"Romance, intrigue, broad comedy, gaudy settings, lavish dress..."

Occasioned by a new release of Richard Lester's Three Musketeers comes a review of a film I thoroughly enjoyed in a theater when it was first released, and have owned in some form ever since home video became affordable. The review reminded me that the screenwriter was one of my favorite authors. I just ordered Criterion's new edition, coming next week.

Few works have sparked the cinematic imagination as routinely as Alexandre Dumas’s 1844 novel The Three Musketeers. A hasty count indicates some 40 movie versions (the first and latest from France, in 1903 and 2023) and many more made just for television. But by common consent, the best yet is Richard Lester’s The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974), originally conceived as a single film with intermission but ultimately released as two separate pictures. ....

Three seasoned actors in their prime—Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain and Frank Finlay—were cast as the world-weary musketeers: Athos, Aramis and Porthos. Michael York, fresh from his central role in the soon-to-be Oscar-winning Cabaret, nabbed the plum part of the callow D’Artagnan (ultimately, the fourth musketeer)....

Raquel Welch, the very essence of feminine sexuality at the time, so her participation—as Constance, the queen’s dressmaker and the object of D’Artagnan’s ceaseless affections—was non-negotiable. Who knew then that this screen goddess, often as not wooden in dramatic parts, had talent as a comedic foil? ....

Landing Faye Dunaway after Bonnie and Clyde but before Chinatown and Network was a coup, and she portrays the ruthless Milady de Winter, an agent of much misery, with such unforgettable hauteur that it’s hard to imagine anyone else inhabiting the role. Christopher Lee lends her lover, the fearsome one-eyed Comte de Rochefort, exactly the kind of menace that made him irreplaceable on screen for so many decades. ....

...[T]he real casting masterstroke was placing Charlton Heston, one of Hollywood’s leading leading men, in the pivotal role of Cardinal Richelieu, the power behind the throne and the figure discreetly controlling most of the saga’s action. Heston plays Richelieu with a welcome light touch, giving just the right weight to sotto-voce comments, asserting authority by never raising his voice and letting an arched eyebrow or a sidelong glance serve his character’s needs. ....

...[T]he Scottish author George MacDonald Fraser, whose early “Flashman” novels, with their outlandish bounder protagonist, served almost as dry runs for his spirited condensing of Dumas’s massive chronicle into two efficient pictures, each running less than two hours. It was Fraser who, when Mr. Lester asked how a particular scene should look, said, “like a Breughel painted by Rembrandt”—a comment the director clearly took to heart.

None of this makes these pictures high art, but they are consummate entertainment. Few of us want a meal of Bergman and Bresson every night. Sometimes, the menu calls for romance, intrigue, broad comedy, gaudy settings, lavish dress, and, of course, sexy women and dashing men. And when you want to dine out on that, Mr. Lester is happy to serve you. (more)

David Mermelstein, "‘The Three Musketeers’ and ‘The Four Musketeers’: Richard Lester’s Spirited Swashbucklers," The Wall Street Journal, May 24, 2025.

“For the Snark was a Boojum, you see”

I've been looking through the archive of Michael Dirda's essays again. Here, he writes an appreciation of Lewis Carroll, especially The Hunting of the Snark:

On July 18, 1874, Carroll was out walking when a sentence suddenly popped into his head: “For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.” Most people would immediately wonder: What’s a Snark? What’s a Boojum? In fact, 150 years later, we’re still wondering whenever we read or reread his great nonsense poem, The Hunting of the Snark — which, by the way, has no established connection with the contemporary use of “snark,” meaning mockingly sarcastic.

At this time, Carroll was already quite familiar with bizarre creatures bearing strange names. Hadn’t he previously imagined the Jabberwock — “the jaws that bite, the claws that catch” — as well as the Jubjub bird and the frumious Bandersnatch? Those fearsome beasts first appeared in the heroic ballad “Jabberwocky,” part of Through the Looking-Glass, which also includes that other favorite of versified nonsense, “The Walrus and the Carpenter”:

The time has come,” the Walrus said,

To talk of many things;

Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax —

Of cabbages — and kings

And why the sea is boiling hot —

And whether pigs have wings.

In “Jabberwocky” — a frequent choice for grade-school recitation — an intrepid young champion, using a vorpal blade that goes snicker-snack, defeats a fearsome dragon-like creature. Its tale of derring-do grew out of four lines that, years earlier, Carroll had titled “Stanza From the Anglo-Saxon”:

Twas brillig and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

....Like any classical epic, The Hunting of the Snark starts in medias res. After sailing for many months and weeks, 10 adventurers finally land on an island that is — in the very first words of the poem — “Just the place for a Snark!” ....

