I suspect E.F. Benson is like toffee – a little is a total delight, but you wouldn’t want to have too many in a row. It’s been a few years since I last picked up an EFB, and so I absolutely loved heading to Paying Guests for the 1929 Club.
Though the novel is called Paying Guests, the people in this book are very much living in a boarding house. ‘Paying guests’ or ‘PGs’ was a polite fiction that people used in the period to make the arrangement seem more genteel – often it would be just one or two people staying as paying guests in the home of people they knew, at least tangentially. Here, the residents are a mix of long- and short-term, mostly longer, and they aren’t likely to go anywhere any time soon.
The boarding house is run by two widowed sisters, one quite fluttery and inclined to panic, the other less invested and more inclined to enjoy seeing the worst in people. Their residents include retired Colonel Chase who nightly shares his triumphs in walking or cycling; Mr Kemp the hypochondriac and his daughter Florence who is permitted no will of her own; Miss Howard the amateur artist and musician who performs ‘improvisations’ that she has practised for many hours beforehand; Miss Bliss who is at Dolton Spa to take the waters but insists that Mind will heal her – and a handful of others, less prominent.
Like a lot of Benson novels, the joy mostly comes from the combination of people who have nothing to do but gossip about each other and try to come out top in a relatively amiable, never-ending tussle for dignity. Some have their eyes on something outside of this community – marriage, perhaps – but most have resigned themselves to staying exactly where they are. Or perhaps ‘resigned’ is not the right word – they are perfectly content with their minor gripes, antipathies, observations. It could be a much sadder novel if you didn’t suspect that most of the characters wouldn’t change a thing.
The biggest plot point in Paying Guests is probably Miss Howard’s exhibition of her paintings. Which is described with Benson’s typically merciless observation of the way a certain sort of person speaks:
“Are you going into town?”
“Yes. I’ve got to see about my little pickies being framed. Just fancy! I’m going to hold a little teeny picture-exhibition of some of my rubbishy sketches. So rash! But nobody would give me peace until I promised to.
This was approximately though not precisely true: Miss Howard had told the group in the lounge that Mrs Bowen had said that everyone was longing for her to do so, and the group in the lounge had all said “Oh, you must!” again and again and again. She had to yield.
“So frightened about it,” said Miss Howard, “I shall certainly leave Bolton the day before it opens, so as not to hear all the unkind things you say about it.”
The fate of this exhibition is probably the highest stakes in Paying Guests, and I did find it as compelling as much more dramatic plots in other novels.
The other element of the book I really loved was Miss Bliss and her Mind. Benson doesn’t use the term Christian Scientist, but she is certainly something of that ilk – trying to persuade everybody that their illnesses are illusory, and that even lost objects can be found with sufficient application to Mind. She herself is clearly severely unwell, but finds plenty of excuses to explain this away. Again, in another novelist’s hands this could have been desperately sad – but, in Benson’s, it is deeply funny.
I still have a few other 1929 titles on the go, but I think this is going to be my favourite 1929 Club read. Sheer fun.
This sounds a delight!
it absolutely is!
Sounds great fun!
Really enjoyable :D
It’s great fun. As an aside, I really like the shoes in the illustration!
So 1920s and so fun!
I think your comment about E F Benson being like toffee is so apt!
Paying Guests sounds delightful. I have not read it, but I want to even more now. It was already on my tbr list after I heard it discussed in the boarding house discussion on tea or books.
Oh excellent, Sarah, I do hope you get a copy and enjoy it!
I remember being surprised when Shaun Bythell listed Benson’s books among the best-selling authors that fly off his shelves and he can never keep in stock as it’s an unfamiliar name for me. This sounds like good fun — a boarding house is always a tempting set-up.
Yes, there are definitely avid EFB fans out there! I think he is the best example of a certain sort of gossipy Edwardian writing.
I’m a bigger fan of Benson’s supernatural writing than I am of his other fiction. He is a superb ghost/macabre story writer. But this sounds wonderful and I will see if I can track down a copy.
I have some of his ghost stories but haven’t read them yet – thanks for pushing them up the tbr pile :)
I haven’t read any Benson yet, this sounds like a good place to start!
I think it definitely would be – you get a very representative taste of EFB.
I haven’t read Benson for a while, and this is soooooo tempting Simon. I did have a copy somewhere in the house – I wonder if it survived the culls…..?
Oo fingers crossed it did!
Always like a boarding house book! I wish I had time for this one but I’ve committed to Water Weeds!
Yes, always love anything in a boarding house!
I’ve only read one book by Benson so far (Queen Lucia) and had considered reading this one for 1929 Club but decided on something else instead. It does sound lovely, though!
He is such fun, and thankfully SO prolific!
I love Paying Guests and have read it many times! It may be Benson’s funniest non-Lucia book, though Secret Lives (1932) is a close contender. But my favourite Benson (who has an often astounding easy genius with metaphor) is probably the somewhat more sober An Autumn Sowing, about a man who learns to love books.
Oh thanks for mentioning that – I have An Autumn Sowing but haven’t read it yet, and that is such an enticing premise.
This does sound like it has elements promising great humor. My mother’s family were Christian Scientists when my mother was small. Thank goodness they changed!