Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons

Cold Comfort Farm, published in 1932, is a satirical novel by Stella Gibbons. The book is a blatant parody of the rural novel, a genre which enjoyed great popularity during the early 20th century. With immense comedic aplomb, the author irreverently pokes fun at rustic and sensual themes which were prevalent in works of the time by novelists such as DH Lawrence, Mary Webb and Thomas Hardy, to name but a few.

The novel centres on Miss Flora Poste, a practical, no-nonsense “townie” in her early 20s, who, after her parents’ death, is forced by her reduced circumstances to live with her estranged cousins at their farm in rural Sussex. Her cousins, the Starkadders, are a curious bunch, ranging from the over-sexed, brooding Seth, to the feverishly fanatical preacher Amos, to the doom-laden, depressive, Priscilla. The extended Starkadder clan are dominated by “mad” Aunt Ada Doom, the family matriarch (her madness stemming from the fact that she famously “saw something nasty in the woodshed” when she was two). Flora, with all the enthusiasm of one who is overly-imaginative but under-utilised, sets about “fixing” her cousins at Cold Comfort, with hilarious consequences.

Cold Comfort Farm has become a classic of English literature, primarily thanks to the author’s ingenious characterisations and masterful use of dialects and accents. Every player in the unfolding drama (including the farm animals, with the cows Graceless, Feckless, Aimless and Pointless meriting special mention) is depicted so vividly that the reader becomes enamoured with this cast of characters. The fact that Cold Comfort Farm is still being read today is a testament to the skill of the author; the novel did not simply disappear with the genre it was parodying, but lived on to become a much-loved work in it’s own right.

Critical reception to the novel was generally positive. Interestingly, however, there were a number of critics who, convinced that such a novel could not have been written by a woman, believed that Cold Comfort Farm was written pseudonymously by Evelyn Waugh. To be mistaken for the author of such timeless satires as Vile Bodies and Decline and Fall is a huge endorsement for any novelist (ignoring the obvious misogynistic undertones, of course!)

Cold Comfort Farm is a rollicking, laugh-out-loud read (despite the fact that we never discover what it was that Aunt Ada Doom saw in the woodshed when she was two). Highly recommended.

Review - 4.5/5

Review written by Sinead Fitzgibbon & you can read more of her work at www.lovelifefoodart.blogspot.com