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Heaven: January Book Club - Cold Comfort Farm
The book chosen for reading and discussion this month is Stella Gibbons’ classic comedy Cold Comfort Farm.
This is one of those perennials that’s easy to pick up second-hand (thanks, Oxfam!) though there are plenty of new editions around, including from Penguin; it’s also available for download from Kindle if that’s your preference.
It’s not by any means the longest book around – certainly far shorter than last month’s book – so take your time over it and enjoy! And there’s a specially warm welcome to anyone who hasn’t joined in these little discussions before – there’s nothing too formal, there are no right or wrong answers, we just enjoy sharing our ideas.
I aim to start the discussion around the 21st, but please feel free to post your thoughts at any time.
And A Very Happy New Year to all our gallant readers!
This is one of those perennials that’s easy to pick up second-hand (thanks, Oxfam!) though there are plenty of new editions around, including from Penguin; it’s also available for download from Kindle if that’s your preference.
It’s not by any means the longest book around – certainly far shorter than last month’s book – so take your time over it and enjoy! And there’s a specially warm welcome to anyone who hasn’t joined in these little discussions before – there’s nothing too formal, there are no right or wrong answers, we just enjoy sharing our ideas.
I aim to start the discussion around the 21st, but please feel free to post your thoughts at any time.
And A Very Happy New Year to all our gallant readers!
Comments
AG
Not as far as I recall, but if I come upon it I'll let you know.
The phrase that everyone knows, of course, is Something nasty in the woodshed!
edit: is the Christmas novel worth a read, too? The library has it.
Yes, I thought so. Quite a long read, though, but I enjoyed it as Comfort Reading at a time of long nights and short days.
Don't worry if you don't get Cold Comfort Farm till nearer the end of the month. It is a fairly quick read and the discussion will be open for a good while.
I'm particularly fond of Mr Mybug, Miss Gibbons' literary poseur who pricks so many balloons at once
Yes - whoever could have guessed that it was really Branwell Bronte who wrote all those novels?
I'm curious about this. Is the whole of the original text read out in these audiobooks, or do they cut from time to time as might be done when a play is performed?
As you can tell, I've never listened to one.
I think that may be the one Quizmaster mentioned he was listening to?
Many thanks for that!
I'll stay with my nice illustrated Folio edition, but that link may be very useful for some.
I love the bit about the reply from the relative in London who hopes that Flora is not a sceptic as this might upset the spirits in the séances!!which take place in the room she would be occupying!
Just to start things off (please ignore / post your own questions if you prefer - I usually do!)
1 - Most important! Did you enjoy the book? Why - or Why not?
2 - The author makes up a number of words and expressions, such as sukebind and mollocking. Why do you think she does this, and how effective is it?
3 - The story has a number of set-pieces, including Brother Amos' Preaching and The Counting. Which is your favourite?
4 - There are a number of unresolved ‘secrets’ at the end of the book. Did that affect your enjoyment of it?
5 - To what extent are the characters stereotypes? If they are, does it matter?
Have fun!
2 I enjoyed the mix of made up words and genuine old language - I do Tudor re-enactment and found her words very linguistically effective.
3 Those set pieces don’t do anything for me, I like interaction between characters in normal conversation and Flora’s analysis. I was never one for weighty words and drama (I can very much relate to the author, I can’t stand rural descriptions and skipped pages of Hardy. Like her, I’m more in the Jane Austen vein).
4 no, the secrets would be an anti-climax I think. The story is not about the secrets, it is about changing the style of story.
5 The whole book is a play on stereotypes, including the end. That is the point of the novel. Flora herself echoes several Jane Austen characters, from Emma to Catherine, the first pages read like Jane Austen’s Juvenalia and she acknowledges her writing style.
1. Yes it is enjoyable. A fun read, well written and easy to read through. It is not as challenging or disturbing as some material I read, which is good. For its type, it is good.
3. The set pieces are, as I understand it, part of the parody that CCF is. The style expects it. For me, it works in context, but would be boring in a less gentle and fun book.
