kittykornerlibrarian's review against another edition
5.0
I found this novel gently hilarious in the same way I enjoy Saki short stories... Mrs. Lucas, who affects to speak Italian and is thus known to her intimates as Lucia, is the queen of her little society in the English village of Riseholme. Her leadership is challenged when her neighbor Mrs. Quantock introduces a false Guru into their lives; and again when Miss Olga Bracely, a famed singer, comes to Riseholme and unconsciously becomes the new leader of local society. This is a gently absurd, comical novel. I want to continue with these books.
ilariam's review against another edition
Lucia non si era risolta a questa dichiarazione di guerra senza provare ansia e preoccupazione. Ma era ovvio che il nemico stava guadagnando forza quotidianamente, perciò prima avesse aperto le ostilità meglio sarebbe stato (...).
Queen Lucia è il primo romanzo della serie umoristica di Mapp e Lucia, scritta tra gli anni '20 e '30 del secolo scorso da Edward Frederic Benson.
Riseholme è un ridente villaggio della provincia inglese e Emmeline Lucas (per tutti Lucia, "all'italiana") ne è l'unica e incontrastata regina.
Ha assunto il ruolo di custode dell'arte e della cultura, e non c'è evento che venga organizzato senza la sua attenta direzione. Non ha altra missione nella vita se non raffinare ed educare.
C'è chi da tempo cerca di soffiarle il posto, come Daisy Quantock, ma Lucia è sempre riuscita a tenere il potere saldamente nelle proprie mani, almeno fino all'arrivo del celebre soprano Olga Bracely...
Benson descrive minuziosamente le giornate fatte di nulla di un gruppo di benestanti all'inizio del secolo scorso; messe da parte le preoccupazioni dei comuni mortali, non resta che dedicarsi all'arte (e al pettegolezzo).
Ecco così la frenetica corsa ad accaparrarsi la novità del momento (che sia un Guru indiano con il suo Yoga o una sedicente principessa russa con le sue sedute spiritiche); ovviamente, non mancano i colpi bassi, e si vince grazie a più o meno eleganti sotterfugi.
La situazione cambia quando alla cultura di facciata di Lucia (con il suo italiano - spesso scorretto - buttato qua e là in qualunque discorso e le sue pretese di essere un'autorità indiscussa in campo musicale) si contrappone Olga Bracely, con il suo talento, la sua spontaneità e il suo buon cuore.
Intorno alle due donne ruota il resto del villaggio, immortalato nei suoi piccoli vezzi, nell'attenzione all'apparenza, e nei modi ricercati, che finiscono talvolta per sfociare nel ridicolo.
Se Wodehouse ci regala delle situazioni tanto esilaranti quanto improbabili, con Benson abbiamo invece un'ironia più pungente perché i ritratti delle varie Lucia o delle Daisy Quantock sono estremamente verosimili, anche oltre i confini di quella perfetta incarnazione dello snobismo che è Riseholme.
Certo, non manca un umorismo più sfacciato, come nei tanti siparietti che coinvolgono il "povero" Georgie, cavalier servente con problemi di riporto, il gusto del pettegolezzo da vero riseholmenita, e hobby come spolverare suppellettili e il ricamo.
Divertente, irriverente, ma anche estremamente attuale.
Queen Lucia è il primo romanzo della serie umoristica di Mapp e Lucia, scritta tra gli anni '20 e '30 del secolo scorso da Edward Frederic Benson.
Riseholme è un ridente villaggio della provincia inglese e Emmeline Lucas (per tutti Lucia, "all'italiana") ne è l'unica e incontrastata regina.
Ha assunto il ruolo di custode dell'arte e della cultura, e non c'è evento che venga organizzato senza la sua attenta direzione. Non ha altra missione nella vita se non raffinare ed educare.
C'è chi da tempo cerca di soffiarle il posto, come Daisy Quantock, ma Lucia è sempre riuscita a tenere il potere saldamente nelle proprie mani, almeno fino all'arrivo del celebre soprano Olga Bracely...
Benson descrive minuziosamente le giornate fatte di nulla di un gruppo di benestanti all'inizio del secolo scorso; messe da parte le preoccupazioni dei comuni mortali, non resta che dedicarsi all'arte (e al pettegolezzo).
Ecco così la frenetica corsa ad accaparrarsi la novità del momento (che sia un Guru indiano con il suo Yoga o una sedicente principessa russa con le sue sedute spiritiche); ovviamente, non mancano i colpi bassi, e si vince grazie a più o meno eleganti sotterfugi.
La situazione cambia quando alla cultura di facciata di Lucia (con il suo italiano - spesso scorretto - buttato qua e là in qualunque discorso e le sue pretese di essere un'autorità indiscussa in campo musicale) si contrappone Olga Bracely, con il suo talento, la sua spontaneità e il suo buon cuore.
