Customer Reviews

Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard (New York Review Books Classics)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The success of the Sherlock Holmes stories has overshadowed the fact that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote many other stories of entirely different character. The New York Review of Books Classics has brought the `Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard' back to life. The Gerard character is said to be Conan Doyle's second best fictional invention.

The eight `Exploits' stories were published between 1894 and 1895 while the ten `Adventures' were published after a five year hiatus between 1900 and 1903. Like the Holmes tales, these pieces were published as serials in The Strand Magazine. Once again we owe a debt of happy gratitude to the NYRB for reviving this quirky, funny, heroic series of adventure tales.

The eponymous Gerard is one Etienne Gerard, a Hussar (a light cavalryman) in the French Army during the Napoleonic Wars. In other words, a character about as far removed from the dyspeptic intellectual detective of Baker Street as one can imagine. In the excellent introduction (one of the hallmarks of the NYRB Classics series), George Macdonald Fraser remarks on the courage Conan Doyle showed in showcasing a French hero fighting against the British less than 80 years after Napoleon was finally defeated (As Fraser notes "even today [the French ] are not notably popular north of the Channel"). Quite a feat of imagination.

Like Harry Flashman (Flashman: A Novel (Flashman)) and the lesser known Otto Prohaska (A Sailor of Austria: In Which, Without Really Intending to, Otto Prohaska Becomes Official War Hero No. 27 of the Habsburg Empire (The Otto Prohaska Novels)), Gerard is in his old age when he spins his stories to the reader. Gerard boasts that he is the greatest swordsman, horseman, and lover as well as the most loyal servant of Napoleon in the entire French army. And Conan Doyle permits Gerard to excel in all these measures and yet his excessive pride makes him obtuse. As Fraser put it Gerard is "vain, touchy, obstinate, reckless, boastful, and none too bright." He is entirely ingenuous, which repeatedly leads him to trouble and then he must slash his sword and dash away on his horse to escape. Gerard is charmingly unaware that he is a strutting French peacock; he assumes that others should and do recognize his exceptional qualities. Coming from a more self-aware man such cocksureness would be intolerable conceit.

I titled this review "What Would Harry Flashman Make of Etienne Gerard?" That's a fun question to speculate about. It would take a new Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Sir George MacDonald Fraser to do it justice. My guess is Harry would laugh up his sleeve at Gerard until he saw Etienne's sword swinging dangerously toward his head. For his part, I expect Gerard would be blissfully unaware of Flashman's disdain, but might he also detect Harry's certain 'shyness'?

The `Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard' are wonderful entertainments. Like the Sherlock Holmes stories, the pity is there are so few of them. Highest recommendation.

I knew Arthur Conan Doyle from his Sherlock Holmes series although I have not read any title from that. The "Exploits and Adventures of Birgadier Gerard" is surely one of the finest novels about the Napoleonic era and I highly recommend it to any fan of the Grand Armee and its battle hardened soldiers. The story begins with the long retired Brigadier starting to recall his war memories for the shake of his audience, over a glass of wine. And what a fascinating carreer did he have! He was a romantic lover, a proud Frenchman, an honest man, a terrific swordsman, a dashing cavalryman, and a soldier absolutely faithful to his duty: the real epitome of the French hussar who according to Colonel Lassale "should not live beyond the age of 30"! The old Brigadier explains with graphic detail and an amusing dose of egotism and pride how he lost his ear for the love of a girl in Venice, how he helped French troops to storm the spanish fortress of Saragossa, how he saved a whole army in the Peninsula, how he extricated himself from a grevious tactical mistake in Russia, how he beat the Englishmen in their national sport of fox-hunting and how Destiny prevented him from taking part in the climactic battle of Waterloo, a fact that Gerard honestly believes that doomed Napoleon! To build his story Doyle took many interesting facts and legends from real biographies of the period, like that of Baron de Marbot, but he made his story so enjoyable and colourful that is incomperable in terms of advenures and amusement.

