Major Benjy

I finished Major Benjy today. I've mentioned this book before. It's a sequel to EF Benson's Mapp and Lucia novels.

Benson wrote six novels about Mapp and Lucia (well, strictly speaking he wrote two about Lucia¹ and one about Mapp² before he had the inspiration to bring them together for three more books³ providing both of them with worthy adversaries in each other).

Benson died in 1940 but in 1985 and 1986 Tom Holt wrote two sequels Lucia in Wartime and Lucia Triumphant which, it has to be said, were pretty good. There were the odd flaws: turns of phrase which came from a later age and a couple of minor contradictions with Benson's books but despite that the addition of two more books to the cannon was very welcome.

But there were no more as Tom went off to do other things.

Now after a long gap there's a new Mapp and Lucia novel in print: Major Benjy by Guy Fraser-Sampson.

And the news on this is mixed. The good news is that he understands the characters very well and how to construct a very Benson-esque plot. He also fleshes out the peripheral characters in a way which neither Benson nor Holt did. A particular fine example is a small scene between Mrs Wyse and Diva where their individual tragedies arising from the Great War are revealed.

The bad news is that the author's voice is unmistakeably contemporary which I think is a shame as it jars a bit. For example he is explicit about the lesbian relationship which was only hinted at by Benson and some of the goings on are definitely of the sort of which Benson would never have written.

But on balance it is good to have a new story about Tilling.

1. Queen Lucia (1920) set in the fictional village of Riseholme, based on Broadway in the Cotswolds and Lucia in London (1927).
2. Miss Mapp (1922), set in Tilling, based on Rye in Sussex.
3. Mapp and Lucia (1931), Lucia's Progress (1935) and Trouble for Lucia (1939) - all set in Tilling.