Cold Comfort Farm

So, I found something out about myself yesterday. The urgency I feel to spend time in my craft room stems from having a child who is awake. I feel that I can spend time creating something and interact with her at the same time. When given time to myself (Jeremy and Kaitlin are away right now--not together. Jeremy's in Boston and K's in Idaho with her grandparents), with a child who sleeps all day I will elect to spend the day in bed reading. That's how I managed to read Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons in a single day. I admit, I felt the pull of the craft room, especially since I have so many projects on progress, but I couldn't get away from this book.

Unfortunately I don't have much to say about it. I mostly wanted to post about it because I wanted to put a picture of it on my blog. I love this cover! If the portraits of the characters look a little scary to you, well, they're supposed to. This novel is funny, peopled with the quirkiest characters that you will ever read about. Despite their quirks they are (almost) all lovable. So instead of any analysis, I'll just give a little synopsis.

Cold Comfort Farm is the story of Flora Poste, a 20 year old woman in 1940's London. Her parents have died, leaving her a mere 100 pounds a year on which to live. Instead of learning how to work she decides to let her relatives support her by making extended visits to them. She writes letters to all of her relatives, but when she receives their replies she realizes that she will be terribly bored with all of them. The Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm promise the least amount of boredom so she goes to them. She sees them as a project. Flora can't stand messy lives, and the lives of the Starkadders seem particularly messy--their letters are even written on dirty stationery!

When Flora arrives at Cold Comfort Farm she finds a family whose individuals are trapped on the farm. They are ruled over by a matriarch who everyone thinks is insane. Flora sees immeditely that she must help free the members of the family and sets about doing so in a very humorous manner. A reader reviewer on Amazon pointed out that these stories are common, but the person who set the family memebers free typically have some sort of magical power. Conversely, Flora uses English practicality, rather than magic, to improve the lives of those around her.

Cold Comfort Farm is a quick, fun read that I could feel comfortable recommending to just about anyone. It was also made into a move by the BBC about 10 years ago, starring Kate Beckinsale as Flora. It's been a while since I've seen it, but I remember it to be very well done, with Beckinsale making a very good Flora. For you Netflix subscribers it is available through that service, and is now at the top of my queue.