Cold Comfort Farm
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Cold Comfort Farm is a comic novel by Stella Gibbons, published in 1932. It parodies the romanticized, doom-laden accounts of rural life in some novels. The most immediate model was the work of Mary Webb. Gibbons was working for the Evening Standard in 1928 when they decided to serialise Webb's first novel, The Golden Arrow, and had the job of summarising the plot of earlier installments. More talented novelists in the tradition parodied by Cold Comfort Farm are D. H. Lawrence and Thomas Hardy; and going further back, the Brontë sisters.
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[edit] Plot summary
The heroine, Flora, stays at Aunt Ada Doom's isolated farm in the fictional village of Howling in Sussex. As is typical in a certain genre of romantic nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century literature, each of the farm's inhabitants has some long-festering emotional problem caused by ignorance, hatred or fear, and the farm is badly run. Flora, being a level-headed, urban woman, applies modern common sense to their problems and helps them all adapt to the twentieth century.
The speech of the Sussex characters is a parody of rural dialects (in particular the Somerset accent - another parody of Mary Webb, whose characters all tended to speak with a Somerset accent despite the fact they more often than not lived in a completely different county) and is sprinkled with fake but authentic-sounding local vocabulary such as mollocking (Seth's favourite activity, undefined but invariably resulting in the pregnancy of a local maid), sukebind (a weed whose flowering in the Spring symbolises the quickening of sexual urges in man and beast; the word is presumably formed by analogy to 'woodbine' (honeysuckle) and bindweed) and clettering (an impractical method used by Adam for washing dishes, which involves scraping them with a dry twig).
[edit] Characters, in order of appearance
In London:
- Flora Poste: the heroine, a nineteen-year old from London whose parents are deceased.
- Mary Smiling: a widow, Flora's friend in London.
- Charles Fairford: Flora's cousin in London, studying to become a parson.
In Howling, Sussex:
- Judith Starkadder: Flora's cousin, wife of Amos. She has an unhealthy passion for her own son Seth.
- Seth Starkadder: younger son of Amos and Judith. Handsome and over-sexed. Has a passion for the movies.
- 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.
- Adam Lambsbreath: extremely ancient farm hand, obsessed with his cows and with Elfine.
- Mark Dolour: farm hand.
- Amos Starkadder: Judith's husband, and hellfire preacher at the Church of the Quivering Brethren. ("Ye're all damned!")
- Micah, married to Susan; Urk, a bachelor who wants to marry Elfine; Ezra, married to Jane; Caraway, married to Lettie; Harkaway: Amos's half-cousins.
- Luke, married to Prue; Mark, divorced from Susan and married to Phoebe: Amos's half-brothers.
- Reuben Starkadder: Amos's heir, jealous of anyone who stands between him and his inheritance of the farm.
- Meriam Beetle: hired girl, and mother of Seth's four children.
- Elfine: an intellectual, outdoor-loving girl of the Starkadder family, who is besotted with the local squire, Richard Hawk-Monitor of Hautcouture (pronounced "Howchiker") Hall.
- Mrs Beetle: cleaning lady, rather more sensible than the Starkadders.
- Mrs Murther: landlady of The Condemn'd Man public house.
- Mr Meyerburg: (universally known as "Mr Mybug") a writer who is in love with Flora. He is working on a thesis that the works of the Brontë sisters were written by their brother Branwell Brontë.
- Rennet: unwanted daughter of Susan and Mark
- Dr Müdel: psychoanalyst.
and also:
- Graceless, Aimless, Feckless and Pointless: the farm's cows, and Adam Lambsbreath's chief charge. Occasionally given to losing extremities.
- Viper: the horse, pulls the trap which is the farm's main transportation
- Big Business: the bull, spends most of his time inside the barn.
The interrelations of the characters are complex. The family tree below is an attempt to illustrate them as they stand at the end of the novel.
[edit] Flora's solutions
The novel ends when Flora, with the aid of her handbook The Higher Common Sense, has solved each character's problem. These solutions are:
- Meriam: Flora introduces Meriam to the concept of contraception.
- Seth: Flora introduces him to a Hollywood film director, Earl P. Neck, who hires him as a screen idol.
- Amos: Flora persuades him to buy a Ford van and become a travelling preacher. He loses interest in running the farm and hands it over to Reuben.
- Elfine: Flora teaches her some social graces and dress sense so that Richard Hawk-Monitor falls in love with her.
- Urk: forgets his desire for Elfine and marries Meriam.
- Mr Mybug: falls in love with and marries Rennet.
- Judith: Flora hires a psychoanalyst, Dr Müdel, who, over lunch, transfers Judith's obsession from Seth to himself until he can set her interest on old churches instead.
- Ada: Flora uses a copy of Vogue magazine to tempt her to join the twentieth century, and spend some of her fortune on living the high life in Paris.
- Adam: is given a job as cow-herd at Hautcouture Hall.
- Graceless, Aimless, Feckless and Pointless: go with Adam to Hautcouture Hall
- Big Business: Flora lets him out into the sunlight.
- Flora: marries Charles.
[edit] Futurism
An aspect of the novel overlooked by many recent adaptations is that the story was set in the future. Although the book was published in 1932, the setting appears to be the late 1940s or even 1950s and contains developments that Stella Gibbons thought may be around at this time such as TV phones and air taxis. She did seem to have predicted a Second World War as it is alluded to in the experiences of Flora's boyfriend, but she probably did not appreciate the scale of that war.
[edit] Other Novels
1940 saw the publication of Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm (actually a collection of short stories, of which Christmas was the first). It is a prequel of sorts, set before Flora's arrival at the farm, and is a parody of a typical family Christmas.
A sequel, Conference at Cold Comfort Farm, came out in 1949, and received mixed reviews.
[edit] Adaptations
Cold Comfort Farm has been adapted for television twice. In 1968 a three-episode mini-series was made, starring Sarah Badel as Flora Poste, Brian Blessed as Seth, and Alastair Sim as Amos. In 1995 there was a made for TV movie, starring Kate Beckinsale as Flora. The 1995 made-for-tv movie was released theatrically in the US in 1996.
The BBC produced a four-part radio adaptation (tapes of the adaptation are copyrighted 1989, though the series was broadcast before that date). Miriam Margolyes played Mrs. Beetle,
In January 1983, a sequel, Conference at Cold Comfort Farm, set several years later, when Flora is married with several children, was broadcast (Part 1: "There have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm", and Part 2: "Reuben's Oath - or Seven Good Men and True").
The book has also been turned into a stage play by Paul Doust, staged at London's Greenwich Theatre in 1992 by the National Youth Theatre. The plot was simplified a little in order to make it suitable for the stage. The major changes are that Mybug, Mrs. Beetle, Meriam, Mark Dolour and Mrs. Smiling are all omitted. Meriam's character was merged with Rennet, who ends up with Urk at the end. As a consequence, both Rennet's and Urk's roles are much bigger than in the book. Mrs. Smiling is absent because the action begins with Flora's arrival in Sussex (Charles appears only to drop her off and pick her up again at the end). Mark Dolour, though mentioned several times in the play as a running joke, never appears on stage. Finally, instead of visiting a psychoanalyst to cure her obsession, Judith leaves with Neck at the end.
[edit] External links
- Information on the book
- Stella Gibbons Website dedicated to Stella Gibbons, hosted by her nephew and biographer Reggie Oliver
