Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. Stella Gibbons turns her attention instead on having a good time and on romance, penning a rusticated novel of manners in which Flora Poste, a highly educated and sophisticated young lady from the London high society sets out to clear up the muddle of Cold Comfort Farm. The unprepared reader might be tempted to compare Gibbons with P G Wodehouse, and at least in one aspect, he/she will not be far off the mark : this is a laugh out loud comedy displaying wicked wit and sparkling turns of phrase. A more careful examination of the text reveals major differences in approach. While Wodehouse is escapist, focusing almost exclusively on clubhouse humour and wealthy young rascals pulling pranks while visiting sumptuous manors, Gibbons is launching barbed satirical arrows at the pomposity and pretentiousness of her literary peers, setting her sights on such big names as D H Lawrence, Emile Zola or Thomas Hardy. Some of these 'naturalist' school authors and critics felt outraged at the daring debut author lampooning of their favorite style, but I think modern readers will appreciate the liberating breath of fresh air through the dark and twisted avenues of atavistic passions they embraced (I believe I got the bug of flowery prose from Gibbons). In the foreword, the author explains: I think, quite without meaning to, I presented a kind of weapon to people, against melodrama and the over-emphasising of disorder and disharmony, and especially the people who rather enjoy it. I think the book could teach other people not to take them seriously, and to avoid being hurt by them. The novel then is built on the clash of two philosophies: Flora Poste versus the Starkadders. (no relation to the Blackadders other than as a source of top notch Brit humour). How did the two come together at Cold Comfort Farm? The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had been expensive, athletic and prolonged; and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living. versus : There have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort. Left impoverished by her careless parents, Flora must impose herself for sustenance and shelter on distant relatives. She accepts the invitation to Cold Comfort Farm, somewhere in the middle of the Downs, where the extended Starkadder clan pass the time harvesting the 'swedes', gathering the 'sukebind', milking cows that are prone to lose their limbs when you turn your head, and in general living close to the land and harboring dark secrets in their hearts. Their dumbness said: 'Give up. There is no answer to the riddle; only that bodies return exhausted, hour by hour, minute by minute, to the all-forgiving and all-comprehending primaeval slime' Flora Poste, despite her young age, is a lady who knows what she wants from life and how to get it : Unless everything is tidy and pleasant and comfortable all about one, people cannot even begin to enjoy life. I cannot endure messes. She is determinate and bossy, devious and imaginative. When she witnesses the muddle of repressed emotions and twisted relationships she has landed in, she sets out immediately putting everybody in their places. In one of the most memorable scenes in the novel, the metaphor is put into practice when she releases Big Business, the long suffering bull kept locked in a dark and damp shed out in the open meadows, under the sun and the wind. Then she starts on her relatives, giving advice on family planning to a servant girl that gets pregnant year after year, agricultural advice to the serious older son, religious pointers to the family father, fashion tips to the scatterbrained young lady of the farm, and so on ... The Starkadders were simply ripe for rows and mischief. Only a person with a candid mind, who is usually bored by intrigues, can appreciate the full fun of an intrigue when they begin to manage one for the first time. If there are several intrigues and there is a certain danger of their getting mixed up and spoiling each other, the enjoyment is even keener. Only one person seems immune to Flora's emancipation program : Aunt Ada Doom, the secretive matriarch of the Starkadders, the spider queen who lives the life of a recluse, locked in her own chambers at the farm since youth ( I saw something nasty in the woodshed! is her hilarious catchphrase), but pulling the strings of everyone else from that den, trying as hard to keep the Starkadders tied to the farm as Flora tries to liberate them. Persons of Aunt Ada temperament were not fond of a tidy life. Storms were what they liked; pleanty of rows, and doors being slammed, and jaws sticking out, and faces white with fury, and faces brooding in corners, and faces making unnecessary fuss at breakfast, and plenty of opportunities for gorgeous emotional wallowings, and partings for ever, and misunderstandings, and interferings, and spyings, and, above all, managing and intriguing. The screwball plot can be appreciated well enough without getting into academic research of the books and the characters lampooned by Gibbons, but these elements are integral to the text, and make the novel a good candidate for further inspection and for many re-readings. Some of the literary allusions are closer to the surface, my favorites being the encounters between Flora and the 'naturalistic' writer visiting the farm, Mr. Mybug, an annoying exponent of misogyny who cannot believe that Wuthering Heights could have been written by a woman. Flora deals succintly with his sillyness and with his attempts at seduction: By now Flora was really cross. Surely she had endured enough for one evening without having to listen to intelligent conversation? Here was an occasion, she thought, for indulging in that deliberate rudeness which only persons with habitually good manners have the right to commit. Regarding his literary theories, she is even more sharp: One of the disadvantages of almost universal education was the fact that all kinds of persons acquired a familiarity with one's favourite writers. It gave one a curious feeling; it was like seeing a drunken stranger wrapped in one's dressing-gown. The last quote stirs in me familiar feelings, such as finding one of my favorite five star novels here on Goodreads dismissed with a one star rating and sometimes even with a fierce rant about how much it sucks. And so it goes ...Coming back to Gibbons' prose, the satire is even stronger in her manner of presentation. She devised a three star system for the benefit of critics, making it easier for them to identify the passages of high literary achievement, the ones so admired in her male counterparts. Here's just one example of what I'm talking about: His huge body, rude as a windtortured thorn, was printed darkly against the thin mild flame of the declining winter sun that throbbed like a sallow lemon on the westering lip of Mockuncle Hill, and sent its pale, sharp rays into the kitchen through the open door. The brittle air, on which the fans of the trees were etched like ageing skeletons, seemed thronged by the bright, invisible ghosts of a million dead summers. The cold beat in glassy waves against the eyelids of anybody who happened to be out in it. High up, a few chalky clouds doubtfully wavered in the pale sky that curved over against the rim of the Downs like a vast inverted pot-de-chambre. Huddled in the hollow like an exhausted brute, the frosted roofs of Howling, crisp and purple as broccoli leaves, were like beasts about to spring. I reached the end of the adventures of Flora Poste at Cold Comfort Farm much to soon, just as I wanted to spend more time in her company (useful hint : I hear there's a sequel !). Stella Gibbons is now for me much more than a screwball writer, she is a poster kid of both feminism and common sense. Dare I say she is better than Wodehouse? A case of apples and oranges here, why not enjoy both? I wish she were as prolific as the creator of Jeeves and Psmith, but her attacks on the literary establishment were not without consequences. Gibbons never reached the same succes with her next novels. Sometimes though, reputations can be built on one hit wonders.---I have a few quotes left over, I didn't find a way to insert into the text, but I will add them anyway, hoping you will enjoy them even out of context: Mrs. Smiling's character was firm and her tastes civilized. Her method of dealing with wayward human nature when it insisted on obtruding its grossness upon her scheme of life was short and effective; she pretended that things were not so: and usually, after a time, they were not. Christian Science is perhaps a larger organization, but seldom so successful. --- A straight nose is a great help if one wishes to look serious. --- There they all were. Enjoying themselves. Having a nice time. And having it in an ordinary human manner. Not having it because they were raping somebody, or beating somebody, or having religious mania or being doomed to silence by a gloomy, earthy pride, or loving the soil with the fierce desire of a lecher, or anything of that sort.
Meals at the farm were eaten in silence. If anyone spoke at all during the indigestible twenty minutes which served them for dinner or supper, it was to pose some awkward question, which, when answered, led to a blazing row; as, for example : 'Why has not (whichever member of the family was absent from table) -- come in to her food?' or 'Why has not - the barranfield been gone over a second time with the pruning snoot?' On the whole, Flora liked it better when they were silent, though it did rather give her the feeling that she was acting in one of the less cheerful German highbrow films...As it was, I came across this story in the shape of a PBS telefilm (that was very well done) a few years back; but I found that due to a lot of other books getting in the way, it was hard to pick up something already pre-visited in motion-picture form. So many other, unknown books waiting out there.Finally I managed to work it in, and now I'm very pleased to say how entertaining it is; probably best to let a few years elapse after the Pbs production. Author Stella Gibbons has given her readers a super-fatted calf to be slaughtered on the terms-- and in the voice-- of the well-meaning, harsh but sentimental "loam & lovechild" agri-novel, of the sort practiced by Thomas Hardy and lesser pens. (According to wikipedia, there are even more trying books in this genre, that were serialized for the Brit papers; which efforts Gibbons herself was charged with summarizing for the Evening Standard, and that aspect of the day-job became the novel we have here, her first. Interestingly, those authors took later opportunities to lash back, and little dissing / name-checking interactions took place; in the 3os!)Reading this and knowing the outcome, I realized that this would be the perfect book to find hiding away in a horrid little motor-court motel, perhaps, on an unnecessary and bleak business trip. Or maybe in a ratty vacation cottage, where perhaps in the unpleasant situation of staying for a rainy week with children, say, or with in-laws, a desperate vacationer might pick it up thinking it might somehow encompass a port in a storm. There is something reassuringly uplifting about sending up the most pious of literate morality plays, with wickedness and intentional spleen. Gibbons has an acute sense of what becomes most trying and exasperating in the slow, regular, nature-prompted rhythms of the tradition. (And certainly the damp beginnings of every David, Pip or Oliver that ever stalked the heath in search of new plot developments.) She gleefully lampoons everything from the early gothic sensibilities to the Brontes, and slashes away at every last flourish of the fore-doomed ancient family gone-to-seed. Contending, as they eternally must, with their own lustful and base inclinations in the coarse conditions of the wet