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jennifer_c_s 's review for:
Cold Comfort Farm
by Stella Gibbons
‘The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had been expensive, athletic and prolonged: and when they died within a few weeks of each other during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living.’
Published in 1932 and set in the near future, sometime after the ‘Anglo-Nicaraguan wars of ’46’, ‘Cold Comfort Farm’ is a witty and satirical look at contemporary life in both London and the country. Flora Poste, who does not wish to work, has decided to impose on her relatives. She writes to them and chooses to live with her relatives at Cold Comfort Farm in Sussex. She could, of course, have stayed with her good friend Mrs Smiling in London. Perhaps she didn’t share Mrs Smiling’s interest in the search for the perfect brassiere? Anyway, Flora Poste travels to Sussex, to Cold Comfort Farm where her relatives, the Starkadders, have always lived.
What does Flora find at Cold Comfort Farm?
The household at Cold Comfort Farm is ruled over by the matriarch, mad Aunt Ada Doom who saw something nasty in the woodshed as a child and must be humoured lest she become even madder. Her daughter Judith is sunk in gloom and Judith’s husband Amos spends his time preaching hellfire at the Church of the Quivering Brethren. Their elder son Reuben tries to keep the farm going and worries about how many feathers his chickens have lost while their younger son Seth lounges about with his shirt unbuttoned to the waist, seducing the housemaids. Their daughter Elfine writes terrible poetry, communes with Nature and is secretly in love. The ancient farmhand, Adam Lambsbreath, cares for his beloved cows ( Graceless, Pointless, Feckless and Aimless), and Mrs Beetle the housekeeper looks after Ada Doom (amongst her other responsibilities). There are others as well. The Starkadders feel obliged to take ‘Robert Poste’s daughter’ into their home because of some unspecified wrong committed against him.
It's a good thing that Flora enjoys a challenge. She sets out to improve the lives of her relatives: to conquer encrusted porridge, the erotic effects of sukebind, as well as enriching the lives of the cattle (including Big Business the bull).
I must make special mention of Mr Mybug, who is convinced that Branwell Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights:
‘You see, it’s obvious that it’s his book and not Emily’s. No woman could have written that. It’s male stuff...’
Snort.
Cold Comfort Farm is a parody of the doomy, tragic, close-to-the-earth gothic novels of writers like Thomas Hardy and DH Lawrence. While in Hardy’s novels (which, incidentally, I love) a misstep or sin inexorably predicts misery, Gibbons enters the tragic landscape and sorts it out. Brilliantly.
‘Tomorrow would be a beautiful day.’
I first read ‘Cold Comfort Farm’ over forty years ago, and was inspired to reread it after reading this review at The Australian Legend. Thank you, Bill, I am so glad I revisited ‘Cold Comfort Farm’.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith