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Flashman: A Novel (Flashman)
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List Price: $14.00
Our Price: $10.78
Your Save: $ 3.22 ( 23% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Plume
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780452259614
ISBN: 0452259614
Label: Plume
Manufacturer: Plume
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: 1984-08-01
Publisher: Plume
Studio: Plume
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Editorial Reviews:
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The first instalment of the Flashman Papers sees the fag-roasting rotter from Tom Brown's Schooldays commence his military career as a reluctant secret agent in Afghanistan. Expelled from Rugby for drunkenness, and none too welcome at home after seducing his father's mistress, the young Flashman embarks on a military career with Lord Cardigan's Hussars. En route to Afghanistan, our hero hones his skills as a soldier, duellist, imposter, coward and amorist (mastering all 97 ways of Hindu love-making during a brief sojourn in Calcutta), before being pressed into reluctant service as a secret agent. His Afghan adventures culminate in a starring role in that great historic disaster, the Retreat from Kabul.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Flashman!
Comment: Review of George MacDonald Fraser's "Flashman."
As a student and admirer of the Victorian Era and anything Anglophilic I have long awaited the day of purchasing and reading the published "Flashman Papers" from manuscript form.
I have seen Fraser's book advertised and critiqued for many years. I set my decision to delve into the book as sort of a guilty pleasure and I was not disappointed. If this genre interests you, then you should be quite pleasantly surprised.
The abstract from the book itself clearly tells the prospective purchaser what to expect: "Flashman follows Flashy as he lies, steals, duels, and wenches his way from 1839 England to India to the wilds of Afghanistan. Along the way, he survives military incompetence, ambushes, torture, venomous snakes, and vengeful women...and emerges against all odds as a bona fide hero of the realm."
A most enjoyable read. Flashman absolutely ranks with Ian Fleming's famous protagonist.
Five stars without hesitation or reservation.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent read
Comment: Only recently discovered GMF. Flashman is a great read. Hard to put down. I look forward to reading more Flashman adventures.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A "hero's" self deprecation always entertains
Comment: Oh, so refreshing to immerse oneself, coming out of
our hard edged world of self-serving, hype-drenched
prose into a comfortable divan of well conceived candor.
Bring more, if you will.
Tom
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Adventure Begins...
Comment: I have just finished reading this little gem for the second time and find myself eager to express my gratitude for an author whose skils both prodigious and wide ranging.
Fraser is a masterful storyteller. In the cynical and totally believable Harry Flashman, (soldiier, adventurer. mercenary and total bastard!) the author paints a convincing portrait of an age long dead - warts and all.
Great historical detail, (both in its depiction of events and the attitudes that fostered them), evocative prose and a varied cast of well drawn characters (none more so than the cad at the novel's heart); all these elements combine to create a wonderful entertainment.
Don't be put off by the occasional disapproving reader. Good historical writing involves so much more than reflecting our own comfortable certainties back at us, unconvincingly disguised in period dress. Flashy is in many ways a creature of his time - and times change, as do the beliefs that created them.
Place yourself in the hands of a natural storyteller. You'll enjoy the ride.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A never erring sense of survival at all costs
Comment: I was unaware of the Flashman series till it became a subject of conversation on the Amazon Discussion Board. So, wondering what I was missing, I purchased the first in the series and plunged in. What I discovered was Flashman, a man who chose the military as his profession but spent most of his time and effort avoiding service. Duty, honor, country... Flashman would have none of it. Flashman, gives us the cynic's view of war and glory, which is the highest cause one can have in war is to escape it alive at all costs and all who think otherwise are chumps. It takes some fortitude to deal with the incredible cowardice, arrogance, snobbery, racism and sexism that Flashman embodies, but the writing of Mr. Fraser makes following Flashman's exploits a guilty pleasure and often extremely funny. Reading Flashman is akin to watching a train wreck. At each stage you wonder how it will come out, you know it won't be good, but you can't turn away. The series is definitely not PC but redeems itself by holding up the foibles of Flashman to the ridicule they deserve.
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