Christmas At Cold Comfort Farm (1972) - Plot & Excerpts
The Christmas pudding at Cold Comfort Farm will foretell the doom that is to happen in the coming year. Just pray you don't get the coffin nail. In sixteen stories staring everyone from the Starkadders to a young rich girl obsessed with a dancer, to a librarian who thinks she's in love with a writer who happens to be not what she thinks, to people with double standards who ruin the lives of others, Stella Gibbons's short stories are sweet but insightful and thankfully back in print. Fans of Cold Comfort Farm will revel in this chance to finally read some of her other writing and read the long unattainable Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm. There is nothing more frustrating to a book addict like myself but to completely fall in love with an author and then find out that basically everything else they've ever written is out of print. Also note, that if you're an Anglophile, this is far more common then you'd think. Almost all of Dodie Smith is out of print stateside, unless you really want to read 101 Dalmatians, and you'd think by her shelves at bookstores and libraries that Daphne Du Maurier only wrote two books, Rebecca and Jamaica Inn. Usually Amazon UK can rectify these problems, but not always. Some authors are out of print across the board. I read Cold Comfort Farm so long ago that I quite literally don't remember when, but I knew I instantly wanted to read more by Stella Gibbons. Was this likely to happen? No.I pined to read the two follow up books. How dare there be sequels, yes, plural, to Cold Comfort Farm that I couldn't get my hands on! I would literally do anything to get my hands on Conference at Cold Comfort Farm and Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm, but neither trolling the used stores or the internet yielded me results. When I finally went to college the main library had a copy of Conference at Cold Comfort Farm so part of my dreams came true. I was able to read and enjoy the story but I had to return it sadly. Interesting fact, I forgot to return it on time and had a $200 fine levied against me and my grades for the fall semester held because I had totally forgot to return it... luckily I called the library, begged forgiveness and they had the book that night.Yes, they had the book, I didn't... but quite some time later on abe books I finally found a reasonably priced copy of Conference at Cold Comfort Farm, and at least that book was now accounted for. That only left Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm. I would never ever see this listed anywhere for months and then a copy would come up for sale for about $300 and then disappear the same day into the library of a collector with deep pockets. All this leads to the joyous day when Penguin Books decided to re-release Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm.It was around the time of this announcement that I first realized that it was not a full book but a collection of short stories. This made me actually really happy that even if I had had deep pockets that I hadn't splurged on this book. Collections of short stories are a mixed bag. When I finally picked this book up over the holidays to get into the festive mood I was even more grateful for my discretion. The truth of the matter is that the story "Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm" was a dud. I did not like it one bit. Well, maybe one bit, and that bit was the Reverend visiting on the first page, after that, straight downhill. And now you're thinking, she hated the story and yet four stars... the reason being the mixed bag theory. The story I most looked forward to was a big letdown, all the rest I had no expectations for and while all entertained, there were a few that were so sublime, so perfect, they should be up there with some of the finest short stories of Daphne Du Maurier. While some of the overtones of the stories are a little anti-feminist for today's readers, seeing that a home and a man is what makes your life settled, they still have a depth that is surprising for sure short tales and it really gets you thinking.Yet the story that just blew me away was "The Murder Mark" about two men in a town who get together and talk. One of them is a chemist and is running a failing business and happens to be obsessed with palmistry (yeah, Gibbons's characters do tend to be an obsessive lot), the other is a writer of crime fiction. The two are talking over a horrid crime that happened recently across the street and discussing the theory that murderers always come back to the scene of the crime. With a wink and a nod to crime writers and overtones of Jack the Ripper, this story made me stay up way past my bedtime to finish the tale. I would recommend you buy it just to read this one story... seriously, it is that good. "Golden Vanity" though is a strong contender for second place! Nom de plume shenanigans! But check your copy before you buy it, mine had a whole bunch of pages fall out near the end of the book. Bad Penguin, bad! You should know how to do binding right!
The one thing everyone seems to know of Stella Gibbons is that she wrote one book ' Cold Comfort Farm' and then she was destined to have it hang around her neck like the famous albatross for the rest of her less than stellar career. This may or may not be true, though I remember reading 'Here be dragons' and quite enjoying it, but it cannot be denied that for myself CCF is probably the only book of hers that i would return to. That was until I picked this up whilst Christmas shopping in Exeter. Ironically the title short story is, whilst drawing on the fondness of memory of that other book, in my opinion quite easily the weakest story in the collection. It is without purpose, with little real humour and no drama. Weak, weak, weak. However that does not go for all the stories.In the collection you gain a real sense of a woman who understood the missed opportunities for love and happiness that comes about as a result of people failing to speak or communicate clearly. 'To love and to cherish' gently nudges us along the road of wasted life. There are other examples of the same sadness and though very few stories end sadly or miserably 'The walled garden', 'A charming man' and 'sisters' all speak in different ways of expectation and loss, of people reaching out in love or decency and being rebutted. Sad but real.There is humour and a wonderful sense of the absurd and the sarcastic slant of some of Gibbons' comments are wonderfully understated but striking. In 'The friend of man' an overlooked woman taken for granted seeks release but to what'She did not want second best. She wanted the real thing; that real thing which her friends discovered, like the gleeful followers of a treasure hunt, every eighteen months or so '....OuchIn the same story Gibbons describes another of the characters thus'He stood, balancing slightly on his heels, sipping his womanish drink and wishing it was beer; he was as conspicous as a stone post in that fluid crowd'simple image but cleverly expresses a good deal about him, his opinions and the insubstantial group of hangers on. This seems a particular gift of Gibbons, the ability to describe swiftly and concisely. In the story 'Tame Wild Party' we find this sentence'He was green in the face and a lock of hair fell over one of his eyes giving him a Beardsleyish look which Joyce, who had never heard of Beardlsey, found singularly revolting'The genius of this little sentence is it tells us so much of Joyce. Had she heard of Beardsley then her reaction would have been different because the decadent society of which she felt compelled to be a part would approve of his look and thus so would she. I loved that concise and incisive whip of criticism implied without being obvious. As i read these stories, and there are 16 in all, they come from different directions and nestle down with different atmospheres but I was struck by the fact that she wrote of the same class of people, to a large extent, as did Wodehouse. In these stories however, though there was not the same witticisms and clever turn of phrases that pepper his writing, I found I liked the characters more. I was, to a large extent rooting for them. These stories will never have been going to set the world on fire but if you enjoy short stories then these have a simple value. They are about relationship and missed opportunity, about hero-worship and its painful demise, about the growth in self-knowledge that leads to a new future and the very last story in the collection is a simple but clever one that ends on a note of really satisfying acknowledgment that it is never too late.
