Play Book Tag discussion

It is not easy to laugh at serial rapes, blatant racism and wholesale slaughter narrated by an obvious narcissist. I’ve read my first Flashman novel more than thirty years ago, ‘Flashman and the Mountain of Light’, and I only remember the laughs at his antics and not the colonial context and the horrible way he treats women.
My return to the series was a challenge to read something fun in April and, while I definitely had my laughs, the true story here is the incredibly savage lampooning of the Imperial ambitions of Britain. I find the style of MacDonald Fraser exactly what I needed, after finishing last year the twenty novels long Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell – a celebration of the ‘perfect’ British soldier, of the stuff that empires are built on. Harry Flashman is for me the exact opposite of everything Cornwell’s creation stands for. As a bonus, it is also a natural continuation of the historical progression from the Napoleonic campaigns to the colonial wars that define the Victorian period.
Harry Flashman shaking hands with Cornwell’s idol, Lord Wellington, is the cherry on the cake in this dark satirical farce.

The Flashman Papers are introduced to the reader with a cover story of recently discovered documents belonging to a celebrated officer of the British Empire, writing down in his old age the events of a long and decorated military career. The old age perspective is allowing the author to be candid about the less known and less savoury details of what really happened. In his own word, this ... is the portrait of a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat, a thief, a coward – and, oh yes, a toady.

Harry Flashman describes the First Afghan War as the most shameful, ridiculous disaster in British military history. He should know what he is talking about, he was right there in Kabul, in the Khyber Pass and in Jallalabad when the campaign turned into a rout.