English countryside. At some point the family with whom our Flora has unwillingly taken refuge decides that even if they were to sell their cow, it would have to go to the circus, due to the sorry condition of the beast : 'Ay, and I would, too, if I could get hold of anyone to buy her, circus or no circus. But no one will. Ay, 'tes all the same. Cold Comfort stock ne'er finds a buyer. Wi' the Queen's Bane blighting our corn, and the King's Evil laying waste the clover and the Prince's Forfeit bring' black ruin on the hay and the sows as barren as come-ask-it -- ay, 'tes the same tale iverywhere, all over the farm...'For balance, Gibbons manages to work in a few substantial stabs at the adjacent if distant Bloomsburys, the arty-crafty Wm Morris interiors and society posturings that contrast diametrically with the doomed, simple country-mice of Cold Comfort Farm. And it must also be said that Gibbons doesn't spare the tender, self-improving, above-it-darling tendencies of her own slightly-too-posh London set.Rather than allowing the novel to close in catastrophic culture-clash, or in gruelingly inevitable, primitive decay, our Flora has designed progressive outcomes for nearly the whole cast of the novel. But you'll have to read it to find out how. Your next wretched vacation will be brighter for the sake of it. _________________________________note: it took a while but after thinking about it, I realize that this is a reverse Wizard Of Oz, wherein rather than a shy impressionable girlchild being cast amongst the cartoon hordes of Oz, uber-good and hyper-evil . . . we have a worldly-wise citygirl going amongst the gothic monstrosities of pious Kansas, who, rather than being so very good or evil, just kind of suck. Funnier that way. note on the edition: As mentioned above, the perfect way to encounter this novel would be on a casual, browsing basis, maybe off the shelf of a motel room. An unadorned Oxford or Penguin cover would suitably keep its secret intact. However, this is not the case here. As much as I love New Yorker illustrator and humorist Roz Chast, her signature neurotics do the book a disservice. Her over-the-top design and cover drawings here are the graphic equivalent of publishing Hamlet with a bold, black, "Deathly Serious" banner printed on its cover.
What do You think about Cold Comfort Farm (2006)?
I love that movie - I've watched over and over. I did not know it was based on a book, so I'm backtracking. Illustrated by Roz Chast - what's not to like? Actually I got a copy from the library that's the original 1933 book. Sending it back - too musty :-(BTW, just finished watching Pillars of the Earth starring Sewell. He's such a hottie!
—Suzy
Stella Gibbons' affectionately comical nod to traditional Victorian novels had me laughing on the third page, when she explained a minor character's passion for her unparalleled, world-renowned collection of brassières. The characters in this book are so vividly realized, and they are all the more ridiculous for how seriously they take themselves. The basic story, for anyone who is interested: When she is nineteen years old, Flora Poste's parents die, and as she does not want to earn her living, she decides to find some suitable relatives to live with. These turn out to be the Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm ("There have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort..."), including Seth, who loves the talking pictures, Reuben, who wants to run the farm himself, Amos, the father who weekly preaches fire and brimstone to the people of Beershorn, Judith, the mother who spends most of her time languishing in her bedroom, and Aunt Ada Doom (what a splendid name!), who seems to have gone crazy after having seen "something nasty in the woodshed" when she was very young, and thus lords it over the rest of the family and refuses to let them leave the farm. Flora takes it upon herself to "tidy up" Cold Comfort Farm and free its inhabitants--her cousins--from their oppressively depressing lives.This book is such a hoot--I recommend it to just about anyone. :)
—Anne
Cold Comfort Farm is the perfect comfort read. It is a wonderful blend of British charm, comic characters, and a clever young woman at the heart of it all.Flora Poste cannot abide a mess. After her parents died and left her with only 100 pounds a year, she decided to live off relatives for a while. She settles on some cousins, the Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm in Sussex. When Flora arrives at the farm, she sets out to make some changes and tidy everything up, even if it means upsetting her strong-willed aunt, Ada Doom.My favorite parts of the book are when Flora decides to give her wispy, poetry-loving cousin Elfine a makeover that improves her love life, and when Flora helps her cousin Seth become a movie star. Flora even comes up with the perfect way of dealing with her Aunt Ada, thanks to a well-timed Jane Austen quote.This book is so delightful and has become such a favorite that I will never do it justice. I think this is the third time I've read it, and each time it makes me smile and laugh. (FYI, the 1995 movie version with Kate Beckinsale is also a delight.) I highly recommend Cold Comfort Farm the next time you want to lift your spirits. Favorite Quotes[Flora was asked what work she will do] "When I am fifty-three or so I would like to write a novel as good as Persuasion, but with a modern setting, of course. For the next thirty years or so I shall be collecting material for it. If anyone asks me what I work at, I shall say, 'Collecting material.' No one can object to that.""I have a tidy mind, and untidy lives irritate me. Also, they are uncivilized.""One of the disadvantages of almost universal education was the fact that all kinds of persons acquired a familiarity with one's favourite writers. It gave one a curious feeling; it was like seeing a drunken stranger wrapped in one's dressing-gown."
—Diane Librarian
