fiction masterful, and Flashman despicable, however hugely entertaining. I own another three Flashman books, and will continue the series.

I must also note that the Flashman character almost certainly provided some inspiration for Lord Flashheart in the Blackadder series.

4.5 stars, rounded down.