From the Bookshelf of Retro Reads…

Trouble for Lucia (Lucia, #6)

E.F. Benson

Start date: August 5, 2024

Finish date: September 4, 2024

Discussion: Group Reads

Discussion leader: Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂

Why we're reading this: Our final Mapp & Lucia read
[close] Our final Mapp & Lucia read

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Group Read 5th of October 2025 Thalia SPOILERS thread
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What Members Thought

May 03, 2020 mark monday rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: masterpiece-theatre, world-of-insects, z-ef-benson

Darlings, you simply must witness the Mayoral Melee in Tilling! Watch in delight as Rome burns and Co-Empresses Lucia and Mapp fiddle away. And with such zeal, such zest! This finale will be your final opportunity to enjoy these razor-witted human lawn darts in stiff competition against each other, and against the rest of Tilling, and against all notions of good sense and human decency. Yes, darlings, we have come to the end of Benson's Mapp & Lucia Saga!

E.F. Benson finishes his 6-book poison pe Darlings, you simply must witness the Mayoral Melee in Tilling! Watch in delight as Rome burns and Co-Empresses Lucia and Mapp fiddle away. And with such zeal, such zest! This finale will be your final opportunity to enjoy these razor-witted human lawn darts in stiff competition against each other, and against the rest of Tilling, and against all notions of good sense and human decency. Yes, darlings, we have come to the end of Benson's Mapp & Lucia Saga!

E.F. Benson finishes his 6-book poison pen letter to English village life with a squeak and whimper rather than an unseemly roar. He presents to his devoted readers not a devastating conflagration but instead a colorful yet still deadly easy-bake oven. 'Tis sad but only fitting: the Mapp & Lucia novels, despite the perfection of a couple books and the near-perfection of three more, were always a minor affair. Brittle constructions. Dainty old knick-knacks arranged on an aunt's shelf that you may long to sweep aside and smash underfoot, but you know will eventually be packaged up carefully and perhaps sold at a public market, or stored in a dusty attic or damp basement. But don't smash those cherished antiques - they still retain value!

Benson was clearly, as the hoi polloi say, "over it" when he wrote this volume. Despite the potentially momentous tragicomedy of a duel between Queen and Queen, Mayor vs. Mayoress, he instead chose to ramble a bit and rework old bits, as if he were perhaps a bit bored with his monstrous adult-sized cabbage patch kids. His formerly comic confection Georgie - now the Mayoral Consort and still cutting a striking figure in a ruby-colored velvet suit - is less a figure of fun and more of an author stand-in. Poor Georgie is rather bored now of all of Lucia and Mapp's royal antics. Alas, boredom will strike us all at some point! Could it be the inevitable default and terminus of the human condition? We shudder and perhaps perish at the thought.

But darlings, I do hate to end on such a plaintive, pathos-ridden minor note myself. The book is still a worthy creation, a painless slip-n-slide that you can glide merrily upon while fully dressed. Even a Benson who is rather bored and at his most in need of a nap on the garden room chaise and then perhaps some light refreshment with friends after, is still a Benson who is a raconteur of the first form. Although the first five novels in the series can be enjoyed at any time and at any place and in any state of mind - as long as that mind is poisonous and petty, like mine - the sixth can be enjoyed as well. But perhaps it should be enjoyed after tossing back a generous flute of champagne. Better yet, the whole bottle. Why not? Everything is better with champagne! Indeed, these novels are the literary equivalent: fizzy and light, sparkling and fun, and an absolutely necessary dietary supplement for bored dilettantes, society climbers, gossipy matrons, provincial Karens, and every other sort of malicious, self-absorbed queen. Ah the pretty-ugly things. Lucia & Mapp are the queens of such queens! ...more

42 likes · Like · see review

Aug 16, 2024 Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ rated it really liked it

Shelves: humour, classics

Lucia sighed."All very tiresome,"she said, "but Elizabeth forces me, in mere self-defence, to descent to little schemings and intrigues. How it bores me!"
"Darling, it's your breath of life!" said Irene, "and you do it so beautifully!"

I wonder what Benson's plans were for this series.

The ending didn't feel like Benson had decided to leave Lucia, Georgie, Mapp & the rest of the gang forever. But I think this might have been the right time to go, as once (view spoiler) ...more

26 likes · Like · see review

Mar 26, 2008 Susan in NC rated it it was amazing

Shelves: reread, currently-re-reading, favorites

8/2024: Still 5 stars - no matter what the situation, no matter how cringe-worthy the embarrassment, Lucia prevails!

This final Benson Lucia novel finds Lucia facing possible social ruin - she’s been elected mayor of Tilling and may finally have reached the end of her reign as self-elected Queen of Tilling society. Has she finally gotten too big for her britches? Will her supreme snobbishness finally be rebuffed?

I love these novels - like Thirkell’s Barsetshire novels, nothing really happens, i ...more

6 likes · Like · see review