Throughout these wonderfully lilting 141 stanzas one mystery or puzzle succeeds another. To begin with, we’re not precisely sure why the group is searching for a Snark. However, we do learn five ways to identify one that is “genuine,” implying that there are fake or imitation Snarks running about. A true Snark, says the Bellman, tastes crispy when cooked, gets up late in the morning, can’t take a joke, is ambitious and has a “fondness for bathing-machines/ Which it constantly carries about,/ And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes —/ A sentiment open to doubt.”

Some Snarks, we’re also told, have feathers and bite; others have whiskers and scratch. You might also occasionally encounter one that is a Boojum. This would be particularly dire for the Baker, the most agitated figure in the poem. Not only did he absent-mindedly leave his 42 boxes of luggage behind, but he is apparently called the Baker because he has somehow forgotten his actual name. Still, he vividly remembers the parting words of his uncle:

But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,

If your Snark be a Boojum! For then

You will softly and suddenly vanish away,

And never be met with again!

.... (more)

The book illustrated above is from my library. Martin Gardner also authored annotated editions of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass in The Annotated Alice.

Michael Dirda, "What is a Snark? For Lewis Carroll, a whimsical creature we’ll never know," The Washington Post, August 22, 2024.

Mr. Belvedere

Clifton Webb was one of the actors I really enjoyed from the studio era. He starred in several very good films, including Laura, one of the best films noir, another noir I liked was The Dark Corner, there was a World War II thriller, The Man Who Never Was (based on the Mincemeat plot), and he starred in many others. I also enjoyed him in his Mr. Belvedere comedies. The first of that series was Sitting Pretty (1948), and then Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (1949), Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell (1951), and Mister Scoutmaster (1953). Each of them can provide an undemanding, enjoyable, afternoon or evening.

Wikipedia's description of the plot of Sitting Pretty (which I intend to watch again tonight):

In the suburban Hummingbird Hill, lawyer Harry King and his wife Tacey have trouble retaining a nanny for their three young, rambunctious boys: Larry and Tony, both of whom get into frequent mischief with the family dog Henry; and baby Roddy. When the latest in a string of servants (all women) quits, Tacey advertises for a replacement and hires Lynn Belvedere sight unseen. However, she discovers that Lynn Belvedere is actually a man upon his arrival, a mysterious one with many skills and achievements – and who declares himself to detest children. Nonetheless, the Kings reluctantly agree to a trial period during which Belvedere quickly wins over the boys. However, his mysterious nature intrigues both of their parents, and Harry becomes annoyed by his condescending attitude. ....

In the meantime, we learn that Belvedere has spent the past few weeks secretly researching and writing a salacious account of the goings-on among the residents of Hummingbird Hill. In fact, the book's blurb describes it as "a screaming satire on suburban manners and morals". The published tome becomes a national bestseller, upsetting everyone in the community. ....

"Don't call me stupid"

Some films make me laugh even after many previous viewings. This is about one of them (and it references another):

...A Fish Called Wanda is a movie with many, many things going for it. Kevin Kline, for one; he won his Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing Otto, the Nietzsche-reading, Aristotle-misunderstanding, gun-wielding, armpit-smelling Ugly American who eventually becomes the villain of this movie. John Cleese as the bumbling barrister Archie Leach is another. And Maria Aitken’s as the tough-as-nails English upper-class housewife Wendy Leach is another, particularly when she’s getting the better of both Cleese and Klein. ....

...[T]he film is also the final film directed by Charles Crichton, a legend of British cinema. Working for Ealing Studios in the 1950s, he made The Lavender Hill Mob, one of the loveliest heist/caper movies ever made. Cleese and Crichton, who had been wanting to make a film together since 1969, began writing the script together in 1983. ....

A Fish Called Wanda...is the kind of constantly-propulsive, laugh-a-minute mid-budget studio comedy no one makes anymore. This alone should be enough of a reason for you to revisit it, frankly, but if you need another, how about this: you will laugh. You will. ....

Olivia Rutigliano, "I Don't Know Why, but It's Time to Watch A Fish Called Wanda," CrimeReads, Aept. 20, 2024.

All part of a plan

On "The philosophical genius of P.G. Wodehouse":

What runs through Wodehouse’s books like a seam of gold is the idea that everything will come right in the end. His stories are defined by an inexhaustible optimism that is not only comforting, but intelligent and thoughtful. Beneath the japes, scrapes, pig-stealing, and aunt-dodging, there’s a genuine attention to the texture of human existence.

