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Cold Comfort Farm
Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm
Where better to spend the most wonderful time of the year?
You're dreading Christmas with your in-laws.
You've got a cold coming on.
You're worried you've forgotten to buy a gift for somebody.
Apply this book to the affected area.
You should soon feel like your old cheerful self again.
Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm will remind you that Christmas is a magical time of year and that romance can blossom in the least likely of places.
You're dreading Christmas with your in-laws.
You've got a cold coming on.
You're worried you've forgotten to buy a gift for somebody.
Apply this book to the affected area.
You should soon feel like your old cheerful self again.
Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm will remind you that Christmas is a magical time of year and that romance can blossom in the least likely of places.
298 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1940
240 people are currently reading
2259 people want to read
About the author
Stella Gibbons
57 books412 followersStella Dorothea Gibbons was an English novelist, journalist, poet and short-story writer.
Her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm, won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933. A satire and parody of the pessimistic ruralism of Thomas Hardy, his followers and especially Precious Bain by Mary Webb -the "loam and lovechild" genre, as some called it, Cold Comfort Farm introduces a self-confident young woman, quite self-consciously modern, pragmatic and optimistic, into the grim, fate-bound and dark rural scene those novelists tended to portray.
Her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm, won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933. A satire and parody of the pessimistic ruralism of Thomas Hardy, his followers and especially Precious Bain by Mary Webb -the "loam and lovechild" genre, as some called it, Cold Comfort Farm introduces a self-confident young woman, quite self-consciously modern, pragmatic and optimistic, into the grim, fate-bound and dark rural scene those novelists tended to portray.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 255 reviews
September 30, 2019
Sweet, wise tales along the lines of a Barbara Pym novel
Everyday women who have sudden epiphanies about how silly and wrongheaded their life choices have been and how it's not to late to change seems to be the core of a lot of the short stories herein. These are mostly great vignettes of life for the single and married woman of the 1930s and 40s. Gibbons' theme seems to be that women can have it all, a career, marriage and children. And also that ordinary things are very fulfilling and shouldn't be taken for granted. Also common sense is underrated in modern society. There were a few dated ideas, I couldn't go along with though. In one story, a husband slaps his wife hard and she agrees that she needed it. Ugh!!!!
Everyday women who have sudden epiphanies about how silly and wrongheaded their life choices have been and how it's not to late to change seems to be the core of a lot of the short stories herein. These are mostly great vignettes of life for the single and married woman of the 1930s and 40s. Gibbons' theme seems to be that women can have it all, a career, marriage and children. And also that ordinary things are very fulfilling and shouldn't be taken for granted. Also common sense is underrated in modern society. There were a few dated ideas, I couldn't go along with though. In one story, a husband slaps his wife hard and she agrees that she needed it. Ugh!!!!
September 11, 2022
I wasn’t expecting much from this volume of short stories because in the recesses of my mind I thought I remembered tepid reviews of it. Well, perhaps that was another Cold Comfort Farm title of hers...Conference at Cold Comfort Farm? I dunno.... all I do know is that I like these stories. For one reason or another they hit the spot. 4 stars for me. I am on a quest to read as many of Gibbons’ works of fiction as I can.
There is an Introduction to this book by Alexander McCall Smith from 11 years ago...he likens her to Barbara Pym although he says Pym is a better writer...I don’t know about that) and writes (I think correctly) that the stories in this collection are rather clear-cut...the plot is usually easy to understand and there is a clear ending in most cases. You’re not left with “What the hell did I just read? I don’t understand it.” None of that.
Here they are in the order in which they appeared. The stories were originally published in ‘The Lady’, ‘The Bystander’, ‘Nash’s Magazine’, ‘Penguin Parade,’ ‘The Good Housekeeping’, and ‘The Evening Standard’.
1. The Little Christmas Tree — 3 stars
2. Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm — 1.5 stars
3. To Love and To Cherish — 4 stars
4. The Murder Mark — 3.5 stars
5. The Hoofer and the Lady — 2 stars
6. Sisters — 2.5 stars
7. The Walled Garden —3.5 stars
8. A Charming Man — 4 stars
9. Golden Vanity — 4 stars
10. Poor, Poor Black Sheep — 4 stars
11. More Than kind — 3.5 stars
12. The Friend of Man — 4 stars
13. Tame Wild Party — 3 stars
14. A Young Man in Rags — 3 stars
15. Cake — 2 stars
16. Mr. Amberly’s Brother — 4.5 stars
These stories will probably not stick with me for more than a week. They’re relatively light. Some of the endings were sappy. Lots of stories where people fall instantly in love... Still and all, perhaps because I went into this thinking this was going to be a bad read, I was pleasantly wrong! 🙂 🙃
Note:
• In two of the stories there was reference to ‘The Four Years War’. This book was published in 1940, so I am assuming she was referring to World War One. And it dawned on me that that was indeed a possible name for it, because in 1940 there was no World War Two (it was just around the corner, however). But when I googled that term, I could find no reference to it being another name for WWI. Has anyone else heard WWI being referred to as the Four Years War. It makes sense, doesn’t it...1914-1918?
