Rating: 
Summary: A good book to read on a rainy day
Review: This is not a Flashman book although Flashy does make a couple of showings in the book and leaves a lively imprint. If one however wants to know what it was like to live during the High Noon of Edwardian England for an outsider.Then this is the book to go to. Frankly this book is well worth the money with its good solid writing and interesting historical facts presented!
Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: The perfect male romantic novel.
Review: "Mr American" begins with the arrival of Mark Franklin in England. Mr. Franklin has spent his entire life in the American West. He has never been to England in his life, but he's finally come home.The author of the series, George MacDonald Fraser, has an extraordinary command of the English language and all it's endless variations. Combine this with a knowledge of history that's astounding in it's depth and scholarship (as shown in his "Flashman Papers" series) and you're in for treat.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant plot idea superbly executed
Review: A 'western outlaw' in 19th Century England trying to trace his roots. From a gun fight to a game of bridge the excitement is always there. Amazing historical detail clearly well rersearched.
Rating:
Summary: A complete "guided" tour of Britain "topic"&"typic"...
Review: A TOUR DE FORCE... REALLY AN INDISPENSABLE READ TO UNDERSTAND YOUR BRITISH COUSINS... A BIT...
I am some sort of anglophile (hear!... hear!...) but quite cynicall about generalisations... you see... I do not believe at all for example:
1) ALL GERMANS ARE GOOD DISCIPLINED UNIMAGINATIVE SKILLED WORKERS...
2) ALL FRENCH ARE GOURMETS OR SATYRES (OR BOTH)...
3) ALL SPANISH ARE LAZY AND/OR BULLFIGHTERS...
Once this said... and to be more precise, afirm I have friends of very different background and nationality... and also believe firmly ALL NATIONS HAVE A PERCENTAGE of brutes, wicked, genial, charming, fidel, infidel, puritans, zealots, stupids etc...
WHAT GEORGE MACDONALD FRASER HAS THE ABILITY TO RESUME IN THIS GLORIOUS READ IS ABOVE ALL ... BRITAIN (so in a way all personages of the novel are only there to provide an excuse for the complete "guided tour" of all britishness topics:
The english gentlemen. (and dress...)
The gentlemen's gentlement.
The Royalty.
The Fox Hunt.
Scotland Yard.
The Law. The Trial. The Lawyers.
The bankers.
The rural England. (squires, landed gentry, retired don's, local pub, old ladies, etc
The shooting party.
The bridge card game (and it's relation to poker...)
The Army. Officer's.
LONDON.
The music-hall.
The Irish question.
Churchill & politicians.
Royal Academy Expositions.
Sufragettes-Sugragists.
Horse breeding.
Travels to Switzerland.
gay parties. fancy-dress balls...
travel on liners... travel on trains... on cars... on horse...
Lords-Ladys-Commoners.... I stop because I am forgetting things probably...
damn! you have to know the country to believe how good (if a little caricaturesque and mysogin... by the way) it is.
If a tale like this could have been written by a slightly drunken party of writters it would have contained at least:
Zane Grey, P.C. Wren, Childers, Conan Doyle, Waugh, Wodehouse, DUMAS (father), Dickens, Oscar WILDE, MacDonald Fraser (for the GREAT! old General Flashman pop-in's), and then I forget some... streching it a bit even a touch of Gerald Seymour...
If you find the film "Mrs. Miniver" too sirupy for your taste (after two helpings...or encores) this is for you...
And to end with it I still love Britain with all his virtues and defaults... (wich nation has not them...).
ENJOY.*
* The plot is there but I find it the less interesting thing... (EVEN IF STILL IS GOOD ON IT'S OWN,MIND!) it's just a FORMIDABLE excuse to paint the biggest PANORAMA ever written about BRITAIN.
Rating:
Summary: Remarkably good more or less serious Fraser novel
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Not up to Flashman standards
Review: As a lover of the Harry Flashman books by Frazier, I found Mr. American to be a bit of a disappointment. I guess I miss the romance and adventure, not to mention the humor, of his other novels. Nor does it have the zip found in Frazier's non-fiction Quartered Safe Out Here. A nice enough read....END
Rating:
Summary: Gentler Than Flashman, But No Less Fun
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Comfortable Read
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Comfortable Read
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: The kind of book that will make you skip work
Review: 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
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