4. Secrets. I like the secrets. the idea, as I see it, is that all families have secrets. These are never to be revealed. So it is good that they are not resolved - they do their job without resolution.
5. All characters are stereotypes, to an extent. In a book of this type - observational humour, and poking fun at other types of literature - they have to be even more stereotypically portrayed.
My thoughts at least.
I think I’d get on well with the author.
It’s like the parodic verses in Alice in Wonderland - inherently enjoyable, but losing the enjoyment that comes with familiarity with the original.
Precious Bane was the book of the month here some time last year; it's actually not bad. And the purple passages in Cold Comfort are wonderfully OTT, but aren't nearly so obtrusive in Webb's book.
But I do agree with you about the Alice verses. How doth the little busy bee... and so on; if ever anything called for parody, that does. Isaac Watts could do so much better!
2 - The author makes up a number of words and expressions, such as sukebind and mollocking. Why do you think she does this, and how effective is it? It certainly added to the atmosphere of the book, but I have no strong opinions one way or another, though I like the word mollocking.
3 - The story has a number of set-pieces, including Brother Amos' Preaching and The Counting. Which is your favourite? I quite enjoyed the wedding at the end.
4 - There are a number of unresolved ‘secrets’ at the end of the book. Did that affect your enjoyment of it? Not really, I like open ended questions in books
5 - To what extent are the characters stereotypes? If they are, does it matter? They were all stereotypes and that didn't matter in this book as that seemed to be the whole point of it.
Sorry not to be more enthusiastic. I was assuming that the forty odd years between my first and second reading would have made me see what everyone else sees in this book. It didn't. The one thing I did think was slightly interesting was that she set it in the future, hence references to Cary Grant as an actor from twenty years ago and her assumption that everyone flies everywhere.
Exactly! Stella Gibbons was a journalist writing for The Lady - a very posh magazine - and in the book she let her hair down and had fun. I suspect that to some extent in the character of Flora she’s poking mild fun at the sort of people who would read that magazine.
The Arrival of the Stranger (who is sometimes not really a stranger at all!) is one of those literary themes that's inspired a whole host of novels and stories from the Odyssey through to The Return of the Native and beyond. It often ends badly for someone - indeed, often the incomer him- or herself - but Gibbons turns that neatly on its head and makes the newcomer the agent of beneficent change.
It's interesting just how often in fairly recent writing the incomer arrives and/or leaves by air. Think of Mary Poppins (who first appeared in print just two years after Cold Comfort Farm) and Peter Pan, who quite literally flies into the Darling household, and who first appears in literature at the beginning of the last century (though not in the play that bears his name).
So of course Flora has to leave in a plane - it's what the genre expects!
Prior to being told by a friend that it was a book I must read after a lifetime of avoiding it, I first listened to it about 15 years ago, so knew what to expect. I had, however, forgotten all the details, so very much enjoyed listening again. An interesting thought, and one I don’t think has crossed my mind more than slightly during my life! I agree with you, but found that I so much enjoyed reading children’s literature when, as a mature student, I became and spent the next twenty years being a Primary School teacher. I think I laughed more this second time but Chapter 11, when Ada is introduced I did not enjoy. It seemed to be a sort of wall between what came before and after. I wonder if that was deliberate?
I found that I did not like or dislike any of them and I think it was because of the knowledge that they were stereotypes
The made-up words I found slightly irritating but perhaps it was considered clever to do that sort of thing at the time she was writing?
No favourite. No, I thought it was probably part of the imitation of style and, since it was a one-off with no intention of a sequel, they didn’t matter at all.
And a short story, Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm. Again, not in the same league at all sadly, though some of the other stories in the same book are rather good.
1. I enjoyed it. I liked the idea of the Stranger coming into this very weird family situation and basically saying to them 'well, why are you behaving like this if it makes you feel unhappy? Go and do something different.' And it was poking fun at certain cliches of the romance genre too (such as the heroine always having to marry the handsome man she's been arguing with for most of the book), which is usually entertaining.
