Cold Comfort Farm (Penguin Classics)

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The novel tells the story of Margaret Steggles, a plain, bookish girl who finds a ration book on Hampstead Heath, a discovery that brings the dreaded Gerald Challis, his glamorous wife, Seraphina, and his spoilt daughter, Hebe, into her life. In some ways it is rather a strange book: Margaret, so stuffy and sometimes so snobby, is not always lovable, and Gibbons is straightforward, even brutal, about the marriage prospects of someone with her looks; there is also an episode involving a disabled child that modern readers will find jarring. But it contains two fantastic character studies: the self-absorbed and misogynistic Gerald, and Margaret's friend Hilda, a girl who can enjoy herself under pretty much any circumstances. And does literature have any sort of obligation to give good advice? Because no one should actually be like Flora. Flora works only in a very tidy world. In the untidy real world, people like Flora don't get invited to parties.

Auden's 1939 string of elegies and farewellings – 'In Memory of W. B. Yeats', 'In Memory of Ernst Toller', 'September 1, 1939', and 'In Memory of Sigmund Freud' – contain some curiously discordant notes, as if there were some anarchic or nihilistic principle in them struggling against the ostensible protocol of solemnity. The Northern-Irish singer-songwriter Neil Hannon (born 1970) used the phrase something in the woodshed in Something for the Weekend (1996), which he interpreted with his band, the Divine Comedy:Technobabble: A rare non-SF version. Reuben suspects Flora of wanting to take over the farm, so his surly conversational opener with her is an attempt to intimidate her with his knowledge of farming: "I ha' scranleted four hundred furrows this morning down i' the bute." Flora has no idea what he’s talking about and can’t decide whether she should reply "Oh, you poor dear!" or "Come, that’s capital." Eventually she decides on a non-committal "Have you?" Ada Doom: Judith's mother, a reclusive, miserly widow, owner of the farm, who constantly complains of having seen "something nasty in the woodshed" when she was a girl The setting is isolated rural misery and emotional intensity of a Bronte novel hilariously no, not really reimagined in Sussex, with emotionally intense – if not crippled – characters are briskly put in to their places by a Jane Austen heroine, perhaps this is the plot of Emma slightly restructured. It is light and diverting, but not I felt funny.

There are assorted cousins and aunts and hired help on the farm too numerous to mention but they are all hoots too…thoroughly messed up in one way or another. As a comedy I read Mrs Smiling’s second interest was her collection of brassieres, and her search for the perfect one. She was was reputed to have the largest and finest collection of these garments in the world. It was hoped that on her death it would be left to the nation. I however am now cured of my previous opinion and am prepared to admitted that Stella Gibbons and Nancy Mitford were two separate people. Do not, however, make the mistake of thinking her cosy. Gibbons was a sworn enemy of the flatulent, the pompous and the excessively sentimental, and long after she ceased writing herself, she kept a commonplace book by her bed in which she recorded the literary crimes of others. In her lifetime, moreover, her fans included the very-far-from-cosy theatre critic Kenneth Tynan (it was his ambition to out Cold Comfort Farm on the stage), Barry Humphries (aka Dame Edna Everage) and Noël Coward. In Westwood there is a character called Gerald Challis – a playwright whose self-regard could not be more painfully swollen if it contracted mumps – whom Gibbons based on a now largely forgotten writer, Charles Morgan. Morgan had made the mistake of once having argued that writers, even Shakespeare, did not require a sense of humour; Gibbons responded by making him the butt of all her best jokes. Reference to Cold Comfort Farm usually triggers the famous quote that there was ‘something nasty in the woodshed’. Aunt Ada Doom claims to have seen it when she was ‘no bigger than a titty wren’. Gibbons would never reveal what the ‘something nasty’ was; but it represents childhood trauma, whether real or imagined, and the way its ‘victims’ use it to excuse their behaviour.

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Seth Starkadder, a handsome, virile, and libidinous man. Incapable of seeing any woman as anything but a sex object, he has fathered the hired girl’s four children as well as many others. He considers Flora as simply another female, but she sees him as another problem to be solved. Tied to the farm by the family curse, his great passion is the “talkies” that he sneaks off to see in the nearby town. When Flora introduces him to a producer friend from Hollywood, the producer immediately recognizes Seth’s magnetism and offers to put him in films. Seth is last seen on the silver screen about a year later, starring in Small Town Sheik.

