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Nikodemus Siivola

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October 30th 2005 #
random, October 30th 2005

Flashman: From the Flashman Papers, 1839-1842
by George MacDonald Fraser

What's this? No Lisp? No tech stuff? Me deciding to write about other things too is what it is.

Just started reading this — and while I usually reserve judgement on books till I've finished them, I must give early praise for this one. As a matter of fact I already did rant and rave and praise this book to everyone who would listen at the party last night.

The meta-fiction surrounding the book identifies the main character/narrator as the resident bully of Tom Brown's Schooldays, and claims that the book is merely a cleaned up version of his memoirs documenting his life after his expulsion from the Rugby School, written in his eighties, and finally discovered in a sometime in the 1960's.

The first person narrative is magnificient.

At first I identified the narrator as a prime specimen of a lovable rascal. This illusion quickly vanished: for although Flashman exhibits most of the characteristics of the stereotype he is not lovable, and he most definitely does not have a heart of gold; he is an utterly self-serving SoB whose only redeeming quality may be his cowardice.

Then I thought that the book was a confession: a honest expose of the follies of youth, written to obtain some measure of existentialistic pardon. It isn't. It becomes quite evident that not only is the narrator not the least bit sorry for his actions, he does not even see that there is anything to be sorry about. He is, even in his eighties, the sort of person they had in mind when they coined the finnish word vittupää.

I expect to come to more false conclusions before the book is over: despite his odiosity the narrator is quite charming, and as a reader I find myself wanting to like him — until he (again) says something to remind me that he is indeed worthy of pre-emptive euthanasia.

The book is a describtion of the British Empire as seen by the narrator, and the epic of his adventures: rich, cynical, insightful, and funny. Somewhat surprisingly I found the subtext of the book to be very human and anti-imperialistic without being the least bit preachy.

Two thumbs up!