Cold Comfort Farm (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) by Stella Gibbons Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Cold Comfort Farm (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)
Book Review: Five and a Half Stars
Summary: 5 Stars
I can find absolutely no words to use in describing "Cold Comfort Farm" that could even begin to do it justice. Without a doubt, this is the most hilarious and entertaining book I have ever read. I learned many new words and phrases in reading it, and it did take me forever to figure out what an embryo parson was. I laughed so hard I was in tears throughout the entire reading. I have never found anything else that so perfectly appealed to and satisfied my wry sense of humour. I used to watch the movie religiously - until I read the book, which is far superior. I personally felt that it was a more modern (and funnier) version of Jane Austen's "Emma". But Flora was much more successful at making things come to the desired end than was Emma. I've always heard the phrase, "Ignore it and it'll just go away." Well, Flora did exactly that. One of my very favorite parts is at the beginning when Flora is talking to Mrs. Smiling about how she avoided coming to enjoy games while she was at school (Everyone said she was "no good"). I use this book in screening potential comrads. If a person doesn't "get" the book, he/she will never understand my own sense of humour, and we just can't be friends.Book Review: Funny and charming at the same time...I laughed out loud
Summary: 5 Stars
If you liked the movie, you'll love the book! I was totally captivated by the Flora character and often found myself laughing out loud at some of the antics the other characters would get themselves into. Very contemporary for its time and I'm sure will stand the test of time as well.Book Review: Gibbons' use of language make this a hilarious parody
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been hearing about Cold Comfort Farm for years and finally got around to reading it. I was not disappointed and Gibbons' skillful use of language and ridiculous over the top plotting make it laugh out loud funny. I've heard or read references to "I saw something nasty in the woodshed" and the "sukebinds" for years but never quite "got them" until now. Like Dickens even Gibbons' minor characters are well drawn, memorable and often hilarious carictures. Yes the book is surreal but close enough to reality for us to enjoy and identify with the characters and plots. I was a little distracted by Gibbons setting the story in the "near future" but got used to it and enjoyed the clever writing. Anyone who loves Wodehouse (especially Bertie and Jeeves) should find this a delight. The movie is next on my list of DVDs to see.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: Ignorance under the Sukebind
Summary: 4 Stars
Read regularly for many belly laughs. Loved especially the descriptive passages cued by the **. Could be read as parody not only of Hardy's "Tess" etc. but also of modern psychlogical and counselling theory. Flora has a decidedly pragmatic view of people and their problems and is convinced of the rightness and immediacy of her methods - very refreshing! Much, much better than the film (as always). Stella's ability to set a scene and to describe character are unmatched! The reader feels that he/she has entered into the atmosphere-the fragrance of the Sukebind is so STRONG! Loved the names of the people and especially the cows!