Cold Comfort Farm
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By Stella Gibbons
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3 reviews
When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at nineteen, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly-named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starkadders: cousin Judith, heaving with remorse for unspoken wickedness; Amos, preaching fire and damnation; their sons, lustful Seth and despairing Reuben; child of nature Elfine; and crazed old Aunt Ada Doom, who has kept to her bedroom for the last twenty years. But Flora loves nothing better than to organise other people. Armed with common sense and a strong will, she resolves to take each of the family in hand. A hilarious and ruthless parody of rural melodramas and purple prose, Cold Comfort Farm is one of the best-loved comic novels of all time.
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The book group have one major thing to say about this book, and that is you must read the prologue to the book! Possibly read the prologue after having read the book as well as before. This ensures that you go into the book understanding that it's a parody and not something that is as funny as a stand alone novel. Having said this there are a few moments in the book that are laugh-out-loud funny but mostly towards the end of the novel. For example, we all found it hilarious when Urk charged out of the farmhouse with Merium.
Once you realise this is a parody there is an awful lot more to laugh at including the massive amounts of references to gothic books of the time with people "taking to their beds" something i think we would all like to do at one time or another. Also the fact that not all the secrets were revealed is very gothic, we thought more of the time that the secrets were nothing big and scary but just a literary device. For example, the something in the woodshed secret was probably someone making use of the woodshed with their special friend. Also the story changes as Ada Doom thinks about it going from a woodshed to a cowshed to any number of other outbuildings. Maybe nothing happened at all!
The use of *'s is also explained in the prologue, again this would have made the reading of the book more enjoyable had we all read the prologue. Basically the *'s are there to "help" the reader to notice passages of particular literary merit in the eyes of the author!
We all decided that Flora was a bit of a Mary Poppins type character, going into this falling down farm and odd family and tidying it all with what seemed to be little effort. We also thought Flora could be compared to Jane Austens' character Emma with her meddling in the lives and loves of everyone she comes across.
We felt it was a little tricky to date what with the use of video phones and everyone taking planes everywhere. But this was in contrast to the very Austen feel of Flora getting only £100 a year and going down to London to get things like clothes etc. It was, however, easy to place the story in the countryside simply because of the use of strong accents. Some of the book club readers did find it a little taxing to read in those accents especially as many of the words were made up.
We decided to give this book a mark both before and after we had been told that it was a parody. Before we knew we gave it 5 out of 10, after we knew we gave it 6 out of 10.
Really interesting book about family and fears
A 'nice' straightforward, and generally quite innocent story. You get swept away in the country and rustic nature of life with the families concerned. Really enjoyed the book - had wanted to read it for some years. Enjoyed the intelligence of Flora and how her 'meddling' fixes the family's woes and concerns.
