#sidney smith

A boatman once again. Sir William Sidney Smith.

This is another snippet taken from Eugène de Beauharnais’s fragmented memoirs (Memoires et correspondance politique et militaire du Prince Eugène, Tome 1). In it, he mentions that while in Egypt, he crossed paths with Sidney Smith twice, both times missing him by an inch, the first time happening in Suez and the second time, related here, during the Battle of Aboukir. According to Eugène, during this battle [...]

[… t]he enemy was quickly dislodged from the advanced positions they occupied. Although I was not an artillery officer, I was nevertheless instructed by the general-in-chief to direct the first two guns we had taken from the Turks against the English boats on our left, already moving away.

[Insert sequence of a dozen clueless cavalrymen surrounding a Turkish canon.]

So, that’s where the canon ball goes in, right? And, I believe we have to light a fuse or something… Isn’t there also some kind of powder involved? Oh, Claude, maybe don’t stand directly in front of the barrel, we don’t really know what … [canon goes off] Woah! Hey, I think we almost hit something!

I noticed that one of our cannonballs fell close enough to a longboat to cover the men in it with water; and, by a singular coincidence, Commodore Sidney Smith was also among them, as he himself assured me, fifteen years later.

Which I assume to have happened during the Congress of Vienna that I understand both men attended. I can just imagine, during a nice evening dinner at the Hofburg, Eugène telling the people sitting next to him about the battle of Aboukir:

"And then Napoleon said we should fire a canon at the British boats, and we had no clue what we were doing but guess what, we still almost hit one. Don’t know who was in it but one thing I know for sure, they must have been soaking wet…"

1. The Introduction

Hello, Dear Neighbors, and welcome back to Malmaison Media Salon. So, as I’ve said before, today we’re going to talk about a book by G. A. Henty, one of my archenemies!

Why archenemy?

That’s just how I label authors whose shit I reviewed before. Henty’s “wonderful” book about Frev left a bad taste in my mouth for a long time, so I was understandably mistrustful of any other piece of his.

However, after finding out he has one more Frev book AND several Napoleonic ones and this one (About the Egyptian Campaign, between the two eras), I had to make another review in spite of my lower than six feet expectations. So I went on Project Gutenberg to download the ebook for free. That’s where you can get it by the way.

But hey, maybe this book is better than the one I reviewed before. It’s always a possibility, right? The short answer is no. The long answer is not at all.

For an even longer answer, let us finally proceed with the review, which I dedicate to @koda-friedrich , @blackwidowmarshal123 and @aminoscribbles .

2. The Summary

As you might guess from the title, the book is set during the Egyptian campaign and, in classic Henty fashion, has a young English boy as the protagonist.

Edgar Blagrove, the boy in question, is a son of an English merchant who is left behind in Egypt during the war, so the book follows his adventures as he’s trying to survive, reunite with his family and have adventures along the way (as you do).

Even though Henty’s books are targeted at young boys, the premise sounds like something that I would actually enjoy, but I didn’t.

Let’s dissect this book to find out just how bad it gets, shall we?

3. The Story

The beginning isn’t so great. At first the opening scene promises some action, yet the immersion is broken like glass a couple of pages in with heaps upon heaps of Edgar’s backstory. Nice job, Henty…

Luckily, it’s the only time an extensive flashback like this is used, but the pacing can get about as fast as snail because often pieces of information get repeated in dialogues when nothing bad would’ve happened if the author avoided said repetition.

Moreover, while in the first half or so of the story the hero’s ways of getting out of problems stay realistic and justifiable, the second half has Edgar cross so far into Mary Sue territory that he may as well be called Gary Stu.

(Spoilers ahead)

This kid gets hired by SIDNEY FUCKING SMITH as a midshipman and interpreter. I’m not kidding, that’s an actual plot point!

Let me repeat: A kid who DID NOT previously serve in the navy is made midshipman and interpreter by SIDNEY SMITH, who meets said kid by pure coincidence! And only the interpreter part is justified, since Edgar was educated in several languages from a young age and learned the mother tongues of servants and citizens of Cairo too.

That, in all honesty, was the point where I just lost what little investment I had because it just became too apparent that everything will be fine and Edgar will have a happy ending.

4. The Characters

Before crossing the Gary Stu threshold, Edgar actually had potential to be a good character.

He is a reckless kid who was so bored with his monotonous life in Cairo that he wanted to see the English kick the French in the ass.

He cares about his friends, is kind and ready to help his loved ones and sometimes makes risky decisions.

But then he just becomes somebody who is always right and he gets too perfect. So all the potential goes down the drain like a dead goldfish. Hooray…

Sidi, an Arab boy Edgar rescues in the beginning of the story, is a bit more interesting, mainly due to his dynamic with Edgar as basically adopted brothers. He and his family provide Edgar with shelter in their oasis and help him out in a time of need too. Unfortunately, Sidi is a bit of a flat character for someone who gets a pretty major role in the story, but Henty isn’t too good with characters anyway.

Other characters are flat too. To various degrees. Unfortunately, that’s all I can say because there’s a ton of characters.

However, English officers like Nelson and Sidney Smith are whitewashed and glorified to no end. Henty loves sucking the dick of English nationalism, but I already saw that in my other review so no surprise there.

As for the French side of things… I was genuinely surprised that Napoleon was NOT portrayed as Devil Incarnate and it’s mentioned that he does care about his troops.

Many historical figures are name dropped but don’t appear in person, such as Kleber, Desaix, Junot, Menou, etc. Personally, I’m glad they don’t get a cameo in person for several reasons:

A) the book isn’t about them

B) it would be too unrealistic for Edgar to meet those people

C) after the atrocious portrayal of Montagnards, I DO NOT trust Henty with accuracy when it comes to French Republican generals

Eugene de Beauharnais is omitted once again, even though I’m pretty sure he participated in that campaign. Oh well, shout-out to Eugene from me!

5. The Setting

Henty is, once again, bad with settings and his descriptions are, at times, too minimalistic.

I didn’t feel the action in battle scenes, I couldn’t envision the oasis, the streets of Cairo or any other settings. There’s just not enough to achieve immersion.

6. The Writing

The writing is old fashioned, as it was a book written in the 19th century, but for people who are fluent in English there shouldn’t be a lot of issues with comprehending the vocabulary, except maybe all the naval terms that have no definitions given. Grrr…

I can’t necessarily call Henty’s writing awful, but it’s not for me so it didn’t help my overall impression of the book.

7. The Conclusion

Even though it’s not as bad as “In the Reign of Terror” was, it’s still not a book I would recommend and the improvements are insignificant.

Most characters are still flat, the annoying nationalism has still reared its head, the pacing is longer than the Amazon River and the protagonist becomes a Gary Stu in the end.

The verdict? Please find something else to read.

Anyway, the soirée is officially coming to an end. Please stay tuned because more updates are coming soon.

Love,