Cold Comfort Farm (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) by Stella Gibbons
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Book Reviews of Cold Comfort Farm (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)
Book Review: I never meta-parody I didn't like
Summary: 3 Stars
Through the late 1900s and into the 20th century, English novelists were full of woeful tales chronicling the sad fall of gentry from affluence to poverty. Stories like Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice joined the work of Charlotte and Emily Bronte, entertaining the turn of the century reader with these melodramatic tales. By the 1920s, when some had thought this trend had passed, it moved into another phase, with pulp paperbacks filled with lurid descriptions and the purplish prose imaginable. Stella Gibbons in 1932 attempted an emergency rescue, and succeeded wonderfully with her novel, Cold Comfort Farm, recently re-released to coincide with a new movie version by director John Schlesinger.Flora Poste is the recently orphaned waif who finds it necessary to impose herself on some body of relatives. Her meager inheritance of 100 pounds a year is not enough "keep you in stockings and fans," as her good friend Mrs. Smiling remarks. She writes to several distant family members and receives three replies. Most of them are appaling, except for the one from her cousin Judith Starkadder, which is, at least, interesting and appaling. She writes back and accepts the offer of boarding from Cold Comfort Farm, to find out what "rights" she has that cousin Judith mysteriously refers to. Her arrival at Cold Comfort begins a warming trend that ends up firing up every Starkadder in sight, including: Amos, the hellfire-and-brimstone owner of the farm and preacher to the Quivering Brethern; Reuben, his son and would-be caretaker of Cold Comfort; Seth, the hunk-a-hunk-a burning love that has terrorized the female countriside, to his mother's extreme shame; the flighty Elfine, who whisks around in ethereal garments quoting her own poetry; and the matriarch who rules Cold Comfort Farm with a iron fist, Aunt Ada Doom, who saw something "nasty in the woodshed" when she was a little girl, and who hasn't left Cold Comfort Farm since.
Gibbons is artfully playing on the conventions of the melodrama, and it helps the reader to be familiar with the work of Thomas Hardy or Jane Austen to fully appreciate some of the playful work here. Without this meta-nature, Cold Comfort Farm would be amusing, but not nearly as effective. For modern readers, this is one novel that has weathered the intervening sixty years well, due in some part to Gibbons deft touch with her satire, but also her clear, readable style when not trying to out-purple the purple prose-wizards of the melodramas.
This is the perfect novel for those book-weary high-school students still suffering under the weighty tomes of "literature" that is force-fed to them by our assembly-factory education system. A good dose of parody, a kind of 1930s National Lampoon, should help them feel better about books, and literature in general.
Book Review: A book to pass the time
Summary: 2 Stars
I first saw the movie, then decided to read the book. Well, I was confused by the timeline. This book was first published in 1932, yet one of the characters makes reference to Clark Gable and Gary Cooper being hot "20 years ago." Another reference is made of a man, Flora's date for a dance, who served in a war "in '46." I can't imagine Flora being escorted by a man over 90 years old (as he would have had to be if he served in 1846) yet it is clearly not yet 1946 in this book. Perhaps the author had a rather simplistic view of the future, where nothing has changed since 1932? So this has disturbed me ever since I read this book. Granted this is a work of fiction but when Flora is talking to her friend Mrs. Smiling at the beginning and she deduces from her cousin's name "Judith" that the husband will be Amos and the sons Reuben and Seth...well, I had no idea how she pegged that (because they ARE all named those things). I assume it's a Biblical reference, but how many people are going to know that?
With almost all the characters Flora meets in Sussex, she is omniscient about them. She tells us all about how they think and what they will say and wear just by meeting them for the first time, and of course she is always right. I suppose we are meant to feel that Flora is an excellent judge of character but it seems to me that she was TOO right all the time. Like the author is hammering home Flora's sense of character judgment. They are almost all one-dimensional and Flora is easily able to sum up each character and make a simple decision which results in the improvement of each person. Too easy.
Otherwise, if you can mentally transport yourself to a decaying English farm in the '30s, where owners of small planes can simply land them in convenient fields, enjoy yourself.
Book Review: Silly
Summary: 2 Stars
I found this book was written like a comedy but because it only made me laugh once it was just silly. Comedy is one of those itchy things that you either get it, and love it or you don't. I didn't. I found the dialect frustrating: It was supposed to be set in Kent but the dialect read more like northern England, you have to read it slower to work out what is being said and in doing so you lose your attention slightly which takes the edge off the humour to the extent that you're not even aware that humour is present. At least that's what it was like for me. Whatever the nasty thing in the cowshed was isn't explained in the end but you're left feeling that there is a hint of bestiality that didn't really suit the book, being or trying to be a comedy, hence the lack of explanation. I've given it two stars because when Gibbons takes a step back and looks at the overall picture she has a great way of describing scenes.Book Review: Well, I tried...
Summary: 1 Stars
I was urged to read this novel. "Hilarious! Hysterical! Will make you laugh aloud!" One friend said she read it while undergoing chemotherapy and laughing out loud, and had the nurses laughing, too. Another friend has this as one of her perennial favorites. I respect both friends, so I gave this a try. I really did. Twice. The second time, I stopped trying to plow through and just skilled around. I admit I did laugh aloud, but only when I was struck by the reflection that these two friends thought it funny. My advice: forget it. If you want to laugh aloud, pick up THREE MEN IN A BOAT (To Say Nothing Of The Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome, and pass on this one.