Conference at Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
| Conference at Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons | |
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| Category: Humour | |
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Reviewer: Robert James
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| Summary: Not quite as good as the exceptional original, but still stands out in its own right as a hilarious satire. High
recommendation. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 176 | Date: August 2011 |
| Publisher: Vintage Classics | |
| ISBN: 978-0099528685 | |
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There are no Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm.
To those of you who've not read Stella Gibbons' magnificient original novel, this is hardly likely to be a major shock - to the Gibbons fans amongst us, though, this is chilling news indeed. And when Robert Poste's child Flora returns to the farm - now a modernised monstrosity full of members of the International Thinkers' Group – sixteen years after her original visit, the news get graver and graver, as the cows Feckless, Graceless, Pointless, and Aimless have passed away of shame due to the disgrace of the bull Big Business. With the menfolk trying to make their fortunes abroad, and the women struggling, it's left to Flora to try to save the day once again.
I appreciate that the above plot summary is likely to do nothing but confuse people who haven't read the original, but this is hardly the place to start - to fully appreciate the way Stella Gibbons handles her characters you need to see how they've changed since that excellent novel. To those of us who are returning to Cold Comfort to see old friends, this sequel has nearly all of the wonderful characters are back - if not for long, in some cases - and it's great to find out what happened to Elfine, Reuben, Mr Mybug and the rest. That's not to say there's any lack of interesting additions, with the rather gloomily despondent Sage being perhaps my favourite.
The satire is as strong as ever, although this time the focus has shifted to the cultural scene of the post-war era rather than the rural writers parodied in the first book. If anything, this is arguably slightly easier to read, due to not having so many characters who speak in near-incomprehensible dialogue – although the mollocking and scranletting of the first book was part of its charm for me. That said, Reuben Starkadder's presence allows those of us who need our fix of speech such as curses like rookses come home to rest in bosomses and barnses to feel fully satisfied on that score!
Overall, this is a high recommendation to all fans of the original – and if you haven't read that one, what are you waiting for?
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.
Further reading suggestion: For early twentieth century humour, along with Gibbons, my favourite author is PG Wodehouse and I'd highly recommend checking out Joy in the Morning, or any of his other novels.
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