• This is the 10th work of fiction I have read by Stella Gibbons. I have 20 more to go (that includes 2 other collections of short stories).
Reviews
• Nice review... https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
• another good review bit read it after you read the stories...she gives a bit too much away regarding them... https://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/...
• http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/C...
• https://classicalcarousel.com/christm...
There is an Introduction to this book by Alexander McCall Smith from 11 years ago...he likens her to Barbara Pym although he says Pym is a better writer...I don’t know about that) and writes (I think correctly) that the stories in this collection are rather clear-cut...the plot is usually easy to understand and there is a clear ending in most cases. You’re not left with “What the hell did I just read? I don’t understand it.” None of that.
Here they are in the order in which they appeared. The stories were originally published in ‘The Lady’, ‘The Bystander’, ‘Nash’s Magazine’, ‘Penguin Parade,’ ‘The Good Housekeeping’, and ‘The Evening Standard’.
1. The Little Christmas Tree — 3 stars
2. Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm — 1.5 stars
3. To Love and To Cherish — 4 stars
4. The Murder Mark — 3.5 stars
5. The Hoofer and the Lady — 2 stars
6. Sisters — 2.5 stars
7. The Walled Garden —3.5 stars
8. A Charming Man — 4 stars
9. Golden Vanity — 4 stars
10. Poor, Poor Black Sheep — 4 stars
11. More Than kind — 3.5 stars
12. The Friend of Man — 4 stars
13. Tame Wild Party — 3 stars
14. A Young Man in Rags — 3 stars
15. Cake — 2 stars
16. Mr. Amberly’s Brother — 4.5 stars
These stories will probably not stick with me for more than a week. They’re relatively light. Some of the endings were sappy. Lots of stories where people fall instantly in love... Still and all, perhaps because I went into this thinking this was going to be a bad read, I was pleasantly wrong! 🙂 🙃
Note:
• In two of the stories there was reference to ‘The Four Years War’. This book was published in 1940, so I am assuming she was referring to World War One. And it dawned on me that that was indeed a possible name for it, because in 1940 there was no World War Two (it was just around the corner, however). But when I googled that term, I could find no reference to it being another name for WWI. Has anyone else heard WWI being referred to as the Four Years War. It makes sense, doesn’t it...1914-1918?
• This is the 10th work of fiction I have read by Stella Gibbons. I have 20 more to go (that includes 2 other collections of short stories).
Reviews
• Nice review... https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
• another good review bit read it after you read the stories...she gives a bit too much away regarding them... https://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/...
• http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/C...
• https://classicalcarousel.com/christm...
December 23, 2012
The one thing everyone seems to know of Stella Gibbons is that she wrote one book ' Cold Comfort Farm' and then she was destined to have it hang around her neck like the famous albatross for the rest of her less than stellar career. This may or may not be true, though I remember reading 'Here be dragons' and quite enjoying it, but it cannot be denied that for myself CCF is probably the only book of hers that i would return to. That was until I picked this up whilst Christmas shopping in Exeter. Ironically the title short story is, whilst drawing on the fondness of memory of that other book, in my opinion quite easily the weakest story in the collection. It is without purpose, with little real humour and no drama. Weak, weak, weak. However that does not go for all the stories.
In the collection you gain a real sense of a woman who understood the missed opportunities for love and happiness that comes about as a result of people failing to speak or communicate clearly. 'To love and to cherish' gently nudges us along the road of wasted life. There are other examples of the same sadness and though very few stories end sadly or miserably 'The walled garden', 'A charming man' and 'sisters' all speak in different ways of expectation and loss, of people reaching out in love or decency and being rebutted. Sad but real.
