"Cold Comfort Farm" Topic

Stella Gibbons is reputed by bookish types to be a brilliant writer for her creation of one surviving book only, Cold Comfort Farm, her first book. It is hailed as a masterpiece. Its core is parody: of the dead genre known at the time (early to mid 20th century) as rural novels, "loam and lovechild" romances.

I enjoy the Kate Beckinsale movie adaptation of Cold Comfort Farm. For years I intended to read the novel. Finally, just last week, I got a Penguin edition from the library. The introduction gave me pause: a "near future" setting? But there wasn't any of that in the movie, which was all about being set in the 30s, or the distant, rapidly receding past. I was okay with the book until I ran into this, on page 87-8:

"Viper, the great gelding, was harnessed to the trap; and Adam, who had been called from the cowshed to get the brute between the shafts, was being swung up and down in the air as he hung on to the reins.

"The great beast, nineteen hands high, jerked his head wickedly, and Adam's frail body flew up into the darkness beyond the circle of grave, gold light painted by the mog's-lanthorn, and was lost to sight.

"Then down he came again, a twisted grey moth falling into the light as Viper thrust his head down to snuff the reeking straw about his feet.

"'Git up,' said Amos to Flora.

"'Is there a rug?' she asked, hanging fire.

"'Nay. The sins burnin' in yer marrow will keep yer warm.'

"But Flora thought otherwise, and darting into the kitchen, she returned with her leather coat, in the lining of which she had been mending a tiny tear.

"Adam whisked past her head as she put her foot on the step, piping in his distress like a very old peewit. His eyes were shut. His grey face was strained into an exalted mask of martyrdom.

"'Do let go of the reins, Adam,' urged Flora, in some distress. 'He'll hurt you in a minute.'

"'Nay …'tes exercisin' our Viper,' said Adam, feebly; and then, as Amos struck Viper on the shanks and the brute jerked his head as though he had been shot, Adam was flung out of the circle of light into the thick darkness, and was seen no more.

"'There …you see!' said Flora, reproachfully."

Parody is not supposed to be injected suddenly with utterly impossible imagery. What was Stella Gibbons drinking when she came to write this scene? It is, up to 117 pages in, unique; it doesn't fit at all. I had to reread it half a dozen times to realize that she had created a completely bizarre scene not possible even in a world where parody reigns. I could not wrap my mind around what was being described until I took it at face value and accepted that the author had blown it.

If a "masterpiece" can contain such a horribly constructed scene, it isn't a work of "genius" or a "masterpiece"; it might be a good book with flaws. Her writing style is excellent. But her grasp of slapstick is inconsistent: her novel isn't written to be physically extreme to the point of impossibility – like R. E. Howard employed in his comic western stories. So that scene jars with everything that has come before and follows after….

I got a Penguin edition from the library. The introduction gave me pause: a "near future" setting?

It was written in 1932.

Parody is not supposed to be injected suddenly with utterly impossible imagery. What was Stella Gibbons drinking when she came to write this scene?

Parody is all about impossible imagery. Seth Starkadder is every male character D H Lawrence ever wrote…nearly

And remember. There's something nasty in the woodshed.

None of that is unbelievable in the laws of physics sense. You are mixing the two up, as she did with that scene….

Have you ever considered that fiction might not be a genre that suits you?

BTW, a straight nose is a great help if one wishes to look serious.

If a "masterpiece" can contain such a horribly constructed scene, it isn't a work of "genius" or a "masterpiece"; it might be a good book with flaws.

That would be the case then for pretty much every "classic" I have ever read. "Crime and Punishment" anyone? "Catcher in the Rye"? Anything by Fitzgerald or Dickens?

None of that is unbelievable in the laws of physics sense. You are mixing the two up, as she did with that scene….

For those of us following along at home, what's the impossibility?

I heard 1984 was suppossed to be set in the future – but it was years ago ! Also, I was there and London in 1984 was nothing like that book.

Yoy ENJOYED the movie adaptation? Should have left the book alone, then. To my mind, the film lost all the irony and tongue-in-cheek of the original and was dire.

This has turned interestinger than I expected.

Yes, the movie version was a terrific adaptation, imho, of course. I am talking about the Kate Beckinsale version and not anything earlier.

@Andrew: are you kidding me? The 90 year-old Adam could not possibly hold onto reins that are tossing him up to the ceiling and back down and finally out of sight. The scene as Gibbons gave it is IMPOSSIBLE even in a parody. The parody is all directed at the genre, not at the physical world: the "loam and lovechild" novels do not pretend to laws of physics that do not exist in the real world; and neither does Gibbons' parody of the same: then along comes this strange scene that I have quoted in full, totally out of character with the rest of the book. I am almost done with it, and that scene remains unique and badly handled.

@Connard: funny, as I am a writer of fiction. And I began life with a pug nose, and it has slowly and inexorably gotten longer and straighter with age….

There was rather a nice BBC 2 or 3 part adaptation in the 60s and 70s too, with a very young Brian Blessed as Rueben Starkadder.

How very unfair then Daffy, that despite your superior knowledge of the nature of fiction and what it should and should not contain, 'Cold Comfort Farm' continues to sell well while you literally cannot give yours away.

That too probably defies the laws of physics.

@Andrew: are you kidding me? The 90 year-old Adam could not possibly hold onto reins that are tossing him up to the ceiling and back down and finally out of sight. The scene as Gibbons gave it is IMPOSSIBLE even in a parody. The parody is all directed at the genre, not at the physical world: the "loam and lovechild" novels do not pretend to laws of physics that do not exist in the real world; and neither does Gibbons' parody of the same: then along comes this strange scene that I have quoted in full, totally out of character with the rest of the book. I am almost done with it, and that scene remains unique and badly handled.

I asked an honest question – it would have been nice if you assumed that rather than asking if I was taking the .

"The 90 year-old Adam…" Well, that helps to explain it – having never read the book, I wasn't aware the character in question was geriatric.

How very unfair then Daffy, that despite your superior knowledge of the nature of fiction and what it should and should not contain, 'Cold Comfort Farm' continues to sell well while you literally cannot give yours away.

For all you know Daffy Doug's real name is Richard Adams.

But i doubt it.

Pat

Whatsit is mostly right: I give books away, though. My sales volume, such as it is, if it was oxygen, would have caused my death by deprivation years ago. :) But does that mean anything other than I don't have high sales?

@Andrew: sorry, I didn't mean to be snide; I thought you had read it and were questioning my assessment of the physical realism of that scene….

I've finished it. Other than one of the cows missing another hoof, I can't see anything else even subtly unrealistic about the story; speaking of the laws of physics that is; not the over-drawn (parody) of the stock character types and their social interactions. (What is with the hooves going missing anyway? Is that some kind of English colloquialism or folk humor reference?…)

Pat / Sane max. No, Daffy has spoken about pushing his books here before. I was not guessing.

"This has turned interestinger than I expected."

Don't give up your day job if you actually write as badly as that!

Not as badly as Stella Gibbons; her novel is crammed with hardly decipherable mock-Sussex dialogue. But then, her use of it was a slam at the rural novels popular at the time. "Interestinger" has companions, should I descend into the depths of local creativity and produce a novel focused on Youtawns: there are quite a few colloquialisms that are laughably bad, as bad English as the rural English is. One of them, by way of example, got into Star Wars, the reason why nobody noticed, is because Mormons settled large parts of the SW, clear to San Diego, and apparently Lucas grew up tainted by the lingo: Luke Skywalker complains, "It'll be a whole-nuther year": and this from a youth in a galaxy long, long ago, and far, far away!…