Book :: Cold Comfort Farm

Loved, loved, loved this wonderful story!!!!!! A GREAT bookclub read!

Mar 23rd, 2018

Mar 2nd, 2018

Mar 13th, 2017

I really liked this book! It's funny, sweet and was difficult to put down. No, it's not a serious work of fiction, but it is very amusing and well written; a nice, easy read.

Oct 5th, 2015

I think the key to getting along with Cold Comfort Farm is accepting it as a parody. It's not really meant to be a serious work of fiction. Instead, it's a send-off of the earlier rural novels like those by D.H. Lawrence and Thomas Hardy. Now, I do like what I've read of Lawrence so far, but I still appreciate what Stella Gibbons was trying to do. More than that, it's actually funny. Flora's well-intentioned contempt for her family's bad habits shows itself in dry, sarcastic comments which even made me snort at one point. Perhaps I should be next in line for fixing up by Flora... That's basically the plot of the book. Flora is suddenly forced to live on a meagre income after the death of her parents, and so decides to reside with her distant family, the Starkadders, at Cold Comfort Farm. On arrival, she sees her cousins for exactly what they're intended to me - exaggerated, cartoonish cliches of all those rural novels. There's Amos who's obsessed with religion, Judith and her profound depression, the over-sexed Seth, the contraceptionally unaware and therefore always pregnant Meriam and the commoner in love with the gentry plot-line of Elfine. They're all so loveable in their extremes that you can't help but wish for a happy ending. It's a very accessible book - it flew by in a matter of hours for me. It takes a few pages to get used to the heavy accents of the Starkadder family but it's not really much of a problem after that. 'I ha' scranleted two hundred furrows come five o'clock down i' the bute.' It was a difficult remark, Flora felt, to which to reply. Was it a complaint? If so, one might say, 'My dear, how too sickening for you!' But then, it might be a boast, in which case the correct reply would be, 'Attaboy!' or more simply, 'Come, that's capital.' Weakly she fell back on the comparatively safe remark: 'Did you?' in a bright, interested voice. The literary influences are quite obvious. As well as the afore-mentioned Lawrence and Hardy (Huh. Unintentional, but vaguely amusing regardless...), Flora reminds me strongly of Emma Woodhouse with her insistence on 'fixing' the problems of everybody herself. Then there are a number of discussions between Flora and Mr. Mybug regarding the true author of Jane Eyre - whether it be Charlotte herself or Branwell Bronte. Flora becomes understandably quite irritated at this and calms herself by quoting Mansfield Park when she returns home. Not only did I enjoy Cold Comfort Farm, I also read and enjoyed the introduction, and seriously - who does that? It's by Lynne Truss in my edition, which is the Penguin Modern Classics version with the cow pictured above (incidentally, the cows in the book are called Graceless, Pointless, Feckless and Aimless, which amused me no end). I don't normally bother with the introductions to classics, but I gave the first few pages a quick scan and liked what I read. Instead of a long, dreary introduction about the symbolism and hidden messages as usual, Ms. Truss briefly talks about how she was introduced to the book and what it means to her now. I love hearing personal reminisces of reading - to me it's much more interesting that critical interpretation. Long story short, I really enjoyed this book and I can't wait to start tracking down some of Stella Gibbons' other books.

Apr 1st, 2013