Style and Layout of The Stories
The series is a classic use of false documents. In a preface to the first book, Fraser described the discovery of General Flashman's memoirs in an antique tea-chest in a Leicestershire saleroom in 1965. As the "editor" of the papers, Fraser produced a series of historical novels that give a largely picaresque (or arguably cynical) description of British and American history during the 19th century. Dozens of major and minor figures from history appear in the books, often in inglorious or hypocritical roles. Characters from other fictional works appear occasionally, notably Sherlock Holmes and some of the boys from Tom Brown's Schooldays.
Fraser's research was considerable. The books are heavily annotated, with end notes and appendices, as Fraser (in accordance with the pretence of the memoirs) attempts to "confirm" (and in some cases "correct") the elderly Flashman's recollections of events. In many cases, the footnotes serve to inform the reader that a particularly outlandish character really existed or that an unlikely event actually occurred.
In outline there are some similarities to Thomas Berger's 1964 novel Little Big Man, in which a 121-year-old man recounts his numerous adventures and escapades in the American Old West. William Thackeray's The Luck of Barry Lyndon made similar use of an unreliable first-person narrator and footnotes, with Thackeray using them to cast doubt on the protagonist's version of events. Another influence might be Mark Twain's short story Luck, about an illustrious British general who was actually a blundering fool, but whose mistakes in the Crimean War always ended in success.
The half-scholarly tone has occasionally led to misunderstandings. When the first book, Flashman, was published in the United States, ten of 34 reviews took it to be an obscure but real memoir. Several of these were written by academics – to the delight of The New York Times, which published a selection of the more trusting reviews.
For the American publication, Fraser created a fictional entry for Flashman in the 1909 edition of Who's Who. The entry lists Flashman's laurels: VC, KCB, KCIE; Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur; U.S. Medal of Honor; San Serafino Order of Purity and Truth, 4th Class. The entry also summarizes his military career, both in the British army and as a wandering adventurer. It notes encounters with the "White Rajah" of Sarawak, with Queen Ranavalona of Madagascar, and with Emperor Maximilian of Mexico; and service as a Union major and as a Confederate colonel during the American Civil War. (Allusions in Flash For Freedom and Flashman and the Redskins indicate that he did indeed fight on both sides in the war, but that it was part of some elaborate and dangerous intrigue instigated by Abraham Lincoln.)
George MacDonald Fraser stated that his favourite maritime historical novels were those of the Hornblower series by C.S. Forester.
Read more about this topic: Harry Paget Flashman
Famous quotes containing the words style and, style and/or stories:
“The difference between style and taste is never easy to define, but style tends to be centered on the social, and taste upon the individual. Style then works along axes of similarity to identify group membership, to relate to the social order; taste works within style to differentiate and construct the individual. Style speaks about social factors such as class, age, and other more flexible, less definable social formations; taste talks of the individual inflection of the social.”
—John Fiske (b. 1939)
“Always, however brutal an age may actually have been, its style transmits its music only.”
—André Malraux (1901–1976)
“A curious thing about atrocity stories is that they mirror, instead of the events they purport to describe, the extent of the hatred of the people that tell them.
Still, you can’t listen unmoved to tales of misery and murder.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)