There is humour and a wonderful sense of the absurd and the sarcastic slant of some of Gibbons' comments are wonderfully understated but striking. In 'The friend of man' an overlooked woman taken for granted seeks release but to what
'She did not want second best. She wanted the real thing; that real thing which her friends discovered, like the gleeful followers of a treasure hunt, every eighteen months or so '....Ouch
In the same story Gibbons describes another of the characters thus
'He stood, balancing slightly on his heels, sipping his womanish drink and wishing it was beer; he was as conspicous as a stone post in that fluid crowd'
simple image but cleverly expresses a good deal about him, his opinions and the insubstantial group of hangers on. This seems a particular gift of Gibbons, the ability to describe swiftly and concisely. In the story 'Tame Wild Party' we find this sentence
'He was green in the face and a lock of hair fell over one of his eyes giving him a Beardsleyish look which Joyce, who had never heard of Beardlsey, found singularly revolting'
The genius of this little sentence is it tells us so much of Joyce. Had she heard of Beardsley then her reaction would have been different because the decadent society of which she felt compelled to be a part would approve of his look and thus so would she. I loved that concise and incisive whip of criticism implied without being obvious.
As i read these stories, and there are 16 in all, they come from different directions and nestle down with different atmospheres but I was struck by the fact that she wrote of the same class of people, to a large extent, as did Wodehouse. In these stories however, though there was not the same witticisms and clever turn of phrases that pepper his writing, I found I liked the characters more. I was, to a large extent rooting for them.
These stories will never have been going to set the world on fire but if you enjoy short stories then these have a simple value. They are about relationship and missed opportunity, about hero-worship and its painful demise, about the growth in self-knowledge that leads to a new future and the very last story in the collection is a simple but clever one that ends on a note of really satisfying acknowledgment that it is never too late.
In the collection you gain a real sense of a woman who understood the missed opportunities for love and happiness that comes about as a result of people failing to speak or communicate clearly. 'To love and to cherish' gently nudges us along the road of wasted life. There are other examples of the same sadness and though very few stories end sadly or miserably 'The walled garden', 'A charming man' and 'sisters' all speak in different ways of expectation and loss, of people reaching out in love or decency and being rebutted. Sad but real.
There is humour and a wonderful sense of the absurd and the sarcastic slant of some of Gibbons' comments are wonderfully understated but striking. In 'The friend of man' an overlooked woman taken for granted seeks release but to what
'She did not want second best. She wanted the real thing; that real thing which her friends discovered, like the gleeful followers of a treasure hunt, every eighteen months or so '....Ouch
In the same story Gibbons describes another of the characters thus
'He stood, balancing slightly on his heels, sipping his womanish drink and wishing it was beer; he was as conspicous as a stone post in that fluid crowd'
simple image but cleverly expresses a good deal about him, his opinions and the insubstantial group of hangers on. This seems a particular gift of Gibbons, the ability to describe swiftly and concisely. In the story 'Tame Wild Party' we find this sentence
'He was green in the face and a lock of hair fell over one of his eyes giving him a Beardsleyish look which Joyce, who had never heard of Beardlsey, found singularly revolting'
The genius of this little sentence is it tells us so much of Joyce. Had she heard of Beardsley then her reaction would have been different because the decadent society of which she felt compelled to be a part would approve of his look and thus so would she. I loved that concise and incisive whip of criticism implied without being obvious.
As i read these stories, and there are 16 in all, they come from different directions and nestle down with different atmospheres but I was struck by the fact that she wrote of the same class of people, to a large extent, as did Wodehouse. In these stories however, though there was not the same witticisms and clever turn of phrases that pepper his writing, I found I liked the characters more. I was, to a large extent rooting for them.
These stories will never have been going to set the world on fire but if you enjoy short stories then these have a simple value. They are about relationship and missed opportunity, about hero-worship and its painful demise, about the growth in self-knowledge that leads to a new future and the very last story in the collection is a simple but clever one that ends on a note of really satisfying acknowledgment that it is never too late.
December 12, 2014
Gibbons is like an edgier L. M. Montgomery. Her characters are terribly concerned with manners and propriety and what the neighbors think.
Some of these stories were quite sweet and amusing, but there's nothing here that's going to stick in my memory a month after closing the book.
Some of these stories were quite sweet and amusing, but there's nothing here that's going to stick in my memory a month after closing the book.
December 22, 2019
This collection of short stories was a little disappointing as only two of the sixteen were at Christmas and only one of those at Cold Comfort Farm (unlike the impression given by the marketing blurb!). The one at Cold Comfort Farm lacked the sparkle and dry wit of the novel and if you hadn't read that you'd be wondering what on Earth you were reading. The second Christmas story was a charming little piece about some children who elect to spend Christmas Day with a lonely spinster who loves Christmas rather than their un-Christmassy single father.