The Jeeves stories, for instance, contemplate serious philosophical questions around human agency, fate, and the existence of free will. The joy of these stories is their predictability, and this is deliberate. No matter how difficult a fix Bertie gets into, the reader knows that the hidden hand of Jeeves will always be there, quietly directing events towards a satisfactory conclusion.

Bertie meanwhile remains oblivious, labouring under the delusion that he is free to decide the course of his life. This inevitably backfires. It’s often only at the end of each story that Bertie understands that his attempts at independent action have actually been part of a far grander plan envisioned by Jeeves. In this sense, the Jeeves stories are an allegory for real life: we go along believing we are masters of our own fate, but we do so unaware of the hidden forces directing our path. ....

It’d be obtuse to argue that P.G. Wodehouse should be remembered as a philosopher. He’d have no doubt thought that preposterous. But his reputation as a master of the English comic novel – though apt – obscures the brilliance of his writing. It should be remembered that although his books were comical, they were far from frivolous. They contain a resilient optimism that will comfort, cheer and entertain readers for generations. .... (more)

William Fear, "The philosophical genius of P.G. Wodehouse," Engelsberg Ideas, July 22, 2024.

Uncontrollable laughter

When the Inklings gathered the usual routine was for one of them to read from something on which he was working. Apparently, when none were prepared to present, Irene Iddesleigh would be brought out. The game was to see how much could be read without someone bursting out in laughter.

Irene Iddesleigh is a free download or can be read online at ManyBooks. The challenge posed to the Inklings would be difficult, I think, for any group. It definitely is for me. I suffer the impulse almost immediately.

If conversation lags open Irene Iddesleigh, read it aloud, and see whether you can retain your composure better than Lewis or Tolkien.

A gold heist

I just watched a recently acquired Blu-ray of one of my favorite British comedies, The Lavender Hill Mob (1951). It was produced by Ealing Studios, a company that became famous for a whole series of great comedies, many—including this one—starring Alec Guinness. Other Ealing films that I always enjoy sharing: Whiskey Galore!, Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Man in the White Suit, the original The Ladykillers, and A Run for Your Money, all of which except the first have Guinness in the cast. If you enjoy British humor, you will enjoy any of them. CrimeReads recently published an essay about The Lavender Hill Mob which I excerpt below:

.... It is about two men, neighbors in the small Battersea London neighborhood of Lavender Hill, who become unlikely collaborators, compatriots, and friends by giving into their desires and pursuing a life of crime. Our hero is a mild-mannered bank transfer agent played by Alec Guinness,...and a frustrated artist played by Stanley Holloway (best known as playing Alfred Dolittle in My Fair Lady), who team up to commit an extraordinary heist.

Guinness...is our antihero Henry Holland. He has dutifully worked for the bank for two decades, facilitating the transfer of gold bullion from foundry to vault, every week. Holloway is Alfred Pendlebury, who dreams of being a sculptor but has to settle for carving stone in his off-hours; his day job is making lead souvenir statues. But it’s not long before Holland realizes that, if one wanted to smuggle stolen gold out of the country, all they’d have to do is melt and smelt it into figurines and ship them abroad.

Holland knows that, even if he gets promoted, he’ll never ever make enough money to live a good life. Pendlebury knows he’ll never make it as an artist. So, the realization of an easy smuggling opportunity gives them both a new raison d’être. But they’re going to need help, so they pretend to be tough-guys and enlist the help of two criminals (Alfie Bass and Sidney James), forming a bank robbing gang for the ages. ....

There are many magical tidbits sprinkled through, including a tiny appearance by a young, pre-fame Audrey Hepburn, and a young, pre-fame Robert Shaw. ....

Olivia Rutigliano, "The Escapist Joys of The Lavender Hill Mob," CrimeReads, May 15, 2024.

Humor today

Fawlty Towers is about to reappear, this time on stage. I bought the entire series on DVD some time ago. It's funny. John Cleese on humor:

.... In comedy, context is everything: part of the problem with humour today is that people have lost sight of that. Some people still think “The Germans” is controversial because of the scene in which Basil imitates the Nazi goose-step, but the only people who have never complained about that episode are the Germans themselves. They know the comedy is never at their expense. Those who do take exception to this episode also criticise the moment in the hospital early on when Basil jumps back on encountering a black doctor. I pinched that from WC Fields, because I thought it was funny. The point of that particular moment is that we are all frightened by whatever is unfamiliar. It’s Basil’s naivety that makes you laugh.

But when people get mired in ideas about comedy and victimhood, they stop thinking. They lose sight of those distinctions of context. I’ve recently been working on a stage show of the 1979 Monty Python film Life of Brian, which we’re hoping to open in London next year. When we had a read-through in America last year, some of the actors objected to a scene from the film in which Eric Idle’s character says he’s going to become a woman. They said, “We can’t include this scene!” To which I said “Why not? It has amused people for 40 years…” No one was offended until a couple of years ago. ....