What do You think about Christmas At Cold Comfort Farm (1972)?
This was a book club selection, not one I would have chosen before or after having read it! While the scene is supposedly rural Brithish life of the 1930's, I found references that made me wonder if it wasn't suppose to have been the 1940's. While the plot was interesting, the British dialect was so well written, that by the time you figured out what was being said, your mind will be so confused, you need to take a rest from reading. The most damaging aspect of the book was the illusion that you would learn what "I saw the most horrible thing in the woodshed" meant as well as learning what the rights of Robert Poste's child were...forget it the illusion continues through to the end of the book, the details also illude the reader. My suggestion, if you want to know what 'Cold Comfort Farm' is about....watch the movie!
—Linda Munro
Reading Stella Gibbons is like taking a lovely warm bath - an inherently comforting experience. Obviously the plum in the pudding is her revisiting of the eponymous Cold Comfort Farm on Christmas Day a little before Flora Post makes their aquaintance. Here the Christmas "gifts" are to be given out - although with the gothic twist expected of the Stark household. Pity the recipient of the coffin nail in the pudding. Ada Doom, the matriarch of the clan, commands her descendants to - "Be Gay, Spawn!" - a line which I have adopted as my own and whip out at any opportunity with my own ungrateful children. The stories do show their age a little (they were written in the late '30's) - unfortunately this is still a time when men can slap their wives and it is seen as masterful rather than abusive. There is a little too much vintage cath kidston-y femininity for my liking on display but there is still vituperative, grumbling Ada Doom brandishing her stick in a fetid farmhouse kitchen to warm your cockles. Definitely a good Christmas read.
—Clare
Publicado en http://lecturaylocura.com/navidades-e...La publicación hace algunos años de ”La hija de Robert Poste” fue un bombazo para la editorial Impedimenta, fue una de esas sorpresas que la gente recomendaba naturalmente, el boca a boca (o boca a oreja) sirvió para auparla y convertirla en un clásico de obligada visita, una diversión muy loca y metaficcional con las andanzas de un grupo de brutos ingleses que son visitados por la refinada Flora Poste y hace que cambien sus vidas; no en vano llevan ya 19 ediciones de este libro.Su publicación original en 1932 ocasionó algo parecido, su autora ganó el reconocimiento general a nivel de crítica y público y le sirvió para ir publicando más libros, además de algunos relacionados con este gran éxito.El caso de “Navidades en Cold Comfort Farm” en 1940 es un poco fruto de este aprovechamiento, el título es exacto al de la edición inglesa; pero sin embargo, una vez leído al completo, se da uno cuenta de que solo hay una historia, especie de “precuela” de la primera novela de la que hablé, ambientada en la granja “Cold Comfort Farm”, a pesar de estar llamado de esta manera el libro; otro dato curioso es el referente a las “historias navideñas” porque si bien es cierto que el libro empieza con una típica (“El arbolito de Navidad”), es también un evento aislado; ya que, en el resto de relatos, las referencias son tan sutiles que, a veces se vuelven inexistentes. Impedimenta aprovecha, no sabemos si conscientemente, estos mismos hechos y lo saca en período navideño para sacar el mayor filón posible de una de sus escritoras más importantes y, para qué engañarnos, es una decisión excelente, porque el libro es fantástico, los relatos son muy eclécticos y funcionan, como de costumbre en esta insigne escritora, como disecciones perspicaces de la sociedad de la época, por citar algunos de los fantásticos cuentos:Así, en “La marca del crimen” tenemos una historia de detectives a la vieja usanza con el boticario quiromántico capaz de ayudar a resolver un caso; en “Hermanas” el final está cargado de amargura, todo por el desdén de una sociedad que se alimenta del escándalo; “Vanidad dorada” le sirve para hablar sobre la idealización del escritor por algunos lectores ahondando en los motivos por los que la gente lee libros para concluir que, muchas veces, no es por la calidad de los mismos; más doloroso por sus consecuencias es “Más que amable”, donde ataca despiadadamente la diplomacia sobre lo "políticamente correcto" en el trato personal y familiar; me gustaría citar también, por su audacia, esa joya freudiana e introspectiva que es "El hermano del señor Amberly", donde profundiza aún más, si cabe, en el estudio de la identidad de la persona y en la forma de afrontar los miedos personales.En fin, estamos, cómo no, ante una obra excelente, variada, exquisita y, desde luego, de calidad de una autora que, actualmente, aún siendo del siglo XX, me parece simplemente imprescindible. Stella Gibbons tiene ya varias de sus obras publicadas por aquí y, desde luego, nadie debería perderse ninguna de ellas.
—Mariano Hortal
