A review by gengelcox
Flashman's Lady by George MacDonald Fraser

adventurous fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I had never read a Flashman book before, although I was familiar with the character and concept, i.e., Fraser’s lifting of a minor character from Thomas Hughes’ 1857 novel Tom Brown’s School Days and inserting that bully-turned-coward-turned-rogue-sometimes-hero into historical events of the 19th century. I term this kind of thing “faction”—fiction that uses historical fact as its background, different from historical fiction in that at least one character is unreal. In some books, like Tim Powers’ wonderful The Anubis Gates, not only are some of the characters fictitious, but fantastic events occur in the interstitial moments of history that do not impede what we know of the actual events.

I picked this particular novel up, even though it is the sixth in the series of a dozen books, because it had a section set in Madagascar, which I was travelling to at the time. What better way to learn history of a place than through an adventure novel? And, as far as the history lesson went, it works fine, as Fraser does an excellent job of capturing the time and place.

But I doubt this book would be publishable today. I mean, it’s still in print as a kind of legacy, but any new author who attempted to write in this manner would have a very hard sale in the current publishing climate. Why? Because Flashman the character, and by association, this book, is racist, misogynistic, and quite terrible. Yes, it matches up historically. He’s a white, privileged male who believes women are his for whatever urges he has, where people of color are at best second class citizens and often much worse, and where life is cheap.

And that’s a shame, because a book about an anti-hero who simply wants to live the good life but is forced into situations where he must at least appear to be heroic is quite humorous. This novel also leavens Flashman’s point of view with diary entries by his wife, edited by her sister, which helps broaden the humor considerably. 

I enjoyed it, despite the issues above, but hesitate to read another.