Intorno alle due donne ruota il resto del villaggio, immortalato nei suoi piccoli vezzi, nell'attenzione all'apparenza, e nei modi ricercati, che finiscono talvolta per sfociare nel ridicolo.
Se Wodehouse ci regala delle situazioni tanto esilaranti quanto improbabili, con Benson abbiamo invece un'ironia più pungente perché i ritratti delle varie Lucia o delle Daisy Quantock sono estremamente verosimili, anche oltre i confini di quella perfetta incarnazione dello snobismo che è Riseholme.
Certo, non manca un umorismo più sfacciato, come nei tanti siparietti che coinvolgono il "povero" Georgie, cavalier servente con problemi di riporto, il gusto del pettegolezzo da vero riseholmenita, e hobby come spolverare suppellettili e il ricamo.
Divertente, irriverente, ma anche estremamente attuale.
rojaed's review against another edition
3.0
Kindle edition. A mangled copy. Unreadable. Audiobook: Unlike the kindle version, the audio book is unmangled. A light, but dated read about power struggles in an English village social set
fbone's review against another edition
3.0
Basically, this is about the happenings of an English village in the 1910s. Humorous and silly. It's really surprising the topics that concerned people back then.
verityw's review against another edition
3.0
I'm really enjoying reading these books after having seen the BBC adaptation to see where the latest TV version got some of its plots from. Lucia is much less sympathetic in this that I found her in Mapp and Lucia. I need to read some more of these!
jlmb's review against another edition
4.0
What a fun read! A satire of English village life, focusing on social climbing "mean girl" Lucia and her gay BFF/ wingman Georgie. Even though it was written a hundred years ago, the shenanigans described read as fresh and relatable.
Daisy is your friend that is always gung-ho about the latest trend. Lucia's husband reminds me of the IG account "Boyfriends of Instagram" which consists of images of browbeaten boyfriends taking photos of their narcissistic girlfriends. And Lucia? Well, she is the person you know who can never, ever admit that they don't know the answer. Ok, the way I describe it makes it sound unpleasant, but trust me, it's a funny book.
Georgie is by far my favorite. The reader meets him as he is sashaying(literally that is how Benson describes him) across the croquet lawn to do a little dance with Lucia and talk baby talk. Georgie wears a cape(!) and a dyed toupee and loves to embroider and dust his Faberge cigarette case. He's a loyal right hand man to Lucia until a famous opera singer moves to the village who is super fun and fabulous. What is Georgie to do? Who will he hang out with?
That is the slim "plot" the novel hinges on. Really there is no plot; the book is a series of vignettes and that is a-ok with me. Not everything has to have a dramatic story arc. Sometimes it's fun to just read about characters and their daily lives.
#popsugar challenge 2020 - a book published in the 20th century
Daisy is your friend that is always gung-ho about the latest trend. Lucia's husband reminds me of the IG account "Boyfriends of Instagram" which consists of images of browbeaten boyfriends taking photos of their narcissistic girlfriends. And Lucia? Well, she is the person you know who can never, ever admit that they don't know the answer. Ok, the way I describe it makes it sound unpleasant, but trust me, it's a funny book.
Georgie is by far my favorite. The reader meets him as he is sashaying(literally that is how Benson describes him) across the croquet lawn to do a little dance with Lucia and talk baby talk. Georgie wears a cape(!) and a dyed toupee and loves to embroider and dust his Faberge cigarette case. He's a loyal right hand man to Lucia until a famous opera singer moves to the village who is super fun and fabulous. What is Georgie to do? Who will he hang out with?
That is the slim "plot" the novel hinges on. Really there is no plot; the book is a series of vignettes and that is a-ok with me. Not everything has to have a dramatic story arc. Sometimes it's fun to just read about characters and their daily lives.
#popsugar challenge 2020 - a book published in the 20th century
oldenglishrose's review against another edition
3.0
Queen Lucia introduces the village of Riseholme, its inhabitants and, most importantly, Lucia Lucas who presides over Riseholme’s social scene as benevolent dictator. In this first installment in the series, Lucia’s unspoken sovreignty comes under threat from an Indian guru, a Russian medium and a celebrated opera singer and we see how she deals with these attempts, whether intentional or not, to go against the status quo.
The appeal of Queen Lucia is explained rather well by Olga Bracely: ‘Oh, it’s all so delicious!’ she said. ‘I never knew before how terribly interesting little thingswere. It’s all wildly exciting, and there are fifty things going on just as exciting. Is it all of you who take such a tremendous interest in them that makes them so absorbing, or is it that they are absorbing in themselves and ordinary dull people, not Riseholmites, don’t see how exciting they are? (pp. 258-259) It is a novel about little things that happen and are only made interesting by the way in which the entertaining cast of characters treat them.