2. I liked the invented words. Presumably she invented the sukebind as a plot device, and 'mollocking' was a way to refer to S-E-X without using any words that would be too blunt for her audience.
3. My favourite set-piece was Brother Amos's preaching - "There'll be no butter in Hell!" (only margarine, one presumes). But the Counting comes a close second. Aunt Ada Doom is my favourite character.
4. *Obviously* the secrets are not explained to the reader at the end of the book because it's much funnier that way. The only clue about the 'wrong' done to Flora's father is her question to Aunt Ada: 'And did the goat die?' Exactly what the wrong was, and why a goat was involved, is left to the reader's imagination.
5. Well, I suppose they were all stereotypes until Flora got her hands on them. I particularly liked the way she dealt with Aunt Ada.
4.
So to the questions:
1 - Most important! Did you enjoy the book? Why - or Why not?
Yes, I enjoyed the romp, but also (on this my second reading) had time to relish the literary pretentions of Mr Mybug, and the ‘starred’ descriptive passages. But there are 'cringeworthy' moments too (I can't think of a better way of expressing it) when Flora is just too patronising - and they detract.
2 - The author makes up a number of words and expressions, such as sukebind and mollocking. Why do you think she does this, and how effective is it?
I think JaneR is right that ‘mollocking’ avoids the difficulties of the word SEX, but other inventions give an exotic, distancing feel, like mock medievalisms; this is a foreign world Flora has entered.
3 - The story has a number of set-pieces, including Brother Amos' Preaching and The Counting. Which is your favourite?
The Counting, with a its great descriptions of the sight, sound and smell of the Starkadders all together (and the flowering sukebind), and Flora’s gradual realisation that Aunt Ada is not mad but has been manipulating everyone. With the news of Elfine’s engagement, Amos’ departure, then Meriam and Urk, Ada visibly shrinks.
4 - There are a number of unresolved ‘secrets’ at the end of the book. Did that affect your enjoyment of it?
Not really – we never find out exactly how Flora persuaded Aunt Ada to come down (we have the broad outline), and don’t discover how Flora’s father was wronged, or what was in the woodshed – but it doesn’t matter.
5 - To what extent are the characters stereotypes? If they are, does it matter?
Well yes they are – and that’s the point. Except – this is a clever book – some characters, Reuben in particular, subvert the stereotypes as the story progresses.
I found the transcript of the A[ustralian]BC book program a few years ago on Cold Comfort Farm in which one of the panellists comments: ‘Almost every character could have come straight out of Vicar Of Dibley. It was like a 1930s version of The Vicar Of Dibley’ Yes, I guess that’s about right! In places it has the same cringeworthiness as VofD – which may be why some people don’t find it so funny. Comparisons are also made with Mary Poppins and Emma.
ABC book program here
The dialect is an odd mixture of genuine Sussex and what one of my English lecturers used to refer to as ‘Mummerset’ - a sort of all-in-one ‘rustic’ dialect that signifies 'yokel' without being too precise about geography. But Mollocking and Sukebind - and some others - are invented words, and rather good ones, I think - the first of them in particular.
Mr Mybug’s falling for poor flat-chested Rennet is a nice touch; this was written, after all, at a time when the ‘boyish’ figures of the Charleston era were just out of fashion, so poor Mr Mybug has ‘got it wrong’ again.
And do remember - there’ll be no butter in Hell!
Alternatively it might just suggest the ruralness of a milk maid but I prefer my initial impression.
Just a question on the typesetting... Does anyone else's version (mine is Penguin) have asterisks in certain places, e.g. *** before, or within, a paragraph? What does this signify?
AG
And yes, we don't have a clue about some of her influences. But we recognise the styles. And that is funny.
I am sorry I have not read anything else by her, and I don't thinkI'm going to start now, but thank goodness for the internet and the fact that one can look up anything at the touch of a key.