In the introduction, Lynne Truss calls this novel a masterpiece, and so it is. Truss however does not agree with common opinion that it is necessarily a parody of Mary Webb’s rural novels which were popular in the 1920s and 30s. Whether parody or not, Cold Comfort Farm is definitely a comic novel, which succeeds in the best of ways mainly because of its hilarious use of language.
The plot is relatively straightforward: we have our 19 year old protagonist, Flora Poste, newly orphaned. Despite her parents having given her an unparalleled education, she was not close to them, and so not grief stricken at their loss. However, since they did not leave her any property and only 100 pounds a year to live on, she decides to impose herself on her relatives, as a time honoured practice, rather than take up any sort of paid work (though she does concede perhaps when she is 53, she might write a novel). She writes to relatives in Scotland, Worthing, Kensington, and in Sussex, where her mother’s cousin lives on Cold Comfort Farm. She receives kind invitations from all of them, and is most intrigued by the last, so she chooses to go to Susex.
Although young, Flora Poste is given a maturity, equanimity, and composure of someone easily thrice her age. However, willing suspension of disbelief and an equal willingness to be complicit in its absurdity is necessary if the reader is to enjoy this novel. (The humour is of a particularly British flavour, with a touch of the burlesque.) Flora Poste hates messes, apparently, so sets out to live in Cold Comfort Farm and set right all the messes in the lives of all her relatives there. (If this sounds rather highhanded, it is because that is exactly what Flora Poste is, and yet, by the magic of the writing, she is lovably, delightfully, highhanded.) There is a massive brood of Flora’s relatives at the farm, from Judith who is the cousin of Flora’s mother, to Aunt Ada Doom, matriarch of the farm, and the Starkadders who have apparently always been at the farm, and Flora’s cousins aplenty, right through to the third generation, with the seductive Seth, the brooding farmer Rueben, the perfectly named Elfine. Indeed, the names are a lot of fun too: how could one not love cows which are called Aimless, Feckless, Pointless, and Graceless? (The plough horses, by the way, are called Travail, Arsenic, and Jug-jug.)
These wonderful cows are looked after by an 80 plus year old Adam Lambsbreath, who, like his cows,
lay close to the earth, and something of the earth’s old fierce simplicities had seeped into their beings (p35).
Adam loves his cows very dearly and they love him back equally so, but he does not notice when one of them has lost a leg (perhaps because this does not matter much to him or to them). Adam is also tasked with cooking the men’s meals and ‘clettering’ the porridge dishes with thorn twigs. Adam’s dialect is quite wonderful; when asked how many pails of milk there will be that day,
‘I dunnamany,’ responded Adam, cringingly; ‘ ‘tes hard to tell. If so be as our Pointless has got over her indigestion, maybe ‘twill be four, If so be as she hain’t, maybe three’ (p36).
He is also full of wonderfully folksy sayings:
The seed to the flower, the flower to the fruit, the fruit to the belly (p37).
Apart from the brilliantly created characters and caricatures, Gibbon’s descriptions are also rich and glorious:
Dawn crept over the Downs like a sinister white animal, followed by the snarling cries of a wind eating its way between the black boughs of the thorns, The wind was the furious voice of this sluggish animal light that was baring the dormers and mullions and scullions of Cold Comfort Farm.” (p32).
In Gibbon’s writing, nature is both delectable and fearsome; in fact, Lynne Truss opines that key to the success of this novel is the tension between the values encapsulated by Flora (civilised, pragmatic), and Elfine (the innocent romantic).
The writing style of Gibbon’s novel may be best compared to that of the Jeeves and Bertie Wooster series by P. G. Wodehouse. Not only is the tone similar in its lighthearted, irrepressible nature, there is also a strong class consciousness running throughout, with the protagonists, whether Bertie or Flora, being of the upper crust, with all the attendant privileges, especially the privilege of being able to get away with anything, making up their own rules and indeed making rules for others too, and being able to flaunt societal norms with impunity – while still being loved and held in high regard by all.
In the reception lunch Flora arranges at Cold Comfort Farm, there is a clear distinction made, and a sly inversion too:
Flora had arranged two kinds of food for the two kinds of guests she was expecting. For the Starkadders and such of the local horny peasantry as would attend there were syllabubs, ice-pudding, caviare [sic] sandwiches, crab patties, trifle and champagne. For the County there was cider, cold home-cured ham, cheese, home-made bread and salads made from local fruit. The table from which the County were to feed was rich with cottage flowers. The rosy efflorescence of the peonies floated above the table from which the peasantry would eat (p214).
The novel is characterized by these wonderful, detailed descriptions, brilliant use of words whether real or made up words (what is a scranlet??), and overall sense of fun and absurdity without serious consequences.
In similar spirit does one had to take Flora’s arrangements for all her relatives, dispensing as she does with the best of humour and unflappability, some relatives to various occupations abroad, and some to marriages locally. Flora takes things in hand, tells everyone what to do, fends off admirers, keeps a vast network of useful friends, all with apparently no effort, with her utter surety, and no doubts or anxieties at all. In fact, Flora never gets beyond being a little vexed at most, she certainly is never out of temper, never daunted, never brought low. In fact, she is a paragon of the Higher Common Sense, straight out of the book she so loves, supposedly by one Abbé Fausse-Maigre. The Higher Common sense although not detailed in the novel, clearly advocates against
’uncivilized behaviour’; a vague phrase, which was defined in their to minds [Flora’s and her great friend, Mrs Smiling’s] with great precision, to their mutual satisfaction” (p20).
Whether you want to call this novel a satire, or a parody, or a comic novel, it is an utterly charming read, consistently amusing in every page and every sentence, amusing mostly in form rather than content, which is both unusual and highly praiseworthy.
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