These days it’s almost mandatory that everyone gets offended by one thing or another, but it doesn’t breed in you a good state of mental health. A friend of mine who suffered greatly from depression recently underwent cognitive behavioural therapy which is all about reframing negative opinions, changing your mindset. But the extreme woke believe the opposite to this: that whatever you feel about something is entirely valid and should never be questioned. Which basically means Freud was wasting his time. .... (more)

A favorite film of mine starring John Cleese is A Fish Called Wanda.

John Cleese, "Basil Fawlty would be bewildered by the country England has become – and so am I," The Telegraph, April 26, 2024.

PDQ Bach, RIP

I grew up next to a college campus. The college had a serious music department and from an early age I was taken to both instrumental and vocal recitals and concerts. All of my closest friends in high school were serious about classical music. They also thought PDQ Bach was hilarious and introduced me to Schickele's albums. This obituary today reminded me of that less serious side of our enjoyment of music.

Peter Schickele who has died aged 88, was better known as the fictional composer PDQ Bach, whose Victor Borge-style parodies delighted and entertained audiences; he was equally inventive with instruments, coming up with a trombone-bassoon combination known as the tromboon and the left-handed sewer flute.

A grizzly-bearded, Brahms-like figure, Schickele looked like a refugee from a psychedelic Sixties rock band. He claimed to be head of musical pathology at the non-existent University of Southern North Dakota in Hoople, where he was engaged in excavating the work of PDQ Bach, “history’s most justifiably neglected composer”.

His creation took on a life of its own, with a back story that cast a wickedly irreverent eye over the more pretentious aspects of musical scholarship. PDQ Bach (born 1807, died 1742) was the “last and least talented” of Johann Sebastian’s 20 sons and credited with composing anything that traditional musicologists loved to unearth in dusty archives: oratorios, cantatas, motets and madrigals. ....

In the course of his “research” Schickele came upon such masterpieces as PDQ Bach’s Missa Hilarious, the dramatic oratorio Oedipus Tex and Eine Kleine Nichtmusik, in which Mozart’s famous serenade is overlaid with snatches from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Stravinsky’s Petrushka.

Schickele fiercely denied having a hand in their creation, insisting that they had all been found in dustbins, attics and the like. ....

Opera made an appearance in the form of The Abduction of Figaro; The Civilian Barber and Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice, described as “an opera in one unnatural act”. The Half-Nelson Mass was not easily forgotten by its victims, nor was the “Canine Cantata” Wachet Arf. ....

In PDQ Bach, Schickele created a character that was at once richly comic and brilliantly plausible. ...[M]uch of his humour relied on wrong notes and unusual juxtapositions. By remaining close to the truth, his ingeniously orchestrated hoaxes were both pointed and entertaining, with the music deriving its satirical edge from the creator’s comprehensive knowledge of the appropriate idioms. .... (more)

"Peter Schickele, composer, impish parodist and ‘discoverer’ of the works of PDQ Bach," The Telegraph, January 19, 2024.

Present laughter

I liked John McCormack's explanation of one of the reasons he enjoys working at The Dispatch:

On a personal level, what I missed most about The Weekly Standard was all the laughter that filled that office. It may seem like a small thing, but I’ve found that producing political journalism (especially when the state of our national politics is bleak) is much more enjoyable when you can laugh with your friends and colleagues about the many absurdities of politics, journalism, and daily life. Those are interactions that can’t be perfectly replicated in a Slack channel or a Zoom call, so it feels good to be back seeing colleagues, at least a couple days a week, in person.

That reminded me of Michael Oakeshott on being conservative:

To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.

Vermont in the Fall

Not a typical Hitchcock, but one of his favorite films, The Trouble with Harry (1955) is one of Hitchcock's few comedies. It's a good movie, set in New England in the Fall. And the Fall colors are great.

The kid is Jerry Mathers, later the Beaver.

Mocking the "man-god"

Carl Trueman uses the newest controversy about Monty Python's The Life of Bryan, to illustrate "Blasphemy Then and Now":

The original movie was controversial because it mocked the God-man, the central truth of the Christian faith. Now it is controversial because it mocks the man-god, the central truth of our contemporary world. That it is “Loretta,” not Brian, who is now the most offensive character in the story is indicative of a sea-change in our cultural understanding of what is holy and what laws must therefore not be transgressed.

