Miss Mapp: Library Edition (Make Way for Lucia)

Rating:
Summary: Wicked Fun!
Review: E.F. Benson's books are as fresh and fun today as they were in the onset. We may not have sleepy little burgs with bridge parties being the height of the social warfare battleground, but we still have those hilarious people who can scheme and plot their way, unwitting of the itelligence of others, to what they see as the pinnacle of society. When Lucia meets her nemisis in Miss Mapp and moves into Miss Mapp's "territory" feathers fly, society scrambles, and their world rocks. I recommend this book, for if we don't see ourselves we will at least see some hilarious friends.

Rating:
Summary: Miss Mapp
Review: E.F. Benson's books are as fresh and fun today as they were in the onset. We may not have sleepy little burgs with bridge parties being the height of the social warfare battleground, but we still have those hilarious people who can scheme and plot their way, unwitting of the itelligence of others, to what they see as the pinnacle of society. When Lucia meets her nemisis in Miss Mapp and moves into Miss Mapp's "territory" feathers fly, society scrambles, and their world rocks. I recommend this book, for if we don't see ourselves we will at least see some hilarious friends.

Rating:
Summary: Such fun
Review: Miss Elizabeth Mapp lives in the English village of Tilling and there she attempts to be part of the cream of Tilling's society. With a steady diet of gossip, Miss Mapp and her circle of fellow residents flavor their lives with eyes on the goal of status. Benson's sharply observed and satirical tale is part of the Mapp & Lucia series, which pokes fun at English society of the times. Like an early ancestor of "Dynasty" or anything else produced by Aaron Spelling, the Mapp and Lucia stories are big fun for any Anglophile or fan of camp literature.

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious fun in a small English village
Review: Miss Mapp rules the tiny English village of Tilling- that is she rules those who matter. It is a tiny circle of people who have enough class to rate her attention - but she manipulates and lauds over them with machiavellian schemes, and intelligent surmises - and she is intelligent.

Benson has written a village with a range of gorgeous characters - from Diva who is Miss Mapp's great rival, to Irene the local artist who keeps embarrassing Miss Mapp with her prosaic pronouncements. Then there is the local Vicar who talks in a combination of Shakespearian English and Burnsian dialect. There is also Mrs Poppit who is an up and coming social climber (hardly worthy of Miss Mapp's notice) and the novel begins with Miss Mapps machinations to the Poppitt Bridge party.

Village life you see seems to run around Bridge parties. In this petty world of card games there is a great deal of opportunity to expose one another's weaknesses and Miss Mapp, in order to be the center of village life in Tilling finds no object too petty to exploit. This is a novel of small things made into huge issues because of the smallness of the village. There is Miss Mapps constant running battle to dress better than Diva, the competition over Mr Wyse's attentions (with his supposed comtessa sister), and the ever pressing desire to be the First To Know all the gossip in town.

The physical descriptions both through the characters minds and from Benson's pen are wonderful for instance Diva is always depicted as whirling around the place - her legs circling. Mrs Poppit is ever present in a huge and weighty sable coat.

This is a wonderful book, and beautifully written. Benson seems to me to be very influenced by Austen - there is the small and claustrophobic atmosphere of village life - the characters (Miss Mapp seems so like Mrs Norris of Austen's 'Mansfield Park') to me - and then there are the odd Austen Names (in this case the Coles feature strongly as a family that is not quite up to snuff - just as the Coles are in 'Emma'). If nothing else Benson writes of English village life in the 1920's with the same Ironic pen as Austen did of village life in the early nineteenth century.

Highly recommended if you want a couple of days of laughter.

Rating:
Summary: she's worse than you mother-in-law, but more fun to read
Review: Well, after meeting Queen Lucia, I quite enjoyed learning all about Tilling and its dear Miss Mapp. You will wonder who she visited in Riseholm, and you will die from the anticipation of the two ladies meeting up in subsequent books (you won't be disappointed!). The characters are fantastic, the situations are comic, and I absolutely loved this book! I am officially hooked on the entire series! I hope you will try it and love it just as much as I.