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A review by mirandatamsin
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
4.0
The scene where Flora sits in the closed café with Mr Mybug is ridiculously funny. I saw the whole book in a new light from that point (up until then, I'd honestly not quite *got* it). It was absolutely gleeful.
The scene opens like this:
'[Flora – our main character – was sitting in a café] when she became conscious of a presence approaching her from behind, and before she could collect her faculties the voice of Mr Mybug [a man she'd met only once before, at a party] said:
"Hullo, Flora Poste. Do you believe that women have souls?" He looked down at her with a bold yet whimsical smile.'
And it only gets better and better as Mybug explains he's writing a biography of Branwell Brontë (brother of Charlotte, Emily and Anne), based entirely on three letters he wrote to an old aunt in Ireland. An analysis of these very mundane letters are enough to prove that Branwell wrote all of his sisters' books (and also that all three sisters "were drunkards, but Anne was the worst of the lot"). Branwell apparently went to a lot of self-sacrificing heroics for the sake of covering up his sisters' drinking problem.
Later, Flora and Mybug go for a walk in which the latter goes on about trees that remind him of phallic objects, the nature of "women", and "true love".
The other genuinely hilarious part of the book, for me, was the introduction of Elfine (she's like a satirisation of the wild, pastoral proto-manic-pixie-dream-girl type). But in general, even when Cold Comfort Farm wasn't that funny, it was warm-hearted and cosy and a basically lovely read.
I'd recommend it!
The scene opens like this:
'[Flora – our main character – was sitting in a café] when she became conscious of a presence approaching her from behind, and before she could collect her faculties the voice of Mr Mybug [a man she'd met only once before, at a party] said:
"Hullo, Flora Poste. Do you believe that women have souls?" He looked down at her with a bold yet whimsical smile.'
And it only gets better and better as Mybug explains he's writing a biography of Branwell Brontë (brother of Charlotte, Emily and Anne), based entirely on three letters he wrote to an old aunt in Ireland. An analysis of these very mundane letters are enough to prove that Branwell wrote all of his sisters' books (and also that all three sisters "were drunkards, but Anne was the worst of the lot"). Branwell apparently went to a lot of self-sacrificing heroics for the sake of covering up his sisters' drinking problem.
Later, Flora and Mybug go for a walk in which the latter goes on about trees that remind him of phallic objects, the nature of "women", and "true love".
The other genuinely hilarious part of the book, for me, was the introduction of Elfine (she's like a satirisation of the wild, pastoral proto-manic-pixie-dream-girl type). But in general, even when Cold Comfort Farm wasn't that funny, it was warm-hearted and cosy and a basically lovely read.
I'd recommend it!