Opponents of blasphemy then and of blasphemy now share something in common: a concern to protect that which is sacred. But that is where the similarity begins and ends. Old-style blasphemy involved desecrating God because it was God who was sacred. Today’s blasphemy involves suggesting that man is not all-powerful, that he cannot create himself in any way he chooses, that he is subject to limits beyond his choice and beyond his control. That such blasphemy is obviously and undeniably true does not make it less offensive to the modern secular priests and priestesses whose power depends upon guarding our culture from reality. Ironically, John Cleese has now been indicted for blasphemy under both regimes. Regardless of where one stands on the merits of Life of Brian, his constant state of disfavor would perhaps suggest that he is actually an exceptionally competent comedian. (more)

Carl R. Trueman, "Blasphemy Then and Now," First Things, June 8, 2023.

"Outdated"

If you enjoy Wodehouse keep your hard copies. The "sensitivity readers" have been busy. From The Telegraph (UK):

Jeeves and Wooster books have been rewritten to remove prose by PG Wodehouse deemed “unacceptable” by publishers, the Telegraph can reveal.

Original passages in the comic novels have been purged or reworked for new editions issued by Penguin Random House.

Trigger warnings have also been added to revised editions telling would-be Wodehouse readers that his themes and characters may be “outdated”.

One warning states that the writer’s prose has been altered because it was judged to be “unacceptable” by Penguin, a publishing house which enlists the services of sensitivity readers.

The disclaimer printed on the opening pages of the 2023 reissue of Thank you, Jeeves states: “Please be aware that this book was published in the 1930s and contains language, themes and characterisations which you may find outdated.

“In the present edition we have sought to edit, minimally, words that we regard as unacceptable to present-day readers.” ....

The Telegraph can reveal that edits have also been made to the 2022 edition of Right Ho, Jeeves, which carries the same disclaimer warning the reader of outdated content, and stating that changes have been made to Wodehouse’s original text. ....

In Thank You, Jeeves, whose plot hinges on the performance of a minstrel troupe, numerous racial terms have been removed or altered, both in dialogue spoken by the characters in the book, and from first-person narration in the voice of Bertie. ....

It is understood that trustees of the writer's literary estate control the bulk of the copyrights for Wodehouse, who lived from 1881 to 1975, and became noted as a prolific author of more than 90 books, a body of work which is often hailed as the funniest in the English language.

More, from The Spectator: "The trouble with censoring Jeeves and Wooster"

Craig Simpson, "Jeeves and Wooster stories censored to avoid offending modern readers," The Telegraph, April 15, 2023.

Rumpole of the Bailey

From "Remembering Rumpole":

Horace Rumpole deserves a place alongside Bertie Wooster, Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, James Bond, and Father Brown as one of the best creations in all of British popular fiction. ....

Shortly after [John] Mortimer’s death, Christopher Hitchens wrote of him in Vanity Fair: “It is given to very few people to create one imperishable fictional person, and then to see that very person take on life and flesh as if animated by Pygmalion. In the name and figure of Horace Rumpole, old rogue and old hero of the Old Bailey, as impersonated—no, incarnated—by Leo McKern, we have someone for the ages, someone who will be available at need to our inner eye and ear every time it is demonstrated once again that ‘the law is an ass.’”

Likewise, P.D. James once noted that, “Rumpole, like Jeeves and Sherlock Holmes, is immortal.” ....

Rumpole, though far from perfect, is by and large an admirable barrister. And his adventures aren’t as predictable as those of, say, Perry Mason. Rumpole, not infrequently, loses in court. Sometimes his victories merely consist of getting a charge slightly reduced. In Rumpole and the Old Boy Net, he clears his clients of a blackmail charge but they are nonetheless convicted of running a house of prostitution. In more than one story, he acquits a client of a murder charge only to find out later that his client was actually guilty (Rumpole often represents clients he believes to be guilty, but he will not represent anyone who openly admits his guilt; so long as a client insists that he or she is innocent, Rumpole feels duty-bound to try to prove their innocence in court, even if he suspects they might be guilty). In Rumpole and the Spirit of Christmas, Rumpole is outfoxed by a prosecutor who uses Rumpole’s alcoholism to defeat him court. In Rumpole and the Golden Thread, he travels to the fictional African country of Neranga to defend an old student of his who has been charged with murder. Rumpole wins an acquittal by using a defense that ultimately gets his client murdered.

As noted, Rumpole has many failings as a husband, lawyer, and provider. He admits that he cheated in order to pass the bar exam. He hasn’t saved a penny for retirement, he occasionally bounces checks, and boasts that he never pays a bill on time. But his many small faults are outweighed by his major virtues: sympathy for the underprivileged, a passion for justice, and a determination to keep his clients out of jail. ....

