Mapp y Lucía

Por E. F. Benson

Emmeline Lucas, conocida universalmente por sus amigos como Lucía, reina de Riseholme, es una archiesnob del más alto nivel. Cuando en sus vacaciones alquila una casita junto al mar, cree que ya nadie podrá hacerle sombra, hasta que se cruza en su camino Miss Elizabeth Mapp, figura central de la vida social del pequeño villorrio de Tilling. De cara al mundo, Lucía y Mapp son las mejores y más mundanas anfitrionas, pero en secreto no cejarán en su empeño, por muy bajo que puedan caer, por ganar la feroz batalla por la supremacía. Mapp y Lucía, continuación de las aventuras de la inefable Emmeline Lucas en Reina Lucía, nos presenta toda una panoplia de memorables secundarios: el vicario de Birmingham que habla con acento medieval escocés; la muy riquísima Susan, que no sale de casa sin su Rolls-Royce; Diva, aficionada al cotilleo despiadado; o el ya conocido Georgie Pillson y su tupé, devotos servidores ambos de la reina, que sufre la amenaza de ser destronada.La gran novela sobre el Beau Monde rural inglés

• Idioma: Español
• Editorial: Impedimenta
• Fecha de lanzamiento: 1 dic 2013
• ISBN: 9788415979050

E. F. Benson

Edward Frederic Benson nació en Wellington College (Berkshire, Inglaterra) en 1867. Fue hijo del director de escuela, y más tarde Arzobispo de Canterbury, Edward White Benson, y de Mary Sidgwick Benson («Minnie»), descrita por William Gladstone como «la mujer más brillante de Europa».A la muerte de su marido, Minnie formaría un «matrimonio de Boston» con Lucy Tait, hija del anterior Arzobispo de Canterbury. Benson fue hermano de una estirpe de escritores: A. C. Benson, Robert Hugh Benson y Margaret Benson, que además fue egiptóloga. Se afirma que los tres hermanos eran homosexuales, incluido E. F. Benson; de hecho, ninguno de ellos se casó. Tuvo otros dos hermanos que murieron jóvenes. En su juventud, E. F. Benson fue un excelente atleta y representó a Inglaterra en diversos campeonatos internacionales en la modalidad de patinaje artístico. Asimismo, fue un precoz y prolífico escritor, y publicó su primer libro cuando todavía era un estudiante. Aunque a él le gustaba considerarse un escritor de relatos de terror, hoy es conocido principalmente por su famosísima serie de novelas protagonizadas por las dos heroínas de la muy british burguesía rural, Elizabeth Mapp y Emmeline «Lucía» Lucas, Mapp y Lucía, que escribió ya a edad bastante avanzada y que constituyen uno de los ejemplos más notables de comedia social inglesa de la primera parte del siglo XX. La serie consiste en seis novelas, Reina Lucía (1920), La señorita Mapp Mapp (1922), Lucia in London (1927), Mapp y Lucía (1931), Lucia’s Progress (1935) y Trouble for Lucia (1939), además de dos historias cortas, «The Male Impersonator», que tradicionalmente aparece como apéndice a la novela Miss Mapp, y «Desirable Residences». Benson, escritor victoriano, como M. R. James, es muy conocido también por sus historias de fantasmas, las cuales aparecen frecuentemente en antologías del género. En ellas, Benson evita los típicos escenarios góticos, buscando ámbitos más cotidianos. Cabe reseñar «La confesión de Charles Linkworth», «El terror nocturno» o «Un cuento sobre una casa vacía». E. F. Benson murió en Londres en 1940.

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Comentarios para Mapp y Lucía

[rosalita_1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

I don't understand why I love the residents of Riseholme and Tilling so much. They really are the most vapid, conniving, hidebound, silly snobs you could ever imagine, and Lucia and Miss Mapp are the worst of the bunch. And yet, when they do occasionally get their comeuppance, I can't help but feel a pang. And I'm always eager to read more.

[bowerbirds4library · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Simply wonderful! Like the residents of Tilling I longed to know what was going to happen next with the duelling duo.

