Major Benjy

Not a bad followup novel for Benson fans wanting of life in Tilling This one highlights how fixed stagnant perhaps life there had become at Lucia s arrival, especially that the good citizens had had enough of being under Mapp s thumb Major Benjy at one point considers saying that directly to her, essentially one last chance to mellow out before the others avoid her permanently As we see in the Benson canon, they do eventually come to find Mapp s meddling and Lucia s grandiosity six of one and h [...]

Anyone who appreciates the humour of P G Wodehouse will love this book It is written in a style that makes it virtually impossible to distinguish it from the writings of the author E F Benson who wrote the original Mapp and Lucia novels This is not the kind of book I would have bought myself I was sent a review copy but I found myself caught up in it by end of the first chapter Really hard to fault You can read my full review here.

I enjoyed Guy Fraser Sampson s other Mapp Lucia novels but this is, I think, the best it s certainly the funniest, with several scenes reducing me to tears of laughter as poor Major Benjy blunders his way through Tilling, the unwitting pawn of various predatory females The sexual politics on display is overt than Benson could get away with in the originals but it doesn t feel particularly jarring or out of place, and after all Benson had two very obviously gay characters in the originals Perhap [...]

I read E.F Benson s wonderful Mapp and Lucia books last year and then recently discovered that there were actually two series of continuations, homages or whatever you want to call them, one by Guy Fraser Sampson and one by Tom Holt I ve now begun the Fraser Sampson series, and what a great read it is He catches the tone of the original books perfectly, while adding some racier elements Major Benjy s singing lessons is a stroke of genius that do not seem out of place at all Very funny and highly [...]

Not my cup of tea at all I hadn t read any of the original books bt E F Benson, and would have avoided this if I had It depicts the empty lives of tedious people with nothing to do, and does it in mannered prose which grates very quickly Even though I managed to plough through the description of a game of bridge which is incomprehensible to anyone who doesn t play the game, I gave up half way through the book, feeling that I must have something better to do.

Brilliant adaption of the Tilling characters, a must for any Benson fans God bless Major Benjy so pleased that his character has been given a fuller portrait now how about some of the other Tilling characters

Goodness me this is a terrible book Or rather it s a terrible Tilling book As a book in its own right, it s okay I can understand why people who hadn t read the originals enjoyed it But as a Mapp and Lucia book I ve been a huge Bensonite for many years, and highly enjoyed Tom Holt s two very good attempts at writing sequels I had high hopes for this, but was disappointed.Right from the opening chapter a description of Major Benjy having a hangover it was obvious that the writing lacked the subli [...]

AMAZING It bothers me a little that I do not know a single other person who loves E.F Benson There has to be others of us out there lurking, or there wouldn t be the novels, or the BBC show, or these beautiful homages I stumbled upon this book and with glee noticed that there are half a dozen continuations of the Riseholme Tilling saga and was both overjoyed and nervous What if it was disappointing fanfiction But I ordered this one first just because a Major Benjy backstory would be very interes [...]

Sex bursts into the drawing rooms of Tilling Sex so noisy it can be heard by people in the street It s all a bit disconcerting I suppose if you had a grandmother like Miss Mapp and walked in and discovered her smoothing massage oil over the gardener, you would feel like I did while reading this book Disconcerted Admiring yes, but also preferring people to stay as they were when one first knew them.

This is a sort of literary sitcom, the situation a seaside English village during the 1920s, the comedy coming from the eccentric characters who populate it They scheme and gossip over tea and bridge and the skulduggery that goes on before the cake making competition reaches epic proportions It is absurd, very British and great fun The author adopts a wordy, erudite style which suits the time and the story well.

so happy there are people like guy fraser sampson and tom holt who have kept us lucia addicts up to date on the antics of our favourite tillingites fraser sampson has captured the style and language of e.f benson almost perfectly i really enjoyed this book and hope for , of course the only thing that irked me just a tiny bit was the continuous references to incidents in the e.f benson books a great read, though.

I heartily concur with WebleyWebster s review of this delightful resurrection of some of my favorite characters from the Benson series To experience them in depth, as Fraser Sampson has done has given confirmation to those traits we could heretofore only see in our imagination His vivid description of Miss Mapp s style of walking her head tilt caught her beautifully right on the mark My only criticism is the vast number of typos Editors heads up

The characters and happenings of the fictional village of Tilling in the 1920s are a wonderful escape from modern life.