The stories are clever and witty. And, as Mortimer himself pointed out, each individual story generally contains three different strands braided together—a trial to be won, a domestic problem with Hilda to be resolved, and some sort of contretemps in Chambers that must be confronted. But probably the best reason to read the Rumpole stories is Rumpole himself. He is endlessly fascinating and his adventures (almost always told in the first person, though occasionally he allows another character to fill in the blanks) are replete with epigrammatic observations about life, love, literature, and, above all, the law:

• I’m not sure that I like cast iron alibis. They’re the sort that sink quickest, to the bottom of the sea.
• You know what we always say in Court? Listen to the questions. The questions are so much more important than the answers.
• Contempt of Court should be a silent exercise, like meditation.

Rumpole on Amazon Prime Video

Kevin Mims, "Remembering Rumpole," Quillette, April 1, 2023.

A reprobate hero

George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series is surely one of the most entertaining ways to learn 19^th century history. This essay explains why, but also why it may be difficult to find the books on library shelves these days.

.... Flashman was born to Lady Alicia Paget and Henry Buckley Flashman MP. After he was expelled from Rugby School at the age of 17, he joined the 11th Hussars under James Brudenell, Earl of Cardigan, and was sent to Afghanistan, where he became one of the few Britons to make it back from Kabul during the First Anglo-Afghan War (1838–42). He subsequently saw action in the First Anglo-Sikh War (1845–46), the Crimean War (1853–56), the Indian Rebellion (1857), the Taiping Rebellion (1850–64), the American Civil War (1861–65), the Second Franco-Mexican War (1861–67), and the Anglo-Zulu War (1879).

He knew or met nearly all the eminent Victorians, including Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold, Chinese Gordon, Lord Palmerston, the Duke of Wellington, Benjamin Disraeli, Oscar Wilde, and Queen Victoria herself. His romantic conquests were no less illustrious. Lola Montez, Queen Ranavalona of Madagascar, and Daisy Greville, Edward VII’s mistress, all, at one time or another, shared Flashman’s bed (or he theirs). He was the only man to survive both the charge of the Light Brigade and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and he was (probably) the only man to sleep with both Lillie Langtry, the actress, and Yehonala, the last empress of China.

If you think that all sounds too extraordinary to be true, you’re right. ....

...[George MacDonald] Fraser insisted that he was merely the editor of Flashman’s memoirs, found in a tea chest during a country-house auction, and he provided footnotes and appendices to prove it. .... Fraser evoked the Victorian era so deftly that many reviewers of the first Flashman novel fell for the ruse, taking the character for a real man. One critic even declared that the pages were the greatest find since the discovery of James Boswell’s diaries.

It was a fitting mistake, for Flashman is a brilliant con artist, capable of pulling the wool over almost anyone’s eyes. ....

Flashman’s list of admirers is nearly as impressive as his list of lovers. Kingsley Amis, Christopher Hitchens, David Mamet, and Charlie Chaplin all confessed to being Flashy fans. P.G. Wodehouse rarely praised other novelists, but when Fraser’s name came up he gushed: “If ever there was a time when I felt that ‘watcher-of-the-skies-when-a-new-planet’ stuff, it was when I read the first Flashman [novel].” The character’s appeal derives, in part, from his candor. Though Flashman lies to everyone around him, he never lies to his readers. ....

Fraser was just as good at portraiture. Flashman was his crown jewel, but there are plenty of other gems in the series: the hero’s airheaded wife Elspeth; his cantankerous father-in-law, John Morrison; and John Charity Spring, the half-mad classicist who shanghaies Flashman aboard the Balliol College. Some of the most vivid people we meet are actual historical figures like Lord Cardigan, of Light Brigade fame, and John Brown, the abolitionist whose raid on Harpers Ferry helped precipitate the American Civil War. The most delightful of all is almost certainly the congressman from Illinois, whom Flashman first encounters at a Washington soirée in 1848: “I liked Abe Lincoln from the moment I first noticed him, leaning back in his chair with that hidden smile at the back of his eyes, gently cracking his knuckles.” .... (much more)

I've posted about the Flashman books before, here and here. If you wish to follow Flashman's career chronologically, there is a helpful chart at the foot of this post.

Graham Daseler, "A Jolly Good Scoundrel," Quillette, March 17, 2023.

Updated

When making classics appropriate for modern readers:

Sensitivity readers have been busy lately, first rewriting the works of Roald Dahl, and then trimming Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, ostensibly making them less offensive to modern readers. So what will they edit next – and how might they bring it into line with modern mores?

Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
A honey-loving bear goes on a macrobiotic diet, and his best friend Eeyore is prescribed anti-depressants. Christopher Robin receives anti-psychotic medication to alleviate the delusion that animals are talking to him. ....

