Flashman and the Dragon
by George MacDonald Fraser
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Book Summary Information
Author: George MacDonald FraserEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1987-07-01
ISBN: 0452261910
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Plume
Book Reviews of Flashman and the Dragon
Book Review: Right, you swine, this will read well in the Morning Post
Summary: 5 Stars
RIP George MacDonald Fraser, 1925 - 2008
"We raised not a line, we carved not a stone
But we left him alone with his glory"
- Charles Wolfe: On The Burial of Sir John Moore: after Corunna
"Old soldiers never die, they just fade away" - Douglas MacArthur
"Come Bacchus' sons, be not dismay'd
But join with me each jovial blade
Come booze and sing and lend your aid
To help me with the chorus"
- Garryowen
"Sang Kolinsen! That woman and her child are under the protection of Her Majesty's government! I speak for Lord Elgin and the British army, so ... back off! You dirty dog, you!"
This is just one gem from a rollicking tale of adventure, derring-do (and don't), lechery, boozing, twaddle, old China handery, scuttling for cover and disappearing over the sill.
The British officer is a great admirer of your warlike "race" and he likes Mongols, Sikhs, Gurkhas and Boers as friends and enemies. But as your typical British officer, Flashy has no use for the philosophical Chinese.
It's only a pity that Fraser will never contrive to have Flashy's angry ghost at the 1997 handover of Hong Kong rogering Princess Diana at a suite in the Peninsula, cadging a light for his cheroot from Chris Patten in the smoker's circle out back, breaking wind during Charles' stem-winder, or letting the air out of the tyres on PLA staff vehicles behind the Prince of Wales barracks.
Nor shall his great-great grandson, Harry Paget-Morrison, at least in Fraser's inimitable tales, scuttle through Afghanistan, nor liaise with General David Petraeus in hopes of a soft billet while rolling his eyes as Yank officers above flag rank ignore the obvious, obfuscate the simple, simplify the complex, and get chaps killed, American officers below flag rank invite him to come to Jesus (an invitation which he of course declines), the sergeants booze with him in the Humvee, and the enlisted men wish to G-d that they were Quartered Safe Back There.
In his last book, Fraser expresses mostly incomprehension at the modern world. But it is doing its damnedest to regress to Victorian times courtesy of pompous Yuppie thugs bawling Hosannahs in church while a working class generation deprived by the mad woman, Thatcher, of jobs in mines that are now returning thanks to the price of oil (showing the folly of the 1980s deindustrialization of the North of England) fights for the chance to join the Army and go to war as opposed to the more sensible choice, which would be to live in London upon the earnings of an whore.
I shall miss the appearance of new adventures in the Flashman series in the shops, but I do hope that no Grub Street hack gets it in mind to continue the story as above. No one can tell the tale like Fraser could, and all we need is a Collected Works in the old style, on India paper, with small type.
Summary of Flashman and the Dragon
Celebrated Victorian bounder, cad, and lecher, Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., returns to play his (reluctant) part in the Taiping Rebellion in the eighth volume of the critically acclaimed Flashman Papers. Unfortunately in China in 1860 a lot of people were depending on Flashman: the English vicar's daughter with her cargo of opium; Lord Elgin; the Emperor's ravishing concubine; and Szu-Zhan, the female bandit colossus, as practised in the arts of love as in the art of war. They were not to know that behind his Victoria Cross, Flashman was a base coward and charlatan. They took him at face value, and he took them for all he could, while China seethed through the bloodiest civil war in history, and the British and French armies hacked their way to the heart of the Forbidden City.Literary Books
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