Ep. 122 Flashman's Lady

"There's no such thing as an unfashionable hero or an unsuitable
heiress." Hot off their five-hour excursion into Swishbuckler
Cinema, hosts John Cribbs and Christopher Funderburg trace the
sordid subgenre's origins to George MacDonald Fraser's expansive
series of novels featuring Harry Paget Flashman, a self-described
"scoundrel with no proper feelings" who often finds himself
cowering miserably in the middle of some of the 19th century's
greatest military disasters. For this episode, our hosts randomly
selected Flashman's Lady (1977), the sixth book of the 12-part
"Flashman Papers," to see how successful the author was at mixing
rousing adventure with rakish humor. From performing the first hat
trick in a cricket match to crossing swords with East Indies
pirates and being enslaved in Madagascar, unscrupulous cad and
insatiable lecher Flashman never misses an opportunity to represent
all the worst elements of colonial Victorian England...yet somehow
comes off as delightfully roguish? The discussion digs into the
series' multi-layered parody of historical texts, MacDonald
Fraser's irreverent razing of cultural myth and how a morally
repugnant character can still be appealing as a narrator and
leading character within the framework of picaresque fiction.
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twitter.com/cfunderburg Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea
for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"