zeltzamer 's review for:

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

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I seem to be going against the grain by thinking that Flora was more or less an obnoxious prig, particularly when it comes to the quasi-taming of the shrew subplot. Several sections focusing specifically on her (as opposed to the family) are in fact so unremittingly sunny and saccharine to the point of being overbearing where I started to sincerely whether there wasn’t something subterranean going on within Branwell Gibbons’ story, as though the plot of a dogmatic self-styled rationalist essentially nagging her eclectic relatives into a smart-as-a-rock-and-happy-to-be-one brand of conformity were a satirical jab in and of itself. But then I look around and see that most Cold Comfortheads seem to be ardently pro-Flora, which calls into the question the efficacy of this comment even in the very off chance it was deliberate. “Protagonist wants certain thing to happen; thing happens” doesn’t exactly thrill me dramatically. Naturally, all of this might’ve been forgiven had I found the book funnier. Fan though I  am of satire and parody, my disdain for the browbeating subversions of the character types makes me wonder if I wouldn’t’ve just preferred the story told straight. Liked the Next Sunday AD setting, though. Good prose. Maybe it speaks to a reactionary streak in me that I wanted ranch hand Adam to keep washing dishes with that twig.