QUEEN LUCIA

Love, love, loved! This E.F. Benson classic was another Connie Willis recommendation, and unlike Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, it was right up my gentle-British-comedy-of-manners-loving alley. Published in 1920, it follows the members of the leisure class in the small, close-knit, quirky town of Riseholme as they amuse themselves with gossip and social one-man-upmanship—in particular, competing for the favors of two fascinating new arrivals to the village, an Indian yoga guru and a famous opera singer. The ringleader of all this is Lucia (her real name is Emmeline Lucas, but she cultivates faux Italianisms), a sort of ruthless, pretentious cross between Gwyneth Paltrow (of GOOP), Martha Stewart, and perhaps Napoleon.

A story about snobbishness and social striving sounds unpleasant at first, but Benson’s genius is that his characters’ foibles are so realistic and meticulously observed that they become lovable, even if exasperating. You simultaneously cheer for Lucia’s triumphs and laugh in satisfaction when she’s cut down to size. I expected to be reminded of P.G. Wodehouse, but the humor is much less broad and none of the characters are so modern or sophisticated, except maybe in their own minds, as Wodehouse’s upper-crust flappers and gadflys; a more apt comparison may be the sly satire of Jane Austen, minus the romance. The best part is that this is the first part of a six-book series, which possesses a devoted (if cultishly small) following and, though only intermittently in print (I’ll be scouring eBay for copies), was adapted into a Masterpiece Theater miniseries (Mapp & Lucia in the 1980s). I’ll be reading them all, and you should too! Here’s my favorite quote just to whet your whistle, spoken by the wonderful Olga Bracely:

“Come into my house instantly, and we’ll drink vermouth. Vermouth always makes me brilliant unless it makes me idiotic, but we’ll hope for the best.”