Queen Lucia [Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Mrs Emmeline Lucas, known in her community as Lucia, "reigns supreme over the affairs of Riseholme". Riseholme is a one main street village in rural England in the year 1920. The "affairs of Riseholme" involve leisured eccentrics who devote their energies and time to the favorite pastimes, hobbies, fads and fancies of the day. It is Lucia's role as leader to take responsibility for heightening an awareness and questing for greater cultural richness. Not that she admits to this, even to herself. "You all work me to death," she usually says, when a new opportunity for leading a crusade or instigating a new field of cultural endeavor presents itself.

Of course, Lucia's stance provokes great rivalry. Riseholmeites do not so much relate to each other as try to put each other down. Many are put down, and many fall down when they tread on those metaphorical banana skins that fate seems to spread before those who are absurdly over-ambitious

Using this material, E F Benson, begins an inter-related series of novels with this one in 1920. He devises an almost mock-heroic quality in the telling of his tale. Benson makes us aware that no great legendary conqueror gave as much thought and weight to the planning of a military conquest as do the Riseholmeites to the consideration of who to invite for afternoon tea.

The result is gentle satire and great fun from beginning to end. Not a day, not an hour, passes in Riseholme without plots being hatched, news being sought, and allegiances being formed.

I don't recommend that you present this book as a gift to you football-playing, beer-swilling, macho male friends and relations. It is for those who enjoy the word spinning of an Oscar Wilde, mixed with the sophistication of a Noel Coward.

English actress Geraldine McEwan, who played the role of Lucia in a TV mini-series based on this series of books, has recorded this and others in the series in audio book format. With her sharp, silvery voice and incisive delivery, she makes Lucia and the people of Roseholme unforgettable.

I just love EF Benson's world created for his characters Mapp & Lucia. Tilling (& Riseholme of course) just make you want to laugh out loud (and I usually do!)
If you want an easy read but one that also tells you a lot about the human condition this is for you. Ideal for holiday reading and when you're feeling fed up. If this doesn't help you smile I'd be surprised if anything will!

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.