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'Miss Mapp'
Elizabeth Mapp, or “Old Mappy” as two of her neighbors call her during their whisky drinking evenings, has got to be the nosiest woman I’ve ever read about. She keeps tabs on everyone, including her servants, from the bow window of her “garden room” which just so happens to conveniently allow her a view of not only Major Flint and Captain Puffin, those daily golfing and nightly drinking buddies, but all that occurs on the high street of Tilling. And if she can’t get a good enough angle, then there’s the daily shopping, with large basket, to keep her, and the rest of Tilling, abreast of the news.
Yes, as in Riseholme, keeping tabs on who is doing what with whom and who knows what when is a full time job. Every action, reaction and possibility is talked about endlessly. But while Lucia is like a swan towing the town cygnets in her wake, in Tilling they’re more like geese hissing at each other, aware of every social nuance and nicety. This is small town living at its worst with its rampant speculation and all snipping and sniping.
Miss Mapp is slightly meaner at attempting her social preeminence but since she is so often caught out or slips and thus reveals her hand, we can read along in delicious anticipation. Frocks, gardens, stored tins of food, filched glasses of whisky and who gets a dinner invitation first are all ammunition in their daily battles.
The humor is very dry and you’re almost zapped by it before you even realize it’s about to zing you. Benson magnificently sets up each episode then smoothly delivers the punchline with a neat knife twist. However be aware that Benson also adores long sentences, stuffed with as many commas as he can manage. B
“Oh, it’s all so delicious!” she said. “I never knew before how terribly interesting little things were. 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? Tommy Luton’s measles: the Quantocks’ secret: Elizabeth’s lover! And to think that I believed I was coming to a backwater.”
Miss Mapp is the second in E. F. Benson‘s Mapp & Lucia series, satirizing early 20th century provincial English village life. In this volume we meet Elizabeth Mapp, a notable busybody in the town of Tilling, who spends an inordinate amount of time spying on and gossiping about her neighbors, and using the information she acquires to get the better of her fellow villagers and manipulate events to her advantage. Miss Mapp’s house is ideally situated for this purpose; from her windows she can see nearly all comings and goings. She enjoys her reputation as one who knows all, and skillfully covers up when she does not.
As in Queen Lucia, the first book in the series, Miss Mapp does not have an over-arching plot or conflict. Rather, the novel is a collection of amusing, character-driven vignettes taking place over a period of months. Miss Mapp is keenly interested in the activities of two mature single men in the town: Major Flint and Captain Puffin. She has observed they both keep late hours. The men claim to be hard at work on personal projects, but the reader knows better. There’s also a running gag about two women wearing the same dress to a party, and their attempts to rectify the situation. Sometimes Miss Mapp gets the upper hand, but she often makes mistakes — from poorly played bridge hands to more egregious errors in judgement — and must suffer the consequences.
I picked up this book because I was in the mood for something light and fun, and it did not disappoint. E. F. Benson has a way with words that keeps me smiling from beginning to end. I’m looking forward to future volumes in this series, and the inevitable meeting of Miss Mapp and Queen Lucia.
https://laurasmusings.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/review-miss-mapp-by-e-f-benson/
In this novel, the second of his Lucia and Mapp series and published in 1922, we are introduced to Miss Elizabeth Mapp, the epicentre of the Tilling social scene, a fictitious village based on Rye. It would be an act of extreme charity to describe Mapp as an appealing character. She is malicious, miserly and snobbish and spends her waking hours snooping on her neighbours and plotting how to maintain her position as Queen Bee and to get one up on her closest companions, Godiva Plaistow and Susan Poppit – the latter’s MBE is a constant source of irritation to her and something to be spurned on all occasions. Life in Tilling is a round of bridge parties, soirees, gardening and shopping – the daily ritual being an excuse to catch up on the latest gossip. Mapp’s other preoccupation is trying to ensnare the confirmed bachelor, Captain Benjamin Flint, to ask for her hand in marriage, an offer he is rather reluctant to accept. Benson’s male characters are either confirmed in their bachelorhood or else if ensnared into matrimony players of the second fiddle to their stronger, more dominant partners. The will he or won’t he theme culminates in the rather ludicrous and tiresome story in the second of the book – the first is a series of vignettes introducing us to the main characters and the personality traits of the eponymous heroine – about whether the Captain and a salty old sea dog, Captain Puffin, had fought a duel over la Mapp. The ludicrous story line and the episodic nature of the book is rescued by Benson’s strong characterisation, mordant wit and satirical expose of suburban England. He has a lightness of touch that is reminiscent of P G Wodehouse but there is a darker and more sardonic edge to him.
https://windowthroughtime.wordpress.com/tag/miss-mapp-book-review/
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