Cold Comfort Farm (Penguin Classics)

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Modern Classics are often written as an antithesis to the ridiculously long Classics, yet condensation is not always welcome. Gibbons does it very well here and with a humour that is both mild and forthcoming. It is a Modern Classic with no grudges except, perhaps, just a desire to be a little more to the point. 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. The Northern-Irish singer-songwriter Neil Hannon (born 1970) used the phrase something in the woodshed in Something for the Weekend (1996), which he interpreted with his band, the Divine Comedy: Gibbons declared she wanted Nightingale Wood to be Cinderella brought "right up to date" – but now it's fascinating as a period piece. Gibbons is superb on middle class life in the years immediately before the second world war, on the erosions of class division and ongoing snobbery. There's something stupid and sad and lost about her quiet genteel characters trying to pretend that life can go quietly on as ominous noises from Europe grow ever louder. There's plenty that's enraging about the stifling judgements that this society heaps on women. There are a few hilarious moments and a funny comic character in the form of a hermit who lives in the woods near the suburban Essex setting, but generally there aren't so many of the big belly laughs of Cold Comfort Farm. This satire is far subtler, relying on icicle wit and sharp observation to lambast conventional morality.

Remember the New Guy?: In the book, Rennet is a main Starkadder family member and direct relation of Aunt Ada and Judith, yet is not mentioned to the reader until the Counting. Flora is not even surprised to learn of her existence the way she was to learn of the Starkadder hired hands' wives; Rennet is treated as having been around all along yet was never mentioned before this point... just in time for Mr. Mybug to fall out of love with Flora and fall for her instead. Ada Doom: Judith's mother, a reclusive, miserly widow, owner of the farm, who constantly complains of having seen "something nasty in the woodshed" when she was a girl Amos Starkadder, Judith’s husband, a deeply religious man filled with the spirit of hellfire and damnation. He finds fulfillment in preaching twice a week at the Church of the Quivering Brethren. Flora suggests that he might serve the Lord even better by traveling around the country to preach. Although Amos suffers from the same curse as the rest of his family and thinks he cannot leave the farm, the idea grows on him. He finally defies Ada and sets out on his mission. When last heard from, he has had such success in London that he is setting out for America to spread the word. Upper-Class Twit: Richard Hawk-Monitor, but he's a benign version: Flora dismisses Adam's fears that he intends to seduce and abandon Elfine with the consideration that, "Like most other ideas, the idea would simply not have entered his head." Amos Starkadder: patriarch of the family at the farm who was deeply religious and believed everybody was going to hell and it was his mission to preach this inside and outside the house. In his fire-and-brimstone rants, he described the flames of hell, and said that normally when you get a burn putting butter on it would help lessen the pain but “there’ll be no butter in hell!”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)

Judith Starkadder: Flora's cousin, wife of Amos, with an unhealthy preoccupation for her own son Seth 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." 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:

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From its opening line – “The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had been expensive, athletic and prolonged” – to Aunt Ada’s celebrated recollection of “something nasty in the woodshed”, Cold Comfort Farm has the air of a novel written, as it were, in one joyous exhalation, according to Gibbons, somewhere between Lyons Corner House and Boulogne-sur-Mer during the year spanning 1931/32. The book inspired Mellon family heiress Cordelia Scaife May to name her home "Cold Comfort", and to name her philanthropic foundation Colcom Foundation. [20] Critical reception [ edit ] Crusty Caretaker: Adam, a relative of the Starkadders who works as their hired man and who is prone to muttering vague warnings and upholding obscure traditions. Flora has come along and tamed the wild Starkadders and sanitised their farm. She's interfered. She is like Jane Austen's Emma, only she never gets her comeuppance and never learns not to meddle.