Flashman in the Great Game - Chapter 12

How long has it been since I've done one of these? Oh...right...that long. Sorry about that. I've had a lot to read and not enough time to do it, and there's been a waning of interest with this particular volume of Harry's adventures. I've never been the biggest fan of Flashman in the Great Game. Harry often seems to act in very unFlashmanlike ways at times. There's also the subject material itself, it's largely a series of unrelenting blood soaked atrocities by both sides. I know, aside from Flashman himself, that it's all real, but it's still rather tedious to read.

Chapter 12 is a little different, although it's still frustrating at times. Harry is sent back to Jhansi to finish off the mission he was originally dispatched to India to perform. Although the mutiny has largely been put down, Jhansi, or rather the Rani, is still a problem. Harry makes the remark that if Lakshmibai weren't so attractive or young then there may not have been an issue with killing her, but she is both beautiful and young, she's also beloved by her people. Simply killing her is only going to make a bad situation worse.

The British, under Hugh Rose, have Jhansi under bombardment. Flashman likens Rose to another of his brothers in arms General George Custer. According to Harry both men looked similar and acted alike, but that's where it ended. Rose was very competent, Harry didn't share that opinion of Custer. He goes on to intimate had Rose commanded at Little Big Horn, instead of Custer things may have turned out differently. Harry can comment, he was at Little Big Horn (see Flashman and the Redskins).

MacDonald Fraser has managed to dig out an obscure text that supports the book's idea that the plan was to let the Rani escape and take her into custody that way. Flashman's obsession with Lakshmibai resurfaces. They have no problems convincing him to put the plan to her. He does this largely because aside from Elspeth and Havvy, the only person in the world Harry has any real affection for is the Rani. This interest has, to me, never really been explained.

Harry does worry that something will go wrong, that's his nature, it however goes worse than he ever could have imagined. He's intercepted by, of all people, Ignatieff. The Russian plans to out Harry on the rack to get him to give up information, he knows that won't take long, given Flashman's aversion to physical pain, and then rack him to death, just for the fun of it. Before Flashman can break, the Rani's major domo, who knows Harry, runs and fetches his mistress, who orders the torture to stop and roundly scolds Ignatieff.

While she cuddles up to Harry and accepts his message, she won't untie him, and has him escorted somewhere he can be kept under guard by her loyal Pathan Sher Khan. The name always reminded me of the villainous tiger in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. I wondered if the writer had been influenced by Flashman. I eventually concluded that as there's no mention of it, and Harry never misses an opportunity to drop a name, that it's just a coincidence.

When the time comes to escape Harry is taken with the Rani, and he's manacled to the saddle. The penny finally drops and Harry wonders if in fact he ever did have an encounter with the Rani all that time ago, and if he's being used. He can't get past his love of her, though. Very odd.

Tarzan of the Apes

The last of the B authors in the Must-Read Fantasy Novel challenge!

In 1912 a former pencil sharpener salesman wrote a book about a nobly born Englishman who was raised by a tribe of apes on the west coast of Africa.

The former salesman was Edgar Rice Burroughs and the book was Tarzan of the Apes. Burroughs would personally pen 23 Tarzan novels and the character would go on to become one of most iconic figures in western culture. Tarzan was the subject of 89 films, making film stars of out of 2 former Olympic swimmers (Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe) in the process and also had a radio and a TV serial made about his adventures.

The story and character in the films is not easily recognizable from the original book. Strangely enough one of the films to follow the book's storyline most closely was Disney's 1999 animated version, although suitably altered for the sensibilities of the younger audience.

While on a mission for the Brirish government John Clayton Lord of Greystoke and his young wife are marooned on the west Africa coast. Lady Alice Clayton gives birth to a baby boy and lives for a year before passing away of an unspecified illness. John Clayton is killed soon after by a band of marauding apes. A she-ape by the name of Kala has recently lost her infant and takes the young Lord Greystoke as a replacement.

The young Englishman is raised by the apes as one of their own and given the name Tarzan. Although no match for his ape playmates in terms of size and strength Tarzan does have intelligence and agility on his side. He uses these attributes to survive and gain status amongst the tribe.

One day Tarzan discovers the cabin his father built and where he had lived with his parents. Unaware that the skeletons in the cabin are those of his parents, Tarzan explores and becomes interested in the books within the cabin. Rather incredibly he teaches himself to both read and write English fluently with the help of the books in the cabin.

Tarzan becomes a hero to the apes by killing some of their enemies such as lions and gorillas, he also has the members of a local village of cannibal natives thinking he is a forest god. Eventually Tarzan becomes the leader of the tribe, after defeating the previous leader in single combat, he leaves the tribe following the death of Kala at the hands of the cannibal tribe.

Not long after this Tarzan sees some newcomers to the west African coast; treasure hunters. Amongst this group are the eccentric American scientist; Professor Archimedes Q. Porter, his associate and friend Samuel Philander, the British Lord (and coincidentally Tarzan's cousin) William Cecil Clayton, the negro maid Esmeralda and Professor Porter's beautiiful and spirited daughter Jane.

Tarzan becomes entranced by the beautiful white woman and largely because of this he assists the party and eventually rescues Jane when she is abducted by one of the apes. Jane is with Tarzan, falling in love with him, when a French ship comes to the aid of the small group and one of their party is captured by the cannibals. After depositing Jane back on the beach Tarzan goes back into the jungle and rescues the French officer; Paul D'Arnot.

D'Arnot contracts a fever, which Tarzan nurses him through and upon discovering that the wild man can read and write English, but not speak it, teaches him French. By the time D'Arnot and Tarzan arrive back at the beach, their ship has sailed.

Determining that Tarzan wishes to learn to live as a man, mainly for the purpose of pursuing Jane and winning her love, D'Arnot takes the jungle raised man to a colonial outpost. Tarzan becomes civilized and goes to the United States to be with Jane.

Unfortunately, believing that they could never be together, Jane has accepted a proposal of marriage from another.

The bittersweet ending is tempered by the news that there will be a sequel. In fact as I stated earlier there were actually 22 sequels.

Despite being an entertaining adventure novel with an interesting premise if Burroughs submitted Tarzan of the Apes to a publisher now I doubt it would be accepted for publication. At best the writing is clunky, many of the characters, with the exceptions of Tarzan and Jane, are cartoonish two dimensional characters, with the tribe of Africans being an offensive racist stereotype even given the less politically correct climate of the early 20th century and the research is almost non existent.

If you can get past the author's obvious failings as a writer you will be rewarded with an interesting and at times gripping adventure story that will give you an insight into the creation of one of the 20th centuries most popular and instantly recognizable fictional characters.

If you liked Tarzan enough to want to keep reading then Burroughs himself wrote numerous sequels, if the concept interested you it would be worth reading the book that may have inspired Burroughs; Rudyard Kipling's classic The Jungle Book, a collection of animal stories about the Indian jungle and it's inhabitants, the best known being the story of Mowgli, the abandoned 'man-cub' raised by a pack of wolves.