Brigadier Gerard is everything that a Briton of Conan Doyle's time thought was an exemplar of the Napoleonic officer - and to a certain extent a caricature of the French themselves. Hopelessly and ridiculously brave, completely lacking in appreciation of the fine British virtues of sportsmanship, a devotion to L'Empereur, rather dim, obsessed with his honor and the honor of La France, and yet rather admirable too in his prickly way.

In this fine book the Brigadier regales us with stories of his youth, when most of Europe was part of the French Empire and opportunities abounded for young men who looked good in cavalry uniform. Gerard tells the story with no irony, but the reader laughs a good deal at the absurdities of the hero. When attempting to shoot the ash off a cigar he destroys the whole cigar instead, to the dismay of its smoker who is smoking it at the time. Clearly, Gerard maintains, the pistol is at fault. On a few occasions he succeeds when all expect him to fail and as a result his success is actually a failure. The stories encompass many of the great events of the Napoleonic wars: the horrors of partisan fighting in Spain, the invasion of Russia, war in the German states and Prussia, even capture by the British. Always the stories are superbly told with a very fine eye for realistic detail and they are often quite gripping. Again this is one of those books I am amazed has never been made into a film or a TV series.

George MacDonald Fraser has taken a good deal of the Gerard style for his Flashman series, although of course the two characters are poles apart in morality.

I recommend this book to all lovers of history novels and also to anyone who just likes to read superb stories in the grand old manner, where manly men are engaged in "honest" combat, and where evil enemies, treacherous peasants, and duplicitous politicos usually meet their doom under Gerard's cavalry saber.

Step away from your love of Holmes for a moment, and relish the thought of the imagination that brought you the Great Detective at work on other characters. If you can do that, then you will have to read some of Conan Doyle's other works. As a long-time fan of Holmes, I thoroughly enjoyed the Bridadier Gerard stories. Gerard views his life through the lens of his elephantine ego, and his exploits will make you laugh out loud...I guarantee it!! Yes, you have read all of the Sherlock Holmes stories again and again...now allow yourself to sample other dishes in the Conan Doyle banquet and you will not be disappointed.

For those who only know Conan Doyle via his Sherlock Holmes tales, his second most popular fictional creation may come as quite a revelation. With the eighteen "Brigadier Gerard" tales collected here, he created an affectionately mocking portrait of a swashbuckling French cavalry officer of the Napoleonic era. Gerard is a wonderful comic character, in his own not so humble opinion the foremost rider and swordsmen in all the Grand Armeé, he's also a favorite of the ladies, a stickler on points of honor, first volunteer for hazardous missions-and unbeknownst to him, marvelously thickheaded.

His "exploits and adventures" are presented as reminisces by the old grizzled officer, long into his dotage. Since he doesn't tell these in chronological order, this can be momentarily disconcerting, but only momentarily. Each episode runs approximately 20 to 30 pages and generally concerns some individual adventure he's assigned to or stumbles into. These are uniformly entertaining old-fashioned adventures in which Gerard sometimes triumphs, sometimes fails, but always upholds the honor and glory of the Emperor. He makes an interesting counterpart to Bernard Cornwell's gritty and equally heroic fictional British veteran of the Napoleonic wars, Richard Sharpe.

This new edition is to be commended, but it could have been further improved with the addition of a few maps, a general chronology of the Napoleonic era, and a glossary of the frequently used military terms of the era. Still, these are quibbles, and anyone with more than a passing familiarity with Napoleonic history will have no problems enjoying Gerard's tales.

Etienne Gerrard is a delight, cocky, self important, vain as a peacock, he is also brave to a fault, resourceful, energetic and the best swordsman in all of Napoleon's cavalry. He is also a bit thick in the head. He struts through the most hair raising adventures, and almost always comes out in one piece. You will be convinced in each story that he could not possible carry out his mission successfully, but he almost always does. At a time in Great Britain when the human costs of the Napoleanic Wars were still felt and France and England had only recently mended fences, Conan Doyles "typical" Frenchman was a delight to the British reader. This is not Sherlock's cold intellect. It is the passion of a very decent, courageous man who is devoted to his sovreign, and who will take on any task from wooing a beautiful woman to a Russian Regiment of cavalry. If you enjoy the Flashman books you will love this one just as much.

