Here's sad news: author George MacDonald Fraser has died at age 82. The Flashman novels for which he became famous were only some of his many creative accomplishments.
George MacDonald Fraser, who died on Wednesday aged 82, revived in a long-running series of novels the career of one of fiction’s most infamous characters, Flashman.The fag-roasting bully of Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Thomas Hughes’s 1857 tribute to Dr Arnold’s Rugby, was last seen being expelled for drunkenness. Age had not improved him. Fraser’s appropriation in 1969, Flashman, joyously confirmed him as a thoroughgoing rotter and cad of the first water.
The book and its 11 sequels purported to be the memoirs of General Sir Harry Flashman, VC, discovered in a saleroom at Ashby-de-la-Zouch and entrusted to Fraser for editing. This device allowed Fraser to pilot Flashman through a picaresque series of encounters with some of the choicest episodes of Victorian history.
Thus, the first novel took as its background the First Afghan War - for Flashman an odyssey of self-preservation justified by his being the sole survivor of the Retreat from Kabul. In Royal Flash (1970), which was later made into a film, he floundered his way through the Schleswig-Holsten Question, engaging Bismarck in fisticuffs and dallying with Lola Montez. Flashman at the Charge (1973) saw him accidentally lead the Light Brigade into the "Valley of Death".
So successfully did Fraser bring off the conceit that some critics, especially in America, believed the memoirs to be authentic. A debate ensued in the New York Times, and Flashman’s concocted curriculum vitae found its way into works of biographical reference. [...]
Although some critics saw the series as a satire on Victorian morality, its continued popular success was due to Fraser’s ability to make learning history enjoyable. The richly comic narrative moved with a military dash worthy of Anthony Hope or Rafael Sabatini while spoofing the wholesome sensibilities of the heroes of Buchan and Henty.
Among his many accomplishments, perhaps my favorites (other than Flashy) were the screenplays for Richard Lester's pair of films The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers, and Robin and Marian (which starred Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn). All of them exemplified his approach to fiction: steeped in historical detail and often satirical in tone, but with a serious undercurrent that never strayed too far from historical reality.
Rest in peace.
Posted by Alan at January 3, 2008 10:51 AM