Word: flashman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...FLASHMAN : FROM THE FLASHAAAN PAPERS 1839-1842, edited and arranged by George MacDonald Fraser. 256 pages. World...
...should have been obvious that Brigadier General Sir Harry Flashman was just too bad to be true. Liar, lecher, bully, coward and (according to his Who's Who entry, reprinted here) survivor of nearly every 19th century military disaster from the Siege of Lucknow to the Battle of Little Big Horn, he is as appalling and implausible a scoundrel as has ever shambled through the purlieus of the past. All the odder then that since this first volume of his purported "memoirs" was published recently in the U.S., all decked out with notes and glossary, no fewer than...
Drunk at Rugby. The present installment of "recollections" was supposedly set down after 1900, when Flashman was an octogenarian, and only recently discovered in a forgotten tea chest. It sees him through his expulsion from the Rugby School of Tom Brown's Schooldays for drunkenness, from Lord Cardigan's 11th Hussars for marrying the daughter of a tradesman, and from Afghanistan-along with an entire British army, most of which dies in the process-for having as commanding officer the grossly incompetent Major General William George Keith Elphinstone. "Only he could have permitted the First Afghan...
Fraser has plenty of wars left, and more from Flashman is inevitable...
...movie, in fact, is a winning battle against cliches and stock characterizations. For every consequential character is either very good or thoroughly evil. Tom Brown does one outstanding feat of heroism and pluck after another. Dr. Arnold exhibits wisdom, patience, and understanding in an endless succession of situations. And Flashman, the bully, spends hardly a moment without doing something nasty, sadistic, and depraved. Yet the film moves along quickly, with humor and charm...