Customer Reviews

Mr American

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Some years before the beginning of World War One, Mr Franklin arrives in England, carrying two Remington revolvers and a bank draft worth a fortune.

Fraser uses this auspicious beginning to give us a view of Edwardian society from top to bottom, its highs and lows, its glories and its hypocrisies.

Mr Franklin has come to England to seek out the village from which his ancestors had emigrated in the 17th Century and to settle there; if ha has any expectations at all, it is that he will live a quiet life in a small, sleepy village. Of course, this is not what happens -- and thereby hang four stars worth of reading enjoyment.

From his accidental but most enjoyable encounter with London showgirl Pip, to his accidental but portentous encounter with a distinguished gentleman in the country who, despite his incognito, has a rather royal manner, through his brushes with Fraser's charming rotter, the elderly but still randy Harry Flashman (the young Churchill runs a bit shy of Sir Harry) and a hair-raising reminder of his past in America, Mr Franklin takes it all in stride, with a slightly bewildered interest...

It takes love to disturb him sufficiently that he will take decisive action.

An action that will be silhouetted against the backdrop of the beginning of World War One and its time.

This is not the rollicking romp that the Flashman books are, nor is it the cheerful, sometimes touching military fiction of "The General Danced at Dawn" and Fraser's other "Dand McNeill" stories... But it is a picture of a fascinating time and place that seems so recent in some ways and so long ago in others, a picture that helps to open and illuminate that time and place for the modern reader as, slowly but surely, it slips from living memory into "recent history", about which, if, as has been said, "the past is a different country", one can say that recent history is a foreign contry that lies just outside our own borders.

And, as when one visits such deceptively familiar but ultimately foreign places, one is advised to engage the services of a reliable native guide and translator to get the maximum enjoyment out of your visit. Accept Mr Fraser's offer to act in that capacity, and travel back to that time...

George MacDonald Fraser is one of my favorite authors. It used to be (before Amazon) that I would have to find his books in Canada or England, if I happened to be there. Now, of course, he's quite popular in this country. I love his Flashman series, and they have accompanied me on many a vacation.

Mr. American contains his usual historical accuracy, though it's not intended to be as funny as the Flashman series. Harry Flashman shows up though, but in this book he is used to decry the folly of war, in most of its forms, certainly that of WWI.

The title character is an American who becomes an observer of the decadence of post Victorian England, as well as one welcomed into it, as long as he is useful to those snobs whose society he is invited to enter. Whether he is to be amusing to King Edward, or to use his money to restore his wife's family fortunes, he is brought into the swim, only to find that it is a shallow pool indeed.

But along the way he comes into contact with delightful and trustworthy characters, none of whom are of the upper class, and it is these characters who make the snobs, by comparison, seem so feckless. Pip is as wonderful as Samson is loyal and unperturbable. It is these characters, and Prior and Thornhill, whom we are able to compare and contrast with Percy, the Claytons and those who surround the King. Pip, like most people who are positive and seemingly without a care, is in fact very ethical, supportive of her family, and without guile. The others, in their own ways, represent bedrock values and character, quite a contrast to the carefree, unethical, and undignified society people.

I highly recommend this book, for its sheer pleasure of reading it.

Fraser takes a break from the hilarious, over-the-top adventures of the Flashman series with this more sedate and gentle window into Edwardian England (although it should be noted that a very aged Flashman does make several cameo appearances from time to time to deliver straight talk and pinch the serving wenches). The title character is Mark Franklin, a former cowboy and outlaw (he rode with Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid as part of The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang), who struck it rich mining silver and is trying to become respectable. He's moved to England in 1909, searching for his ancestral village in an attempt to find himself a place to call home. While he has various adventures, both amorous and perilous, the book is mostly an excuse for Fraser to take the reader on an extended tour of the Edwardian years which bridged the end of Victorian era sensibilities with the rise of the horrors of modern life exemplified by WWI. With his vast riches Franklin quickly makes an entree to the upper classes, and unsurprisingly, what he finds "society" to be mostly selfish, shallow, blind to reality, and indifferent to morality, This is in sharp contrast to other characters from middle and lower classes, who embody more solid values and character, and are competent, productive members of society. Woven into the plot are such items as the "Irish problem," the suffragette movement, and the buildup to WWI. As usual, Fraser keeps things interesting with vivid characters and rapid pacing. Thankfully (and pointedly), the book ends as Britain mobilizes with appalling naivete for the war that would destroy a generation.