Lucia reminded me of no one so much as Mrs Elton from Jane Austen’s Emma: she is shallow, snobbish, pretentious and completely convinced of her own importance. In other words, she should be a rather unpleasant character but is absolutely delicious to read about as she lords it over her friends. The only facet of her character which I didn’t particularly enjoy was her fondness for baby talk with the men in her life; self-importance and snobbery, while irritating traits in real life, can be made great fun to read about, but adults trying to sound like infants is something that I will always find annoying.
Riseholme’s other inhabitants are equally as obsessed with social climbing, though in different ways. I enjoyed Daisy’s futile attempts to usurp Lucia’s prominence by launching the latest trend before Lucia can pick up on it and annex Daisy’s latest discovery, something which always ends in disaster. Georgie’s delight at having a secret from Lucia which gives him some sort of power over her is amusing and infectious as the reader spends more time with him than with Lucia. Although Benson’s writing is sharp and biting, it was without any particular malice. I felt that, although he mocks these silly social situations he also loves them and thrives on them, and that he would be behaving exactly the same as the other villagers if he were to live in Riseholme and would love every minute of it. He certainly has great fun writing about them.
To continue the Jane Austen comparison, there were times when this book felt like it needed a Mr Knightley. It has the intrigue of people being manoeuvred into relationships, the fast-fading fashions for particular activities and the carefully considered, smiling social warfare between the characters, but I would have liked to see someone with sense and morality who wasn’t taken in by all of this nonsense to provide some much needed contrast. While I know it’s a light, humorous novel and I enjoyed it for what it is, it felt a bit relentlessly shallow and breezy at times and I would have preferred an occasional change of tone. Hermy and Ursy, Georgie’s irrepressibly robust sisters, would have done this perfectly but they remained fairly marginal characters in this first book. I hope to see more of them in future volumes as I would love to see someone practical tell Riseholme to stop being so ridiculous. Nevertheless, it is an enjoyable ridiculousness and I look forward to continuing the series.
The appeal of Queen Lucia is explained rather well by Olga Bracely: ‘Oh, it’s all so delicious!’ she said. ‘I never knew before how terribly interesting little thingswere. It’s all wildly exciting, and there are fifty things going on just as exciting. Is it all of you who take such a tremendous interest in them that makes them so absorbing, or is it that they are absorbing in themselves and ordinary dull people, not Riseholmites, don’t see how exciting they are? (pp. 258-259) It is a novel about little things that happen and are only made interesting by the way in which the entertaining cast of characters treat them.
Lucia reminded me of no one so much as Mrs Elton from Jane Austen’s Emma: she is shallow, snobbish, pretentious and completely convinced of her own importance. In other words, she should be a rather unpleasant character but is absolutely delicious to read about as she lords it over her friends. The only facet of her character which I didn’t particularly enjoy was her fondness for baby talk with the men in her life; self-importance and snobbery, while irritating traits in real life, can be made great fun to read about, but adults trying to sound like infants is something that I will always find annoying.
Riseholme’s other inhabitants are equally as obsessed with social climbing, though in different ways. I enjoyed Daisy’s futile attempts to usurp Lucia’s prominence by launching the latest trend before Lucia can pick up on it and annex Daisy’s latest discovery, something which always ends in disaster. Georgie’s delight at having a secret from Lucia which gives him some sort of power over her is amusing and infectious as the reader spends more time with him than with Lucia. Although Benson’s writing is sharp and biting, it was without any particular malice. I felt that, although he mocks these silly social situations he also loves them and thrives on them, and that he would be behaving exactly the same as the other villagers if he were to live in Riseholme and would love every minute of it. He certainly has great fun writing about them.
To continue the Jane Austen comparison, there were times when this book felt like it needed a Mr Knightley. It has the intrigue of people being manoeuvred into relationships, the fast-fading fashions for particular activities and the carefully considered, smiling social warfare between the characters, but I would have liked to see someone with sense and morality who wasn’t taken in by all of this nonsense to provide some much needed contrast. While I know it’s a light, humorous novel and I enjoyed it for what it is, it felt a bit relentlessly shallow and breezy at times and I would have preferred an occasional change of tone. Hermy and Ursy, Georgie’s irrepressibly robust sisters, would have done this perfectly but they remained fairly marginal characters in this first book. I hope to see more of them in future volumes as I would love to see someone practical tell Riseholme to stop being so ridiculous. Nevertheless, it is an enjoyable ridiculousness and I look forward to continuing the series.
rebjam's review against another edition
3.0
Is it possible to Love Lucia? I know people love these books and i'm enthralled, reading them after viewing the BBC series starring Geraldine McEwan and Prunella Scales. But is the character of Emmeline Lucia Lucas really lovable? she's amusing and you enjoy watching her extricate herself from one social imbroglio after another but. . hmmm...?
If you like immensely well written books that are short on plot and full of fun, nonsense and jabs at social class warfare, this is for you.
If you like immensely well written books that are short on plot and full of fun, nonsense and jabs at social class warfare, this is for you.