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Saturday, April 11. 2020

Sir Harry's adventures in late 1800s China

The most entertaining way to get some sense of Chinese 19th C history: Flashman and the Dragon.


You can see where Mao came from. His horrors were just normal before him. Of course, this is historical fiction but Fraser tried to make it feel realistic. Sir Harry, I feel, was the original James Bond. 


From Amazon:



 Lusting after a clergyman’s wife, smuggling opium to Hong Kong, coupling with an Amazonian woman river pirate, groveling before a ruthless warlord, and becoming the sexual plaything of the most beautiful and evil woman in the world, Sir Harry Flashman, the supreme antihero of the Victorian era, is ready to rise to the occasion to matter what depths of dishonor he must plumb. In this uninhibited and uproarious adventure, Flashman is once again at his irascible best.


Posted by Bird Dog in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 16:12 | Comments (8) | Trackbacks (0)

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Flashman is wonderful. .....and the Dragon one of the best. In the same class as Flashman and the Mountain of light.
Fraser also wrote the screenplay for Richard Lester’s Three Musketeers and it’s sequel. Great stuff.
#1 RickinJax on 2020-04-11 16:26 (Reply)
Just a note ... Flashman at Amazon is a bit steep even in paper or on the Kindle. Abe Books can do much much better. In my cart now. For some reason, I never read these when I was younger. And I'm really looking forward to it.
#2 Frankns on 2020-04-11 18:13 (Reply)
They are very good as an audio book as well. Listened to one driving back from Knoxville all day, entertaining, made the boring drive on I75 much better.
#2.1 grant1863 on 2020-04-11 20:19 (Reply)
George mac D fraser is straite up genius and should be history textbooks for all schools. my pa started me on them when i was 13yrs and then i understood 19th cen. history.
oh gosh that were 47 yrs ago. but jeez Louis the junk my kids were fed at skool was lame. the sons did like flashman.
#3 Gavin Greenewalt (Link) on 2020-04-11 23:18 (Reply)
Flashy is FUN!!!!!!!!! A coward, a rotter, a SLAM.BAM, THANK-YOU MAAM womanizer. He always gets away with it, whatever "it" is.
#4 Sam L. on 2020-04-12 10:26 (Reply)
I guess it's up to me to be the voice of a cultural conservative. I read that book on an airplane last year because I wanted to read one of the Flashman books and I was interested in the Taiping Rebellion.

What trash! Please, please don't let your kids near this stuff. It's filled with the foundations of violent sexual fantasies that no one should have in one's head. And James Bond movies? Yes, those are filth as well. Don't let your kids watch any of them.

As a final criticism, I note that the late and hedonistic Christopher Hitchens was quoted on the back cover of the book, lauding it.
#5 California on 2020-04-12 11:07 (Reply)
Thank you. I read halfway through one of these junk books. I put it down and thought, ' Nobody has that kind of stamina, or even that kind of desire. " It's even more far-fetched than current kung fu movies.
#5.1 barnhill on 2020-04-12 12:51 (Reply)
You might try The Devil's Soldier, by Caleb Carr.

QUOTE:
A courageous leader who became the first American mandarin, Frederick Townsend Ward won crucial victories for the Emperor of China during the Taiping Rebellion, history's bloodiest civil war. Carr's skills as historian and storyteller come to the fore in this thrilling account of the kind of adventurer the world no longer sees.
#5.2 Gringo on 2020-04-12 14:28 (Reply)

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