Review: Flashman and the Tiger

Flashman and the Tiger Flashman and the Tiger by George MacDonald Fraser
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It is with a mixed feeling that I took up this one. This is the last of the Flashman for me. Letting Flashman go away is like having a fun part of life come to an end.

I started the series without much expectation thinking of it to be a period romance. So the non-conventional story telling of Fraser was a surprise, a pleasant one though. Every book had its quirk and watched the movie adaptation of the one book, it was like I was not getting enough of Flashman.

So it was with a bit of sadness that I took this one. However, I ended up feeling that probably Fraser stopped the series with the next one as otherwise he would've been trapped by the template of the stories and would've killed the fun of Flashman. By ending the series, he made sure the sense of longing lingers on.

Now to the book itself. This one is one novella and two smaller stories. Of course, the Novella follows Flashman in Vienna in the middle of the Balkan crises. There is the lady spy, the princess and of course the multiple conspiracies with a murder attempt on the Austrian emperor. Though it was good, it was not matching up with the intrigues Flashman was part of in the other continents.

The Tronby craft affair is the center of the second story which of course is the weakest of all. In fact, I stopped reading for a while with the boring back and forths of a domestic intrigue.

'Flashman and the Tiger' the last story in the book is probably the best of the lot. Again a domestic issue with flashbacks into the Zulu war, the story is racy, has Flashman in his elements and have a cameo of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson at the end.
Overall, an interesting (though partially) book.

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Death...

This I wrote 2.5 years back when we faced a tragedy in the family. Today, I was forced to re-open and re-live the same again. It may be difficult to find sleep again for some days to come.

Why? This year, 2016, has been so far absolutely merciless with deaths strewn across the months like a crazy monkey tearing away flowers.

But again, the helplessness one feels to console oneself or others makes one humble and absolutely mad. There is no healing for this wound. 

"How does one reconcile with death? It stares at you and mocks. All that you thought will hold melts away in a minute. The face of the baby still-born remains in one's mind always. The terrible reality of of the realization that you are robbed of your precious dawns like a snake in the grass. Stealthily and steadily. The stab it makes in the heart marks a permanent wound and may never heal. The happiness drains away so fast you don't even realize the world you are in.

You lose a bit yourself, some part of it dies, when the grave is filled. It fills the world with grief, unbearable silence, a sense of hopelessness which may never be recovered.The world loses its meaning and you reel under the merciless wheels of time.

Time may heal the wound, the scar remains. How do you reconcile with yourself when you know that it is not going to be the same world you are going to live in again. Never again. The world changes a bit for worse. There is no going back.

The one you love, the one you want to be happy, when you see that he and she grieving and when you know that whatever you say will not turn back anything, how to live with that?

The supernatural, the God, has a terrible pact with death and lets Him take little babies away. What is the point of Him if He cannot save one little baby? Merciful, He isn't.

It was like a beautiful dream. A dream which just flitted with reality for a moment. It vanished the moment it touched reality. The dream gave such happiness to everyone. It was such a beautiful dream it breaks my heart to realize that it is no more.

Farewell, little one! We did not even had time to give you a name. You somehow detested to live in this sinful, pathetic world and chose to leave us all for the happiness beyond. We are happy for you, for you showed us what absolute happiness is, even though it is for a moment. You showed as what life could've been and that was absolute bliss. May be you will chose to come back to us. We will wait for that day and we love you with all our heart, it broke mine to bid you farewell this morning.  May you find eternal peace and take pity on us and send us another angel to our house. We hope and long for that."

கீழடி அருங்காட்சியகம்.

உலகம் முழுவதும் இருக்கும் பல அருங்காட்சியகங்களுக்கு சென்றிருக்கிறேன். நியூ யார்க், கத்தார், துபாய், வாஷிங்டன், லாஸ் ஏஞ்சல்ஸ் போன்ற நகரங்களின...