Dracula by Bram Stoker
A vampire learns to seek consent from beautiful women and people without wombs who identify as women before sucking their blood, and agrees to stop at any point that they change their minds about being blood donors. ....

The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
A group of schoolboys stranded on a deserted island form a commune and survive by engaging in a Marxist dialectic. They decry adults as bourgeois imperialists, and a pig-hunting expedition ends with them all deciding to become vegans. ....

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Three children are rescued by child protective services and learn not to talk to strangers hiding in the back of closets.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Authorities shut down a school where pupils routinely risk their lives playing Quidditch and die in dangerous competitions, experimenting in the dark arts, or attacked by Death Eaters, killing curses and werewolves. The building is found to lack permits for moving staircases and its ubiquitous use of candlelight is branded a fire hazard. ....

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
A sexually ambiguous Mole, Rat and Badger persuade wealthy Mr Toad to share his fortune and turn Toad Hall into a shelter for underprivileged weasels. Mr Toad reveals that he identifies as a Frog, legally alters his species, and changes his pronouns to they/them.

Peter Sheridan, "After Dahl: what the sensitivity readers did next," The Spectator, March 1, 2023.

Shedding green blood

From The Napoleon of Notting Hill:

.... Tolstoy and the Humanitarians said that the world was growing more merciful, and therefore no one would ever desire to kill. And Mr. Mick not only became a vegetarian, but at length declared vegetarianism doomed (‘shedding,’ as he called it finely, ‘the green blood of the silent animals’), and predicted that men in a better age would live on nothing but salt. And then came the pamphlet from Oregon (where the thing was tried), the pamphlet called ‘Why should Salt suffer?’ and there was more trouble. ....

G.K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)

"Born nakedly to shiver"

In "Whatever Happened to Light Verse?" I enjoyed Phyllis McGinley's "Lament for a Wavering Viewpoint":

I want to be a Tory And with the Tories stand, Elect and bound for glory With a proud congenial band.    Or in the leftist hallways I gladly would abide, But from my youth I always Could see the other side.	But all my views are plastic, With neither form nor pride. They stretch like new elastic Around the Other Side; And I grow lean and haggard With searching out the taint Of hero in the Blackguard Of villain in the saint.
How comfortable to rest with The safe and armored folk Congenitally blessed with Opinions stout as oak. Assured that every question One single answer hath, They keep a good digestion And whistle in their bath.	Ah, snug lie those that slumber Beneath Conviction’s roof. Their floors are sturdy lumber, Their windows, weatherproof. But I sleep cold forever And cold sleep all my kind, Born nakedly to shiver In the draft of an open mind.

Kevin Mims, "Whatever Happened to Light Verse?," Quillette, Jan 21, 2023.

Just like the Trapp family

Aloise Buckley Heath, William F. Buckley's sister, was blessed with ten children. I have a collection of her stories, Will Mrs. Major Go to Hell? Annually during the Christmas season one of the stories is re-published by National Review. One of my favorites has always been "A Heath Christmas Carol Program" from 1966.

With all the gaiety and caroling that goes on in our house all year round, it is only natural that we plan, early every December, a Christmas carol program, to put it on tape after it is absolutely perfect and send it to the children’s grandmother as an absolutely unique, unprocurable-in-stores Christmas gift. ....

Our carol program this year was to be not just Mother at the piano, John at the recorder, and nine children singing in unison. It was to include part singing, solos, duets, trios, and quartets, Buckley on the drums, ten-year-old Jennifer on the triangle, and a piano duet by Betsey and Alison, who are eleven and twelve and hate each other.

Our first difficulties I could see coming. Buckley played the drums, not with a gently medieval boom, or even with a gay 17th-century rat-a-tat, but as if he were soloing during a pause in a program by the Rolling Stones, which was impressive, to be sure, but reduced the singers to utter inaudibility. Jennifer ting’d on the triangle whenever it seemed to her that she had not tung for quite long enough, and Betsey and Alison, who have never entirely grasped the purpose of a duet, exchanged sidelong black-eyed glares and raced each other through “Jingle Bells,” Alison winning handily by a good two and a half measures. ....

Our repertoire was nearly finished when Pam addressed the group in less than a friendly tone.

“If anybody’s being funny around here, they just can just stop it right now.”

There was a blank silence. Long blue eyes met wide black eyes without the glimmer of a twinkle. Pam waited a minute, then she said: “Mother, let’s start over, and I’ll take the piano while you come out here and listen. There’s something peculiar going on. Now listen carefully.”

I listened carefully, and it was then I decided my children are either not quite bright enough to live, or else they are too gay to bear.

