Cold
Comfort Farm Stella
Gibbons (Published 1932)
Read
and discussed by Minster Readers August 2014.
In
England in the early 1930's, 20 year old socialite Flora Poste,
recently orphaned is left with only 100 pounds a year and nowhere to
live. Against the advice of her friend Mrs Smiling, she goes to live
with long lost relatives on Cold Comfort Farm at the 'invitation' of
her aunt subsequently discovered to be her cousin Judith Starkadder.
The interesting aspects of Judith's invitation are that she wants to
atone for a wrong committed on Robert Poste, Flora's father, but she
will not divulge what that wrong was; and that she and her family
will not leave the farm since a Starkadder has always lived on Cold
Comfort Farm.
Flora
arrives to find Cold Comfort Farm exceedingly ramshackle and peopled
by a number of eccentric characters. These include:
:- Aunt
Ada Doom (her mother's aunt) who dominates and controls life on the
farm from the bedroom in which she has lived a reclusive existence
for 20 years after seeing 'something nasty in the woodshed'
:- Amos
Starkadder, who is Judith's husband, the farmer and a fanatical
hellfire and brimstone preacher.
There
are 3 adult offspring of this union: Seth who is perceived by
women as God's gift but is more interested in watching movies,
Reuben who yearns to take over the farm from his father and the
ethereal and otherworldly Elphine.
Another
key character is the 90 year old cowman and general dogsbody Adam
Lambsbreath who is devoted to the cows Graceless, Feckless, and
Aimless but nevertheless fails to notice when bits of their bodies
rot and fall off.
Flora
sets out to improve things on the farm which she accomplishes in
fairly short order through her manipulative scheming and silver
tongued harangues ( with minimal assistance from a few London friends
and acquaintances and an elastic £100). Her gift to the residents
of Cold Comfort Farm is to set each free to follow their dreams.
Everyone
in the group thoroughly enjoyed this book which is a witty and rich
parody of life in rural England,
in
spite of the fact that we never find out what injustice was done to
Robert Poste – apart from a troubling reference to the unknown fate
of a goat.
Nor
do we learn what it was that Aunt Ada Doom actually saw in the wood
shed – but an image of this large old lady dressed in flying
leathers more than makes up for it! In fact the whole tale is
punctuated by hilarious and colourful images of life on the farm –
those especially mentioned included the cow hobbling on 3 legs after
one fell off; and Adam Lambsbreath 'clettering' the dishes with a
bunch of twigs.
The
use of some unusual and sometimes invented words added to our
appreciation and without reference to a dictionary there was no
misunderstanding what Seth was up to ' mollocking' around.
We
generally felt, that the names of the characters greatly added to the
enjoyment of the piece -including the as yet unmentioned Mr Mybug,
the author who bugs Flora; and Mrs Beetle the bustling cook and
general factotum.
The
wholly fictitious flowering 'Sukebind' deserves a mention not least
for its role in the annual pregnancies of Miriam Beetle! We were also
amused by her screams of agony on the day after her labour in order
to secure an extra day off work.
All
in all a thoroughly enjoyable and amusing read.
Average
score: 8 Range
6 to 10
The
Spoils of Poynton Henry James
This story features the widowed
Mrs Gereth who over the years has furnished her home - Poynton - in
grand style. On the death of her husband her son Owen inherits the
property and its contents. Meanwhile Mrs Gereth adopts a young
companion - Felda - who shares her passion for Poynton and its
valuables. Mrs Gereth hopes that Felda and Owen will marry in spite
of the fact that he is betrothed to another. His intended appears not
to value the house and its contents but estranges herself from Owen
when his mother removes all the contents to her dower home in Essex.
(Owen has permitted his mother to take the pieces special to her but
hasn't expected total denudation!)
Owen professes his love for
Felda (eventually) but is not willing to break off his engagement.
This would have been a breach of promise. When Mrs G returns the
spoils of Poynton, Owen marries his intended and goes to live abroad.
Felda receives a letter from him inviting her to select any item from
Poynton in his absence and she visits the house to make her choice
only to find that it has burned down.
On the whole we found
this book a difficult read with its old fashioned language and
phrasing. The group whilst acknowledging the complexity of the
language employed by James were somewhat underwhelmed by the story
line and plot. The characters on the whole were felt to be believable
but it was hard to empathise with the wimpish Owen or the
manipulative Mrs Gereth. (Did people really feel that way about
possessions?) All could see however that the situations in the novel
were a result of the historical context and it's social mores. Both
Felda as a young impoverished single women and the widowed mother
were socially disadvantaged (and out manoeuvred by the fiancée and
her mother).
We did not recognise this book as a classic James
masterpiece. But we discussed why it might be regarded as such by
others – perhaps as a story of manners? Doing the right thing for
the social times? We were not all convinced of the authenticity of
the female viewpoint as depicted by a male author
