fresh as paint

When reading E.F. Benson's Lucia (and Miss Mapp) novels, sometimes you don't understand everything they're saying, partly because in England they say things differently than we do in America -- ("turn the subject" instead of "change the subject" and "coming round the corner" instead of "coming around the corner") -- & partly because they're written in the 1920s, and styles of expression in the language change & evolve over time.

Sometimes you read a paragraph and go, "That's so funny!" or "That's so true!" Other times you read a paragraph & think, "What?"
Sometimes it's like listening to music where you can't understand the lyrics. You can still like it, because of the rhythm, the beat, & the melody.

(I used to always think in "Edge of Seventeen" Stevie Nicks was singing, "Just like the one we love..." Come to find out, ("Behind the Music"...) she wasn't singing, "Just like the one we love," she was singing, "Just like the white-winged dove." whatever. ...)

Queen Lucia was published in 1920. It went out of print later. Then came back in the 70s. Nancy Mitford wrote a Foreword in 1971:

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At long last, here she is again, the splendid creature, the great, the wonderful, Lucia. What rejoicing there will be among the Luciaphils! Those of us who lost her chronicles during the war and have never, by Clique, by barrow or by theft, been able to replace them, now find ourselves armed against misfortune once again; when life becomes too much for us we shall be able to take refuge in the giardino segretto. The publishers, in reprinting QUEEN LUCIA (and by degrees, the whole saga), have deserved well of all who like to laugh.

Lucia (Mrs. Emmeline Lucas) is a forceful lady who lives in the South of England in two small country towns -- that is, when we meet her first, in the late Twenties, she is the Queen of Riseholme, but half way through her story (which ends just before the war) she transfers, presumably so that her creator can pit her against the formidable Miss Mapp, to Tilling. Tilling, I believe, is Rye, where E.F. Benson himself lived in the house formerly occupied by Henry James; this is the very house which Lucia finally worms out of Miss Mapp.

Lucia's neighbours in both towns are almost all, like herself, middle-aged people of comfortable means. Their occupations are housekeeping, at which most of them are skilled (there is a good deal about food in the books, and lobster a la Riseholme plays an important part), gardening, golf, bridge and bickering. None of them could be described as estimable, and they are certainly not very interesting, yet they are fascinated by each other and we are fascinated by them. [Makes me think of "Friends"...]

All this fascination is generated by Lucia; it is what happens with regard to her that counts; she is the centre and the driving force of her little world. As she is a profoundly irritating person, bossy, horribly energetic and pushing, [Monica Geller!] the others groan beneath her yoke and occasionally try to shake it off: but in their heart of hearts they know that it is she who keeps them going and that life without her would be drab indeed.

The art of these books lies in their simplicity. The jokes seem quite obvious and are often repeated: we can never have enough of them. [Like in "All In The Family" no matter how many times Archie said, "Editt, you are a dingbat," or, to his son-in-law, "Get away from me Meathead!" it was funny every time...you waited for it...] In Lucia in London, Daisy gets a ouija board and makes mystical contact with an Egyptian called Abfou. Now Abfou hardly ever says anything but "Lucia is a Snob," yet we hang on his lips and are thrilled every time Georgie says, "I am going to Daisy's, to weedj."

Georgie is the local bachelor who passes for Lucia's lover. Then there is the Italian with which Lucia and Georgie pepper their conversation: "Tacete un momento, Georgie. Le domestiche." It never, never palls. On at least two occasions an Italian turns up and then we learn that Lucia and Georgino mio don't really know the language at all; the second time is as funny as the first.

I must say I reopened these magic books after some thirty years with misgivings; I feared that they would have worn badly and seem dated. Not at all; they are as fresh as paint. The characters are real and therefore timeless; the surprising few differences between that pre-war world and its equivalent today only add to the interest. Money of course is one of them -- the characters speak of 2,000 pounds as we would of 20,000 pounds. At least two people have Rolls-Royces; everybody has domestiche. When listening-in begins, Lucia refuses to have a wireless until Olga, a prima donna whom she reveres, owns to having one and listens-in to Cortot on it.

None of them ever thinks of going abroad. When Lucia and Georgie want to get away from Riseholme for a little change they take houses at Tilling for the summer; that is what leads to them settling there.

But the chief difference is that, in Lucia words, "that horrid thing which Freud calls sex" is utterly ignored. No writer nowadays could allow Georgie to do his embroidery and dye his hair and wear his little cape and sit for hours chatting with Lucia or playing celestial Mozartino, without hinting at Boys in the background. Quaint Irene, in her fisherman's jersey and knickerbockers, would certainly share her house with another lesbian and this word would be used.

There are no children in the books -- "Children are so sticky," says Georgie, "specially after tea." After the death of Mr. Lucas both Georgie and Lucia are afraid that the other may wish for marriage; the idea gives them both the creeps. However, the years go by and they realize that nothing is farther from the inclination of either than any form of dalliance. Marriage is obviously the thing; Georgie remembers that he is a man and proposes it.

I was a fellow guest, at Highcliffe, with Mr. E.F. Benson soon after Lucia had become Mayor of Tilling. We talked of her for hours and he said, "What must she do now?" Alas, he died in the first year of the war; can we doubt that if he had lived Lucia would have become a General?
-----------------------[end Foreword]
Queen Lucia, by E.F. Benson. Copyright (the novel), 1920 by George H. Doran Company. Copyright (the Foreword), 1971 by Nancy Mitford.

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