Customer Reviews

Miss Mapp Including "The Male Impersonator"

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The wonderfully acute social comedy in this novel needs no further recommendation but there are many other virtues. Take for example its apercus on 1920s Britain. Here is a world lacking a whole generation of young men ruled by single and independent women. References to supertaxes, strikes and rationing make clear that this is a Britain on the slide. Equally enjoyable are the insights into how "alternative lifestyles" were regarded and tolerated before our supposedly emancipated age. Benson makes it fairly clear that Irene is a good deal more than simply "quaint" (the same can be said for Georgie who appears in other novels of the series: a warm and likable character but not, in the words of Major Benjy "a manly sort of man"). Finally, pace some of the reviews here and on the other Mapp and Lucia books, Tilling is most surely not a village idyll. Spying eyes lurk behind every twitching curtain and there is often an air of real malice in the air. There is steel to Benson's satire and it amazes me that at the end of a long (and occasionally undistinguished career in letters) he could produce something so modern, so perfect in conception and execution and so very funny.

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.

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.

Miss Mapp is a fitting opponent for EF Benson's Lucia. She's calculating, manipulative, underhanded and Oh, so funny. I have read and reread this, and the other books in the Lucia series over and over. I love them all.

Halfway through his Lucia series, Benson, probably realizing what a tedious phoney Mrs. Emmeline Lucas was turning out to be, decided to fashion a worthy adversary for her: a formidable old fadge named Miss Mapp. This required a change of venue, as well: from Olde Englysh Riseholm to the seacoast hamlet of Tilling. It's an inspired move (possibly due to Lucia's conspicuous absence; she does not lock horns with Mapp until the next book, Mapp & Lucia). Benson dissects a small sector of the British upper-middle class -- monied drones -- with such surgical skill that it's like sitting down to a strawberry high tea. From Major Benjy to Diva Plaistow and Barbara ("I think we can all squeeze into the Royce") Wyse, O.B.E, these self-infatuated twits spin out their days doddering from bridge game to garden party, from fad to diversion, all deliriously anxious about their place in the town's, and the Empire's, pecking order. This is a trival subject treated as drily and wittily as one could hope for, and written as the sun began to set on England's ambitions and literary heritage. Biographical note: Benson bought Henry James's house in Rye (the model for Tilling), and when showing it to visitors used to announce, "This is Miss Mapp's garden room. And I am Miss Mapp."

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.

This book from the hilarious pen of Benson, is odd in a certain way. After all, Miss Mapp is the queen of Tilling in the book, and undisputed depot who rules with an iron tongue! Where is our dear Lucia, Mapp's sworn enemy, and the pretender to the throne? Well, she is back in her original home of Riseholme, with her dear husband Peppino. Those who know the Mapp and Lucia Saga from the wonderful television series, might find it strange to have Mapp ruling the roost without interference, however it makes for a delightful read (with one oblique allusion to Lucia), and shows that Miss Mapp is a strong enough character to carry her own book. The most significant event (though hardly significant at all really) is the rumored duel between Puffin and Flint over the affections of Miss Mapp. What really occured on that misty morning? Read this brilliant piece of humor to find out. I love it!

Not only will the Reader of today recognize Miss Mapp amongst her acquaintances, dear Reader is only too likely to see *herself* in caricature. (I, for one, am Diva Plaistow; no getting round it.) A delight from the first paragraph, "Miss Mapp" is even more enjoyable if you've read the first two in the Lucia chronicles. Librarina@netscape.net

The first Tilling rather than Riseholme novel sets things up for the tremendous clash with Lucia. It is extremely funny and bears re-reading and re-reading. Especially the sudden appearance of a lot of dried apricots in the middle of a bridge party. Tilling is the English seaside town of Rye (not a hamlet) . The characters include Susan Wyse (not Barbara)and the legendary busybody Miss Mapp herself . Miss Mapps are all too present in the year 2000 -Buy it

I had the same initial difficulty getting into this book as I did Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster. However, once fully immersed in it, I became wholly converted to the cult of Mapp and Lucia. This volume only has Mapp but Mapp is quite enough on her own! This is small town life as depicted with a sly wit by E.F. Benson. The time period is between the two world world wars and it is set in England. There is no tv so life is one endless round of get togethers with one's townspeople with the favorite past time being bridge. This book opens by exploring how ideally Mapp's house is situated so she can spy on all of her neighbors and quickly moves into the one-upmanship practiced by virtually everyone. If one is in any way slighted, the plotting for revenge is intricate and then executed with the fervor of a hard won military push into enemy territory. This reminded me very much of my New England grandmother and her hey day in her small town.

I also listened to this on audio as read by the wonderful actress Prunella Scales. She played Basil Fawlty's wife in FAWLTY TOWERS. Listening to her interpretation helped me greatly on easing into this whole world.