Although we don't get to read Flora's book, we do see it put into practice. Flora's essential talent is to stop people being ridiculous – or at least, to stop them being ridiculous in situations where they can do any harm. She never displays contempt. She's even polite to Amos Starkadder about the Church of the Quivering Brethren and his opinion that "ye're all damned." Nor does she indulge the emotional excesses or strange beliefs of the Starkadder clan. She doesn't take herself too seriously – and doesn't make that mistake with other people, either, except in that she is loyal to her friends and kind to others. Should we aspire to a similar breed of suave, understated urbanity? It's tempting to see Flora as an ideal version of the author: the parodies of purple prose fit perfectly with Flora's attitudes to anything highly strung. The Dramatization: The cast looks good on paper. Rosalie Crutchley is a perfect personification of Judith. Her burly son Reuben, who wants the farm from his father, is ably portrayed by Brian Blessed. Freddie Jones does a masterful job as the thoroughly disgusting Urk, as does Aubrey Morris as "Mr. Mybug." Peter Egan falls a little short as Seth, but he's good looking and a fine actor. Rule of Cool: The film contains an inspiring maxim from Jane Austen, "What a pleasant life might be had in this world by a handsome, sensible old lady of good fortune, blessed with a sound constitution and a firm will," which in fact is a quote from the novel, entertainingly misattributed by Malcolm Bradbury. One of the disadvantages of the almost universal education was the fact that all kinds of persons acquired a familiarity with one's favourite writers. It gave one a funny feeling; it was like seeing a drunken stranger wearing one's favourite dressing gown. For, if she lived at Cold Comfort as a guest, it would be unpardonable impertinence were she to interfere with the family's mode of living; but if she were paying her way, she could interfere as much as she pleased."A wonderful novel, possibly the only modern classic I will ever fully enjoy. Not a comedy but a satire, but done with a love for pastoral classical writing that I think the author felt slightly embarrassed by. Think of Austen's Emma and you have the protagonist, Flora. Think of Bertha Mason of Thornfield Hall and you have Aunt Ada Doom, but each pulled and twisted to become extremes. There are smatterings of Heathcliffe, Bathsheba, and all the other archetypes of Classical Literature. Great writing, though often too short and blunt (though we can blame my love of lengthy Victorian prose for this). Notable are Gibbons' purple passages, deliberately purpler than a kettle full of murex snails. I like best her depiction of cousin Judith's smouldering incestuous passion mirrored by the heaving porridge, it was not bad, unlike the porridge which sounds pretty unappetising in Gibbons' prose. Flora begins to worry about Elfine, who is apparently in love with Richard Hawk-Monitor, the scion of country gentry who live nearby. There is soon to be a ball in honor of Richard’s twenty-first birthday, and Flora arranges an invitation for Elfine, with herself as chaperon. The Starkadders expect Elfine to marry Urk, a farm cousin. Flora secretly grooms the girl and gives her private instruction in good taste and deportment. Elfine makes a grand entrance at the ball. Before the night is over, Richard announces their engagement. That silly child! Did she really think she could write a novel? Well, of course, modern novels might encourage her to think so. There was nothing written nowadays worth reading. The book on her knee was called Cold Comfort Farm and had been written by a young woman who was said to be very clever and had won an important literary prize. But she couldn't get on with it at all. It was about life on a farm, but the girl obviously knew nothing about country life. To anyone who, like herself, had always lived in the country, the whole thing was too ridiculous and impossible for words.

Into this maelstrom of petty evil, fear and ineptness, come the heroine. Flora Poste is the posh city cousin fallen on hard times whose father the Starkadders did something unmentionable to and feel guilty about so when she has nowhere to go, they take her in. But not willingly. She sorts them all out and brings them from their ignorant, Gothic-y insular life into the modern world. All Psychology Is Freudian: The Austrian doctor who Flora calls in to take Judith as a patient. Justified, given the time period. I do recommend the film. And the book. Rarely do I see a film much better than a really good book, but this is it. John Schlesinger and Stella Gibbons, author and director, geniuses both.Amos Starkadder: Judith's husband and hellfire preacher at the Church of the Quivering Brethren ("Ye're all damned!") Cool Old Lady: Flora admires Mrs. Beetle (Mariam the hired girl's mother) as the sole source of class, education, and organization in the entire farm. Secondly, the cast of characters in this book are perfectly drawn, and every one is delightful, in their own peculiar way. Morose cousin Judith, over-sexed Seth, faux-hippy Elfine, fire-and-brimstone preacher Amos, Flora’s sensible friend Mrs Smiling who collects brassieres as a hobby, fecund maid Miriam; every one of them is pitch-perfect. Best of all is Aunt Ada Doom, who saw something nasty in the woodshed when she was a tiny tot, and has used the trauma as an excuse to rule the family with an iron fist ever since. After all, ‘ there have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm,’and nothing can ever be allowed to change that, especially not Robert Poste’s child. The standoff between young but wily Flora and stubborn Great Aunt Ada is one of the greatest battle of wills ever written, and it is a joy to read.