If you've never read George MacDonald Fraser, you've been missing out on one of the best novelists of our time. His Flashman series chronicles the hilarious, ribald adventures of Harry Flashman, the most reprehensible (and charming) rogue the British Empire has ever produced. While the Flashman Papers span the Victorian era, Mr. American takes place about eight years before the outbreak of World War I. It's the story of an enigmatic cowboy/miner named Mr. Franklin who arrives in London with two six shooters, and a bank draft for a fortune in silver. Why is he there? How did he make his money? I wouldn't even dare to reveal the twists of this fascinating, funny, adventurous plot. (Watch out for the aged Sir Harry Flashman who makes a cameo appearance!) This is the kind of addictive story that will make you skip work or cut classes so that you can finish it

As a devotee of the Flashman Papers, I bought Mr. American, largely on the promise of a "cameo" from Sir Harry himself. Here I am, 6 days and almost 600 pages later, in the afterglow that can only be achieved by reading an account through which you feel you have truly lived. The book is absolutely packed full of wonderful characters, none more so than the "hero", Mark Franklin, a character in whom we feel an immediate and lasting affinity. The real strengths of the book though, as usual, are in Fraser's turns of phrases and magical evocations of historic scenes and characters. My personal favourite was the image of old General Flashman, intently surveying the cheering, singing crowds around the Mall on the outbreak of the Great War "imprinting in his memory" the scene.

The book is one long, immersive evocation of Edwardian England and the social changes leading up to 1914, but at the same time it manages to be a social commentary on the British character, and still further its just a great story. While I did find myself laughing with delight (in public) at the appearances of ninety-year-old Flashman, it is certainly not all I will remember this book for. Im still musing about the ending now. If you've enjoyed any of Fraser's writing previously, or just have an interest in history, or enjoy reading good novels (I think Ive covered everyone there) - read this. It is, like its author, one of the greats.

After Black Ajax the idea of an essentially serious Fraser novel is a little less strange; when this came out, though, it was viewed as a definite anomaly in the middle of the Flashman series. It's an excellent, grown-up book that rings some interesting variations on classic western and innocents-abroad archetypes-- in some ways the answer to H.L. Mencken's famous jest that Henry James could have been a really great writer if only he'd gone west instead of east to Europe.

The straight-shootin' ex-cowboy at the center of Mr. American is, for all his supposed outlaw background, ultimately as much of an innocent as one of James' flowery young debutantes. Having made his pile out west (by means rough and tumble but less vicious than all the Londoners like to imagine), he goes to Europe to find refinement, culture, and-- he imagines-- the decency that life out west lacked. Of course he finds the exact opposite in an Edwardian England that is morally rotten and on the verge of the greatest iniquity of all, the mad self-destruction of World War I. Fraser does a beautiful job of making Mr. American simple enough to be disillusioned yet not so naive as to be comical; this is a fine, intelligent read, and-- though this is hardly the highest measure of a novel-- with its blend of John Ford and Merchant Ivory, such perfect movie material that it's hard to imagine why some aging star like Eastwood or Harrison Ford hasn't snapped it up and won an Oscar with it.

Mark Franklin, once an outlaw, had earned a fortune in the silver mines of Nevada, but had always romanticized England because of the tales of his family's descent from there, and from images of the Shakespeare he loved. So, with his fortune secure, in 1909, he visits England to make his home in the small village his ancestors came from.

He falls into aristocratic company, and meets everyone from the King to Winston Churchill to Sir Harry Flashman. Though he meets his future wife in that society, he eventually realizes that his wife isn't much better then the rest of the corrupt society. Having found little silver and much tarnish in England, and with World War I drawing near, he must decide: should he stay or should he go? And besides, there's always that outlaw past, ready to try to bite him . . .

Fascinating book, as Fraser displays an intimate knowledge of that era. It wasn't always that easy to understand Franklin's motives, and easy sometimes to laugh at his naivete, but I guess I'm not as straight a shooter as he was. My loss, not his.

Well worth reading, though it bogs down just a little bit in the middle.

It's late summer 1909 in Liverpool and a Yank steps off the boat from America. Mark Franklin is an authentic Westerner, his luggage containing Stetson, saddle, gun belt and two .44 Remington pistols.

I've been to England many times, and I love it. Unfortunately, my family's roots are not in the UK, nor have I had the longed-for opportunity to take up permanent residence there. In MR. AMERICAN, it's Franklin's great good luck to have made a fortune from a Nevada silver mine. This allows him to return to England in search of his roots - his forebears having immigrated to the Colonies hundreds of years before - and purchase the house, Manor Lancing, which dominates the Lincolnshire village of his ancestors, Castle Lancing.