These gems of action storytelling will make you laugh out loud-- they have the best of Doyle's plotting and some very witty characterization. Etienne Gerard is first-cousin to GM Fraser's Flashman: he finds himself in the thick of every battle, often playing a pivotal role that only now can be told...

Of course, Flashy is cowardly where Gerard is brave, but they both think themselves irresistable to women and are master horsemen. Bright, fast, and funny, these short stories belong on the shelf next to all the Flashman novels. Fraser himself calls Doyle a "genius" in the introduction, and they belong in the same league of inspired storytelling. Too bad Gerard and Flashy never met-- Flash would have called him a bloody crapaud and Gerard would have said Flashy was a British beef....

Gerard is depicted as the best rider and swordsman in all of France (and beyond). As a young, egotistical officer, he quickly rises through the ranks by completing daring, yet comical adventures. I believe this to be Doyle's best work, since it is so well-rounded. Sometimes it is confusing when the chapters skip around. One minute he's 30 years old, the next 28. But this is because Gerard is telling his old war stories at a café throughout the book, and he skips around a bit. Highly recommended to fans of Doyle, or fanatics of Napoleon (especially the cavalry re-enactors).

Conan Doyle was a prolific writer in a variety of genres. Justly famous for the pioneering Holmes mysteries, he also wrote enjoyable science fiction - the Professor Challenger stories - and quite a bit of historical fiction. The best of his historical fictions are The White Company and Sir Nigel, a pair of books set in Medieval France and England. The Brigadier Gerard stories are not of the same quality as these novels but continue to be enjoyable reading.

Brigadier Gerard is a cavalry officer in Napoleon's army. A short, voluable Gascon (the same regional background as Dumas' D'Artagnon), Gerard is brave to the point of recklessness, slavishly loyal to the Emperor, a fine swordsman and rider, vain, and rather obtuse. Gerard is a caricature, but an affectionate and entertaining one. The combination of Gerard's character and the canvas of the Napoleonic wars allowed Conan Doyle to develop a series of entertaining adventure stories, often with a satirical twist. The satire is directed not only at the French but also at their English adversaries. Doyle's skill as a writer is displayed well in these tales. Overall, the stories in the second half of this anthology are better but all are enjoyable.

For those of you who (like me) thought that Arthur Conan Doyle's sole literary achievement was Sherlock Holmes, his "Exploits and Adventurers of Brigadier Gerard" is a must read. The good Brigadier is a delightful fictional character and I had a terrific time getting to know him as I worked my way through this collection of stories. Brigadier Gerard is, according to his greatest fan - himself, one of Napoleon's most brave, loyal, dashing, handsome, skilled, and debonair soldiers.

This NYRB collection of stories begins with a brief but very good introduction by the recently departed George MacDonald Fraser of Flashman fame. He sets Conan Doyle's stories in the context of the time in which they were written. Britain and France were still bitter rivals, if not enemies, and the Napoleonic Wars still loomed large in the imagination of British schoolboys and the British public. So the character of Brigadier Gerard takes on all the stereotypical attributes that the British had and may still have of the French. Gerard is arrogant but skilled enough to merit much of that arrogance. He has a very high opinion of his looks and skill with the ladies, but the ladies he encounters seem to think that self-assessment is well-earned. He proclaims his bravery and loyalty to all who'll listen, and many who won't but as his exploits and adventures attest, he actually does have something to brag about.

Now, on the surface Gerard may seem to be a bit on the insufferable side. But Conan Doyle does something masterful with him: he turn Gerard's insufferable ego into something that approaches charming. As MacDonald Fraser points out, Conan Doyle took the British stereotype of a French soldier but portrayed it in such a way as to make him charming and likeable and almost loveable. That is no small feat and this makes the stories all the more enjoyable.

The stories themselves are written in the form of Gerard's reminiscences as an old man. He takes us through pretty much all of Napoleon's reign on up to the closing stories of Napoleon in defeat and exile. The reader must, naturally enough, take some of these memoirs with a healthy dose of salt but that salt pretty much just enhances the stories' flavor. All in all this set of non Sherlock Holmes stories were delightful and I'm glad I discovered them. Recommended. L. Fleisig