Flashman, Kipling and Testosterone Poisoning

Published: January 8, 2008, 12:27 am

Henry at Crooked Timber has an interesting post up remembering George Macdonald Fraser, the author of the Flashman novels (link). Henry's point is that "good old Flashman" was actually a rather nasty piece of business, and that one shoudn't be too casual about indulging a taste for his general thuggishness. Here's an afterthought: I did read a couple of the Flash books when I was young and found them falling-out-of-bed funny. I read another (Flashman and the Great Game) just a few years back and found it tedious, hard to finish. Great Game is, if I count right, only fourth in the series; the others must have been even earlier. So all of these are part of the earlier, allegedly nastier, Flashman, not the later, more sanitized and allegedly more boring vintage.I can't say for certain what caused my change of view, but here is a possibility: decline of testosterone poisoning. I never was a particularly laddish lad, but I was moreso then than I am now, and I suspect that I did

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