I learned in English Lit 1A that every novel incorporates a conflict, which, in MR. AMERICAN, is subtle. To modern fiction readers, fed a steady diet of lurid murders-most-foul, global conspiracies, and courtroom duels, it may not seem like much of a conflict at all. Author George MacDonald Fraser, a Brit himself, has chosen to introduce into Edwardian society of pre- WWI England a rugged individualist matured in the late-19th century American West, and develop what happens. The WASP values that Franklin possesses from such a background - chivalry, self-reliance, forthrightness, loyalty, lack of class pretension, suspicion of authority - are occasionally at odds with the upper class social circle that soon adopts him.

For the reader, Mark will present as an appealing, stand-up fellow. The book is populated with interesting characters: Samson, Franklin's gentleman's gentleman; Pip, the effervescent West End stage actress; King Edward VII; Lady Helen Cessford, the militant suffragette; Peggy, the daughter of an impoverished country squire; Kid Curry, the unwelcome visitor from Franklin's ... um, shall we say, irregular past. And above all, there's the outrageous and aging rascal, General Harry Flashman, the hero of a whole other series of books by author Fraser.

I was undecided for a bit on the number of stars to award this novel - 3 or 4. At almost 600 pages, it isn't the type of book that keeps one riveted. The dramatic moments are occasional and of short duration, and there are a lot of loose ends that would have made an absorbing sequel inasmuch as the storyline ends in 1914 with the outbreak of the war. (Since MR. AMERICAN was published in 1981, no sequel has been written to my knowledge. Pity.) In the final reckoning, I gave it four stars because it's about an American who finds "home" and adventure of sorts in a green and pleasant land. I'm envious.

This was my first "non-Flashman" book by Fraser, and I was joyously stunned by the high level of writing. Someone called it "the perfect male romantic novel," and that hits the mark very well. If someone had described the plot to me, I'd have passed it by as sounding like a bit of a bore, but luckily no-one tried to describe it to me beforehand, and having just finished it, I'd rank it among one of the best novels I've read--and that's a lot of novels. So if anyone tells you that the bulk of it is about romance, Edwardian high-society hobnobbing, and marital difficulties, do not let that put you off! It is a d--ned fine book! And Flashy shows up now and then, ironically turning out to be one of the most moral characters to be found. The old goat just gets better--and more wicked--with age.

One quibble: The Carrol & Graf 1998 edition is *full* of apostrophe/quotation-mark errors, probably resulting from an attempt to translate British punctuation standards to American ones by way of a simple "find-and-replace" command on computer, and very cursory typo-checking afterward. I know I must sound like the school teacher I am, but it is sloppy and distracting, and sometimes makes for difficult reading--and is easily avoidable. I really don't think we Americans have much trouble at all understanding British punctuation or spelling, so American publishers should just leave well enough alone when printing British books. Of course this complaint is no reflection on the author at all--in fact, this novel has raised him greatly in my estimation, and he was already rather high.

I've read nearly all the books by GMF , all of the Flashman books and about 3/4's of the others . I found Quartered Safe Out Here as fine a memoir as I've read . Fraser doesn't hold back on anything and makes sure eveyone understand that war is about hate more than anything else , and if you are or were in the middle of it (a war) thats the way it's supposed to be .

Anyway I'm writing a review of Mr. American , the other reviewers said they liked this book better than the other Fraser books I'd have to agree .The protagonist Mr. Franklin is the typical strong silent type , he could give lessons to Gary Cooper . He also has a past , one he doesn't want revealed when he leaves America to come to Edwardian England .

The book has everything action ,suspense ,comedy , pathos , and like all of GMF's books an accurate history lesson . Flash Harry even makes several appearances throughout and renders his usual accurate evaluation of Mark Franklins character .

One of the key things I look for in a book when I read it is can the author bring me into this world and make me believe it's really happening , also does he have characters I like or have feelings for good or bad, Fraser does both with a vengeance . We respect and like Franklin almost immediatly and root for him throughout the book . We get to follow him everywhere and see his impressions on being the stranger in a strange land . The family he marries into partialy for their needs partially for his need for love and never having had a family . His meeting royalty and seeing and experiencing the court in all its "glory" is engrossing to say the least. the only thing I regret is that this book was setup for a sequel like no other and we've seen nothing of the sort from Fraser . We know Franklin changes his mind at the end of the book and doesn't go back to the states , but where does he go ,back to London to resume his life comfortable but unhappy , to see Flashy's niece , or to Africa with Samson to join the Selois (sp) scouts . I chose the latter . With more to follow after WW1 unfortunately GMF doesn't deliver , and at his age he won't likely and that's a disapointment . Anyway I highly recommend this book , I just wish instead of some of his others , Angel Of The Lord comes to mind we could have had another series .