Cold Comfort Farm (Penguin Classics)

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Heartwarming Orphan: Averted. Recently-orphaned Flora may bring happiness into the lives of the Starkadders, but not through any sweetness of temper. "On the whole I dislike my fellow-beings,” she says. "I find them so difficult to understand. But I have a tidy mind, and untidy lives irritate me."

The plot is simple: Orphaned at 19, Flora Poste decides to go and live with her relatives and improve their lives rather than find a job. She settles on the Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm, since, according to the novels of rural life she has read, their lives will certainly need tidying up. Arriving at the farm she finds it even more chaotic than she had feared, and the inhabitants more uncouth than she could have imagined. NOTE: There is an Introduction by Lynne Truss that is excellent, but should be read AFTER you read the novel. Truss gives away too much in the introduction so that even before you start the novel, you know certain things that are going to happen in the story. Had I read the introduction it would have dampened the enjoyment I derived from reading the book. But the Introduction is good, it gives a short biography of this remarkable author. The issue is whether we see this as part of the joke or part of the message. Given that Flora ends up marrying a man who is her cousin, and a clergyman to boot, I tend to consider her part of the joke. In many ways, Flora herself is absurd. It's hard to believe, for instance, that Gibbons shares her disdain for anyone ever saying anything intelligent, or for education: How d’ye do, Aunt Ada?” said Flora, pleasantly, putting out her hand. But Aunt Ada made no effort to take it … and observed in a low toneless voice: ”I saw something nasty in the woodshed”’ ”Mother … it’s Judith. I have brought Flora Poste to see you … ” ”Nay – I saw something nasty in the woodshed”, said Aunt Ada Doom, fretfully moving her great head from side to side. ‘Twas a burning noonday, sixty-nine years ago. And me no bigger than a titty-wren. And I saw something … ”’ (p. 171) Minutes into the Future: Yes, oddly, the novel is actually set in a projected future with videophones and references to the "Anglo-Nicaraguan wars of '46". This aspect has little impact on the plot and is easy to forget - but it's probably why Flora's love interest has his own plane.A wonderful novel, possibly the only modern classic I will ever fully enjoy. Not a comedy but a satire, but done with a love for pastoral classical writing that I think the author felt slightly embarrassed by. Think of Austen's Emma and you have the protagonist, Flora. Think of Bertha Mason of Thornfield Hall and you have Aunt Ada Doom, but each pulled and twisted to become extremes. There are smatterings of Heathcliffe, Bathsheba, and all the other archetypes of Classical Literature. Great writing, though often too short and blunt (though we can blame my love of lengthy Victorian prose for this).

Cold Comfort Farm overshadows most other novels from the 20th century too, so it doesn't seem entirely unfair that it should have had a similar effect on the rest of Gibbons' oeuvre. But reading about her uneasy relationship with this book – and her fondness for her others – piqued my curiosity, and so I thought I'd look at a few more things she's written.All Psychology Is Freudian: The Austrian doctor who Flora calls in to take Judith as a patient. Justified, given the time period. Auden's 1939 string of elegies and farewellings – 'In Memory of W. B. Yeats', 'In Memory of Ernst Toller', 'September 1, 1939', and 'In Memory of Sigmund Freud' – contain some curiously discordant notes, as if there were some anarchic or nihilistic principle in them struggling against the ostensible protocol of solemnity. I was astonished and delighted to discover, quite by chance, that the BBC's 1971 production of Cold Comfort Farm was available on tape. Ironic that it should only be available in American format!The dramatisation of a favourite novel is seldom received with unreserved pleasure by aficionados, but I well remember my own wholehearted delight in this particular instance. Hidden Depths: Urk The Pigpen turns out to be a good stepfather to Mariam's hitherto unwanted love children. Red Herring: Several mysteries are presented which never go anywhere in the end. We never learn what Ada saw in the woodshed, nor what wrong was done to Flora's father, even though the Starkadders seem to talk of nothing else.

Preamble: Solvers should fill the blank cells, then highlight someone, and what (cryptically) she saw (30 cells). One answer is an abbreviation. 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. Extremely funny--a parody of great English classics, by authors such as Thomas Hardy, Mary Webb, the Brontë sisters and D.H. Lawrence. Gothic novels with their romance enveloped in doom and suspense are harpooned by wit and humor. Intellectuals and the literary community are satirized too.Pretty in Mink: Elfine has a short fur cape. Aunt Ada wears a fur trimmed coat, in the style of Queen Mary, when she goes on a trip.