Do you know what “afforient” is? Neither did I till I heard Priscilla, who is 15 and who should know better, sweetly warble that the three kings afforient were, and I asked her. “Afforient,” if you are interested, is the state of being disoriented, or wandering, as one does over field and fountain, moor and mountain.

And has anybody ever wondered where the Ranger is on Christmas Eve? Has anyone, for that matter, ever given a single thought to the Ranger on Christmas Eve? Well, Betsey Heath has. “Away is the Ranger,” she will inform you, if you listen carefully. And obviously, he is away because there is no crib for his bed. ....

Have you ever wondered, in the long watches of the night, what Child is this who laid to rest on Mary’s lap is sleeping? Well, it is the Child whom angels greet with Ann the Sweet, while shepherds’ watches keeping. Well, St. Ann was Mary’s mother, certainly sweet and probably dead, argued Alison. Why wouldn’t she be with the angels? As for the shepherds, what with their setting off for Bethlehem, well-known for its good and bad thieves, keeping their watches was a very friendly gesture on the part of the angels. Ann the Sweet probably thought of it. ....

Pam, even Pam, kept announcing in her clear, sweet contralto that God and sin are reconciled; but she realized immediately, when it was pointed out to her, that God was far more likely to reconcile Himself to sinners than to sin, even if the book hadn’t said so, which it had. 

Jim had to argue a little. He was the one who kept urging the shepherds to leave their “you’s” and leave their “am’s” and rise up, shepherds, and follow.

“What in Heaven’s name is this about you’s and am’s?” I asked him. 

“Oh-h-h, rejection of personality, denial of self,” said Jim grandly. “Practically the central thesis of Christian theology.”

“Of course, I don’t go to a Catholic college, but I think that’s Communist theory, not Christian theology,” I told him. “In any case, could you come down from those philosophic heights and join us shepherds down here with our ewes (female sheep) and rams (male sheep)?” ....

But I was too weary to go on. “Children,” I said. “Let’s just do one song absolutely perfectly. Let’s concentrate on ‘Silent Night,’ because that’s the one we know best anyway. ....

They lined up, looking very clean and handsome and holy, Jim and John at the back, Timothy and Janet on either side of Pam at the piano, and the middle echelon sensibly and unquarrelsomely distributed in the middle according to heights. Just like the Trapp Family, I thought to myself happily. Pam turned and gave them all a long and, I hoped, stern look, before she played the opening measures.

“Silent night, holy night,” nine young voices chanted softly, and I noticed Jennifer and Betsey beginning to break up in twinkles and dimples. “All is calm, all is bright,” they went on, John’s recorder piping low and clear. Buckley and Alison clapped their hands briefly over their mouths. “Round John Virgin, Mother and Child,” the chorus swelled sweetly, and I rapped hard on the piano. “Just who,” I asked, in my most restrained voice, “is Round John Virgin?”

“One of the twelve opossums,” the ten young voices answered promptly, and they collapsed over the piano, from the piano bench onto the floor, convulsed by their own delicate wit.

And that’s why we didn’t have this year’s Christmas carol program.

— A story by the late Aloïse Buckley Heath is a NATIONAL REVIEW Christmas tradition. This, her last Christmas piece, was published two weeks before her death in January 1967.

Aloise Buckley Heath, "A Christmas Carol program," National Review, Dec. 27, 1966.

Good grief!

An appropriate recognition:

A century after his birth and two decades after his death, the Peanuts characters remain beloved American icons. What American doesn’t know Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, or Lucy? The Peanuts Christmas special, made in 1965, remains a holiday tradition. The Peanuts Movie, released in 2015, made a quarter of a billion dollars worldwide. The U.S. Postal Service is honoring the centennial with stamps of the Peanuts characters — but not of Schulz himself, who always insisted that he should be known only through his comics. ....

Watterson, who has written that Schulz “blazed the wide trail that most every cartoonist since has tried to follow,” is the first to acknowledge his debt to the melancholy Minnesotan. Schulz expanded the whole idea of what a comic strip could be about, and he did so without ever depicting an adult. ....

.... More than anyone else in the popular culture of the day, the sensitive and cerebral Schulz grasped something important about childhood: that it is a time not only of play but of anxiety, insecurity, social uncertainty, and the struggle to forge an identity and place in the world. The Peanuts gang knows only unrequited love and endless frustration, except when Snoopy is disappearing into his Walter Mitty fantasy lives. Schulz also understood that portraying these feelings in children would resonate with adults, because so many adults still carried those emotional scars, as he did for his entire life. Peanuts could be clever or wickedly funny at times, but it was the pang of emotional recognition that bound audiences to its characters. .... (more)

Dan McLaughlin, "Charles Schultz at 100," NRO, Dec 1, 2022.