The Freaks of Mayfair (Illustrated)
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3 reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
for Benson diehards only.
3 Sep 2005
Format:Hardcover
This is a series of short character sketches; social climbers, cats, snobs, faddists. They are very well-wrought. There is information on "grizzly kittens" --those that keep on acting like young things--frolicking & using old, out-of-date slang when well past their prime; several chapters on the important differences between vertical and horizontal social climbing, and how it is done; some cold words about gossiping and what an absolute waste it can be...twelve or so outlines of people and who they are and what they do.
There is no plot, no story--just sketches of "types" that you might find in upper-class London at the end of the Edwardian era.
Perceptive, thoughtful, intentionally a little cruel; these are certainly good essays and the illustrations by George Plank, which were contemporaneous with the pieces are appropriate, if a little bizarre (take an Aubrey Beardsley drawing and make the figures middle-aged and stocky).
These short pieces strike me as a novelist's workbook; he plans to use this character or that one some day in a "real" book--and meantime they were polished up a bit for publication...
I certainly enjoyed reading this book; but would not recommend it to someone who's never read this author before.
I would tend to say start with "Secret Lives" and the Mapp and Lucia novels; and if you are crazy about them (which I was), then FREAKS OF MAYFAIR will give you some insight into what sort of world Benson pulled the characters in those books from...
There is no plot, no story--just sketches of "types" that you might find in upper-class London at the end of the Edwardian era.
Perceptive, thoughtful, intentionally a little cruel; these are certainly good essays and the illustrations by George Plank, which were contemporaneous with the pieces are appropriate, if a little bizarre (take an Aubrey Beardsley drawing and make the figures middle-aged and stocky).
These short pieces strike me as a novelist's workbook; he plans to use this character or that one some day in a "real" book--and meantime they were polished up a bit for publication...
I certainly enjoyed reading this book; but would not recommend it to someone who's never read this author before.
I would tend to say start with "Secret Lives" and the Mapp and Lucia novels; and if you are crazy about them (which I was), then FREAKS OF MAYFAIR will give you some insight into what sort of world Benson pulled the characters in those books from...
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Mayfair Bestiary
16 Aug 2007
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Benson fans should rejoice in this release which chronicles the "freaks"--strange fauna--who haunt the fashionable drawing rooms of the Mayfair microcosm of Edwardian Society. As a collection of "entries", the style does not require a sustained plot--so don't expect one. Benson chose a form that allowed for publication in the satirical magazines of the day and each entry has its share of droll wit.
I bought the book specifically for the "Aunt Georgie" piece, suspecting that it would prefigure the character who became Georgie Pilson. I had hoped for a really early look at how Georgie hired Foljambe, his peerless parlor maid/caregiver. This is not the case: Aunt Georgie is the wealthy head of a "good" British family with plenty of sisters and so on to support and a large house in the country where he houses his dependent relatives. He has "serious" interests in poetry and music but is not the artist that Benson makes of his "immortal" Georgie. Read the book to learn more...but rejoice also that Benson later developed Georgie Pilson.
In other chapters, Benson goes on to lampoon the social fads of his day, familiar to readers of the "Riseholm" period of his Lucia books: Yoga, Spiritualism, Christian Science Healing, Vegan lifestyles and so forth. Of course he chronicles a typology of "climbers", finding room for chapters on "verticle" ones and "horizontal" ones. Not one prefigures the highly developed skills Lucia displays in her social mountaineering but they make for a cozy evening read--perhaps at bedtime, just before dropping off.
This book is well worth buying.
I bought the book specifically for the "Aunt Georgie" piece, suspecting that it would prefigure the character who became Georgie Pilson. I had hoped for a really early look at how Georgie hired Foljambe, his peerless parlor maid/caregiver. This is not the case: Aunt Georgie is the wealthy head of a "good" British family with plenty of sisters and so on to support and a large house in the country where he houses his dependent relatives. He has "serious" interests in poetry and music but is not the artist that Benson makes of his "immortal" Georgie. Read the book to learn more...but rejoice also that Benson later developed Georgie Pilson.
In other chapters, Benson goes on to lampoon the social fads of his day, familiar to readers of the "Riseholm" period of his Lucia books: Yoga, Spiritualism, Christian Science Healing, Vegan lifestyles and so forth. Of course he chronicles a typology of "climbers", finding room for chapters on "verticle" ones and "horizontal" ones. Not one prefigures the highly developed skills Lucia displays in her social mountaineering but they make for a cozy evening read--perhaps at bedtime, just before dropping off.
This book is well worth buying.
1 of 4 people found the following review helpful
[...] and Dated
28 Nov 2009
Format:Paperback
The best literature is ageless. We still enjoy the period pieces of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, despite the fact that the worlds they described have vanished into the past, because we empathise with the characters and love the writing.
Unfortunately, "The Freaks of Mayfair" by E F Benson is not in that class. The stories in the book were published in 1916. The "freaks" and their attitudes so cuttingly caricatured by Benson would have been completely understood and enjoyed by British audiences probably up to World War 2, by which time the world encapsulated in the stories had largely been swept away.
Today it all seems so dated, with many of the detailed allusions and asides completely lost to modern readers, except, perhaps to British readers who may still be familiar with the Mayfair world of long ago.
Of course, many of the stories can still be enjoyed, because the attitudes Benson pokes fun at still exist and we can make the mental leap from a vanished world to the world of today. Everyone can enjoy taking down a snob, or a social climber, or a worldly cleric, or an elderly person decrying the lamentable standards of modern youth, or parasites who batten (and fatten) on the hospitality of others. Less acceptable today is making fun of the gay. All such stories are in the book.
My main gripe is that Benson works his material too hard. His stories are generally too [...], and, by overdoing it, he alienates the reader (at least this one). Sometimes less is more. Understatement can be just as effective as a megaphone.
There are a few wonderful patches of writing in the book, but the reader has to plough through much dross before uncovering the gems.
Unfortunately, "The Freaks of Mayfair" by E F Benson is not in that class. The stories in the book were published in 1916. The "freaks" and their attitudes so cuttingly caricatured by Benson would have been completely understood and enjoyed by British audiences probably up to World War 2, by which time the world encapsulated in the stories had largely been swept away.
Today it all seems so dated, with many of the detailed allusions and asides completely lost to modern readers, except, perhaps to British readers who may still be familiar with the Mayfair world of long ago.
Of course, many of the stories can still be enjoyed, because the attitudes Benson pokes fun at still exist and we can make the mental leap from a vanished world to the world of today. Everyone can enjoy taking down a snob, or a social climber, or a worldly cleric, or an elderly person decrying the lamentable standards of modern youth, or parasites who batten (and fatten) on the hospitality of others. Less acceptable today is making fun of the gay. All such stories are in the book.
My main gripe is that Benson works his material too hard. His stories are generally too [...], and, by overdoing it, he alienates the reader (at least this one). Sometimes less is more. Understatement can be just as effective as a megaphone.
There are a few wonderful patches of writing in the book, but the reader has to plough through much dross before uncovering the gems.
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