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thebookboy's review against another edition
5.0
A wickedly funny and observant piece of comedy.
I read the six Mapp and Lucia novels a few years ago and decided to reviswit them again this year fuelled by obly fond memories of them. To my delight my memory has reamined truthful, and Queen Lucia is such a silly, enjoyable and genuinely very compelling slice of English humour.
The success of this piece is Lucia herself - a petty, sneaky, tactful snob who rules over the little village in pure silvery-laughed tyranny. Yet despite how utterly awful she is (and if I ever met a person like her in real life I think I'd find them utterly detestable) to read her in writing is somehow charming, and you can't help but enjoy watching her navigate any challeges to her reign.
The characters are fun, the humour is constant and there's a delicious Englishness about all of this which is why these novels have become such enduring classics. Simply brilliant.
I read the six Mapp and Lucia novels a few years ago and decided to reviswit them again this year fuelled by obly fond memories of them. To my delight my memory has reamined truthful, and Queen Lucia is such a silly, enjoyable and genuinely very compelling slice of English humour.
The success of this piece is Lucia herself - a petty, sneaky, tactful snob who rules over the little village in pure silvery-laughed tyranny. Yet despite how utterly awful she is (and if I ever met a person like her in real life I think I'd find them utterly detestable) to read her in writing is somehow charming, and you can't help but enjoy watching her navigate any challeges to her reign.
The characters are fun, the humour is constant and there's a delicious Englishness about all of this which is why these novels have become such enduring classics. Simply brilliant.
mikewa14's review against another edition
4.0
http://0651frombrighton.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/queen-lucia-e-f-benson.html
meghan111's review against another edition
3.0
“The hours of the morning between breakfast and lunch were the time which the inhabitants of Riseholme chiefly devoted to spying on each other.”
The queen bee of a small gossipy England town is threatened when an opera singer moves to town. She hatches plots to prove her dominance, all as the bit players struggle with charlatans, thinning hair, athletic rugged sisters, and servants.
itsmoleyreads's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
kynan's review against another edition
2.0
Emmeline "Lucia" Lucas is a horrifically pretentious lady, living in mid-war country England. Specifically she resides with her husband in a small town called Riseholme, and considers herself Riseholme's "queen": highest in the social pecking order and dispenser of class and knowledge to those less-well endowed. The rest of the town appears willing to go along with this, more or less agreeably, and seems populated almost entirely by wealthy pensioners looking for a lark to occupy their well-funded retirement years.
If Queen Lucia wasn't the inspiration for the 1990 British sitcom Keeping Up Appearances then I shall eat my hat! It was simply impossible for me to not draw the parallel and, in a way, that actually gave me the..., not the determination, the perspective necessary to read it all the way through. There were quite a few things that I found annoying. I know it was comedy and done for effect but the baby-talking really grated on me specifically. Apart from that, the unrepentant, unashamed pretentiousness of the leading lady rapidly moves beyond droll to distasteful.
However! There are redeeming features and, surprisingly, when I stopped and really thought about the Keeping Up Appearances connection and was able to step back and just enjoy this as humorous escapism with, perhaps, a none-too-discrete jab at the social climbers of the time, it became a lot easier to sympathise with Lucia because things definitely don't go all her way and she has her moments of bad luck and, few and far between, redemption. There's also an array of supporting characters that are quite fun. My two favourites, sisters to the gentleman referred to as Lucia's aide-de-camp, are unfortunately only present for the first couple of chapters, but the aide-de-camp himself (Georgie, who is painfully similar in ways to Lucia) has his own story arc that is very interesting; and Lucia's foil and "friend" (for want of a better word), Mrs Daisy Quantock has her own little set of interwoven stories.
Overall, it was an OK read, not one that I'd necessarily recommend to anyone but it's pretty likely that I'll keep read the rest of the series at some stage because a) I own the box set (curse you Folio Society) and b) I am somewhat interested in the second, and apparently very different story, [b:Miss Mapp|1127851|Miss Mapp (Lucia, #2)|E.F. Benson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347780676l/1127851._SY75_.jpg|3170578], and how Benson ends up uniting (if that's the correct word) the two protaganists.
If Queen Lucia wasn't the inspiration for the 1990 British sitcom Keeping Up Appearances then I shall eat my hat! It was simply impossible for me to not draw the parallel and, in a way, that actually gave me the..., not the determination, the perspective necessary to read it all the way through. There were quite a few things that I found annoying. I know it was comedy and done for effect but the baby-talking really grated on me specifically. Apart from that, the unrepentant, unashamed pretentiousness of the leading lady rapidly moves beyond droll to distasteful.
However! There are redeeming features and, surprisingly, when I stopped and really thought about the Keeping Up Appearances connection and was able to step back and just enjoy this as humorous escapism with, perhaps, a none-too-discrete jab at the social climbers of the time, it became a lot easier to sympathise with Lucia because things definitely don't go all her way and she has her moments of bad luck and, few and far between, redemption. There's also an array of supporting characters that are quite fun. My two favourites, sisters to the gentleman referred to as Lucia's aide-de-camp, are unfortunately only present for the first couple of chapters, but the aide-de-camp himself (Georgie, who is painfully similar in ways to Lucia) has his own story arc that is very interesting; and Lucia's foil and "friend" (for want of a better word), Mrs Daisy Quantock has her own little set of interwoven stories.
Overall, it was an OK read, not one that I'd necessarily recommend to anyone but it's pretty likely that I'll keep read the rest of the series at some stage because a) I own the box set (curse you Folio Society) and b) I am somewhat interested in the second, and apparently very different story, [b:Miss Mapp|1127851|Miss Mapp (Lucia, #2)|E.F. Benson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347780676l/1127851._SY75_.jpg|3170578], and how Benson ends up uniting (if that's the correct word) the two protaganists.
pixie_d's review against another edition
3.0
Having read that Gorey biography (he was a huge fan), I discovered this series. I don't think I'm going to be a fanatic about the books, but it was for the most part a fun read.
frankiebow's review against another edition
5.0
Just re-read E.F. Benson's Queen Lucia; brilliant story of human nature in all its pettiness.
pshipper's review against another edition
3.0
A delight. Catty, camp, and sweet. The characters pure caricature and yet remain engaging and even relatable. I’m looking forward to more in the series.
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.