I finished reading it in 3 sessions and thank my friend for bringing EF Benson to my attention. I like his clear style and good English. While apparently ‘light’, the book also has a profundity. It is set in London and at a two other places in regional England in the lead up to the 1st World War and then during it. Maybe it is because I am also reading Plato’s Dialogues at this time as well, but in Dodo’s Wonders Benson has Dodo in several long dialogues with characters who have a point of view just as Plato has Socrates have conversations with ‘known names’ whose public status entails that they represent a ‘type’ with an expected position.

With Dodo as a Marchioness social butterfly air head Benson has her go through a questioning and fumbling and success in social responsibility. Much of the book has Dodo in long dialogues with characters-as-types that posit life-as-lived and its meaning and responsibility and a moral position and social behaviour. I haven’t determined if the positions are ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in the morally goodness scheme or ‘right’ or ‘left’ in the politically moral spectrum, but the positions a honestly explored. ( )