[lauralkeet · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

When I began reading the Mapp and Lucia series, which focuses first on Lucia, friends said "just wait until she meets Miss Mapp!" And oh boy, were they right about that. In this fourth installment, the social queen bees of their respective towns create quite a storm. On a visit to Tilling, Elizabeth Mapp's domain, Lucia finds a house available to let for the summer, and decides a change of scenery would do her good. She convinces her good friend Georgie to rent another house in town, and they prepare to vacate Riseholme and descend on Tilling. It happens that Lucia has rented Mapp's house, and it's all part of an elaborate annual ritual in which the residents of Tilling rent their dwellings to one another (aside: the ease with which these people pack up all their worldly goods is rather astounding...). So the stage is set for a social rivalry of epic proportions, and considerable amusement can be derived from Mapp and Lucia repeatedly attempting to one-up the other, with variable results. The climax results in a completely absurd caper, which some might call "jumping the shark," but by this time any reader worth their salt would have suspended disbelief. Just "take two hen lobsters" ... and hang on for the ride.

[lisamorr · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Mapp and Lucia, two bourgeois ladies living separately as the leading ladies of their respective towns, come together when Lucia decides to spend a couple of months in idyllic Tilling, renting Mapp's house. Mapp is of a mind to take Lucia under her wing and share her with the Tilling community, which is when the fireworks begin. The rest of the book is about the battles between these two and is very entertaining to watch.I'll give it 4 stars - the battling did get a little 'tarsome' at some point, but I did enjoy it!

[julesjones_1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Abridged audiobook of the novel, read by Miriam Margoyles on 3 CDs. My first encounter with Benson's Mapp and Lucia characters, but assuredly not my last. Hysterically funny comedy of manners following the battle of wits and garden parties between two snobs, each intent on ruling local society in a small seaside town in the early 1930s. Margoyles does a superb job of reading, bringing the various characters to vivid life.

[stewartry · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

I always liked the Britcom "Keeping Up Appearances". But it is distracting to wonder so often why no one has ever murdered Hyacinth Bucket ("It's boo-KAY!"). She's amusing, but mostly because she is surrounded by family and … friends who recognize the fact that she's unchangeably outrageous, and they're stuck with her. (Unless they kill her, and since it's a sitcom they never do.) These other characters, the neighbors and her sisters and their families, and of course her poor bedeviled husband Richard, are all what makes the show fun. If it was pure undiluted Hyacinth it would be miserable. Which brings me to Mapp and Lucia. I've been hearing about this series for years. I love a lot of British novels and tv, and I have been seeing "if you love (such and such name here) you'll love Lucia!" for ages. I've tried before, and never made it very far; I got the series from Netflix and was ready to fling the dvd against the wall after one episode; I never watched any more, and tend to doubt I ever will. But … in a couple of reviews of One for the Books, people mention how Joe Queenan designated a year in which he closed his eyes and pulled each next read off a shelf. That's how I started this one. I was passing one of my bookcases where I had whammed in a bunch of paperbacks so that only the bottoms faced out, and on a whim pulled one out at random. And sighed when it turned out to be this. It's the fourth in the series; I didn't care. I figured this would be when I eliminated these books from my library forever. And it certainly looked that way for quite a while. In my status updates I call the characters "vile" and "horrid" – and I stand by it, and much more. They're unrelievedly awful. I can only infer that Hyacinth was heavily based on Emmeline Lucas, AKA Lucia, but – as I started to say above – in this book, instead of poor bedraggled Richard and lovely-if-hounded neighbors Liz and Emmet, and the sister that has "swimming pool, sauna, and room for a pony" and those who very definitely do not, all of whom are lovable characters – and, more importantly, characters who realize how absurd Hyacinth is, but just can't figure out how to detach themselves. Mapp and Lucia has Queen Hyacinth and her sycophants, all of whom would apparently be Hyacinth if they could, and then, dear God, another Hyacinth and her sycophants. I was appalled. And then I became morbidly, reluctantly curious. And then I began to enjoy the clash of titans as Elizabeth Mapp and Emmeline Lucas (Liblib and Lulu) went after each other. But I felt wrong to be enjoying it. Aha – it's just come to me. I felt like I was watching one of those reality shows which, in reality, given a choice between death and being forced to watch, I would seriously consider death. (That's a terrible sentence, sorry.) It was all very well written, and sharply intelligent (the writing, not the characters), and there was an occasional comeuppance that made me whistle softly – but upon finishing it I felt a little dirty, as if I'd just watched an episode of some show about something named Snooki. While I am forced to admire the writing, I still wanted to throw the book against a wall many times. I'm a little surprised I didn't sometime during the chapter in which Lucia tours Mallards for the first time. The constant use of one condescending word was like visual fingernails on a blackboard, as I can only suppose it was meant to be: "little round bustling woman"; "My little plot"; "My little Eden"; "a wee little plot"; "my little secret garden" or "little gardino segreto" (twice); "my little nook"; "a little paved walk" ... etc. I may never use the word "little" again. And I bow to Benson's skill in seeing to it that Lucia and her Georgino were as nauseous as possible with their pseudo-Italian (though when I came to "So I'm bound to meet the Faraglione, and she'll see in a minute I can't talk Italian" it made all that almost worthwhile) and, God help me, their baby-talk … I feel a bit ill when someone talks baby talk to a baby. Two supposed adults using it on each other made me long for either a baseball bat for said characters or a shredder for the book. At about the three-quarter mark, the thought occurred to me that in any other sort of book Mapp and Lucia would probably find themselves together alone in some life-threatening situation in which they had to depend on each other, and come out of it bosom friends. I was astonished when the first part of that actually came to pass (in the most ridiculous manner possible); I was not astonished when the second part of that very decidedly did not. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm a simple soul. I like to be able to like at least someone in a book's cast of characters. Barring that (and I didn't like anyone here – no, not even Georgie, though he came closest), I like to at least know that the author liked his characters. It's pretty clear that E.F. Benson may have enjoyed his characters in so far as he could use them to skewer the idle snobbish rich – but my impression is that the creatures that people his book are simply vessels for his venom, and the book itself is merely the (to mix metaphors with wild abandon) stage on which his commentary is played out. I guess, unpopular as it is, I like "nice". So sue me. I enjoyed it much more than I expected to – which isn't a huge amount, but since I didn't want to like it even a little is a lot – and it did wring a few chuckles out of me. But I didn't find it nearly as funny as I take it I was supposed to; it's hailed hither and yon as a masterpiece of comedy. I was starting to worry about my sense of humor for a while there. In the end it was a pleasant surprise – but only insofar as I expected to not finish it and in fact to throw it against the nearest wall hard enough for pages to fly. I do not, however, expect to continue with the series.

[overthemoon_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Peppino dies and Lucia moves to Tilling permanently, taking Georgie with her (he lives in a separate house), entering into warfare with Elizabeth Mapp. Mapp's attempt to steal Lucia's recipe for lobster à la Riseholme has dire consequences.

[thorold_1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

As the title implies, this is the book that brings together the characters of Miss Mapp with those of Queen Lucia and Lucia in London and retrospectively makes them into a series. Lucia and Georgie decide to rent houses in Tilling for the summer, so of course Lucia has to establish herself as an independent power in Tilling society, something that Miss Mapp is determined to resist. Lucia is usually able to outmanoeuvre Mapp, but there are thrilling skirmishes along the way over the Art Club show, the Summer Fête, Miss Mapp's garden produce, and innumerable invitations to lunch, tea, bridge or dinner, all of which have endless (and hilarious) strategic ramifications. Benson is very much back on form after the slight aberration of Lucia in London, and handles all these complications with tremendous seriousness and gusto.

[miketroll · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Delightful comedy of polite society in rural England in the late 1920s. Mapp & Lucia is the most celebrated of Benson’s 6 novels featuring his eponymous heroines - not surprising, as it is the first time he brings these Valkyries (Stephen Pile’s word) together in a head-to-head clash. It is hard to imagine today a society devoting so much energy to social points scoring, but it assuredly was. Benson makes it all come alive again. This is a comic classic.