The remaining fourteen stories were interesting as period pieces from the 1930s in that period between the two world wars when Britain was moving into the modern age. They offered vignettes into the lives of women who yearned to 'have it all' (a career and marriage). Despite moving in the social circle of the smart set, women still feared spinsterhood, so marrying and retiring to the country to have children was still seen as the only other option unless you had a career to support you. The men in the stories are rather shadowy, paternalistic figures who often treat their wives and children as chattels to be under their command rather than partners. It's always interesting to see glimpses of women's lives from earlier times and wonder how you would have fared and this book written in 1940 is certainly authentic in depicting the attitudes of the day (thankfully many of them very dated!).
The remaining fourteen stories were interesting as period pieces from the 1930s in that period between the two world wars when Britain was moving into the modern age. They offered vignettes into the lives of women who yearned to 'have it all' (a career and marriage). Despite moving in the social circle of the smart set, women still feared spinsterhood, so marrying and retiring to the country to have children was still seen as the only other option unless you had a career to support you. The men in the stories are rather shadowy, paternalistic figures who often treat their wives and children as chattels to be under their command rather than partners. It's always interesting to see glimpses of women's lives from earlier times and wonder how you would have fared and this book written in 1940 is certainly authentic in depicting the attitudes of the day (thankfully many of them very dated!).
December 27, 2016
This book was such a surprise! I expected some short stories about England in the 1930's that were related to Christmas. What I discovered were stories that explored the intricacies of life in England as it moved from the Edwardian Age into the Modern Era. Gibbons explores deep themes - the meaning of life, the role of women, relationships versus isolation in her stories. It is a cliché to describe stories in a collection such as this as gems, but each of these stories truly is. I liked every single one. Alexander McCall Smith wrote the introduction to this edition. He compliments Gibbons but reserves higher praise for her contemporary Barbara Pym. I don't think a comparison is needed or even fair. Gibbons work in this collection shows she stands the test of time, and richly deserves a contemporary readership.
December 26, 2019
3 de 5 estrellas⭐️⭐️⭐️ (me ha gustado)
Un libro de relatos que en principio tú crees que van a ser navideños pero es un engaño, tan sólo los dos primeros lo son.
Stella escribe de maravilla, retrata muy bien a los personajes en pocas páginas y tiene un nivel de detalle que embelesa.
Ha habido historias buenas, que me han encantado y otras que acaban y te quedas sin ninguna sensación.
Leeré más sobre la autora, tiene una pluma excelente
Un libro de relatos que en principio tú crees que van a ser navideños pero es un engaño, tan sólo los dos primeros lo son.
Stella escribe de maravilla, retrata muy bien a los personajes en pocas páginas y tiene un nivel de detalle que embelesa.
Ha habido historias buenas, que me han encantado y otras que acaban y te quedas sin ninguna sensación.
Leeré más sobre la autora, tiene una pluma excelente
January 1, 2023
I have no idea why it took me so long to find and then read this book. It's hard to believe it was written in 1932, the style of humour and the witheringly dry observations are so current. I won't churn out the plot again, as others have more than covered that along with a load of spoilers, but this book had me in stitches, Ok, it's wildly far fetched, but then the best humour so often is. Don't be put off by it being "a classic" or by the period when it was written, it could have been written last week, and it's a belting read.
January 23, 2023
A collection of short stories, but, despite the title, those looking for Christmassy stories will not find them here; only the title story and one other feature Christmas.
For the most part, these are good, satisfying stories, but if course there are some weaker ones. I did enjoy the visit to Cold Comfort Farm, before Flora gets there, and my other favourite was Poor Poor Black sheep. Some are pretty dated now, I didn't like Cake, a bit jarring for today's audience.
For the most part, these are good, satisfying stories, but if course there are some weaker ones. I did enjoy the visit to Cold Comfort Farm, before Flora gets there, and my other favourite was Poor Poor Black sheep. Some are pretty dated now, I didn't like Cake, a bit jarring for today's audience.
December 30, 2018
This fluctuated between 3 1/2 and 4 stars. Even though I can't say that I wholeheartedly adore Gibbons' writing, there is something unique in her prose that I can appreciate and enjoy. These stories improve as one reads and I'm not quite sure if that's because Gibbons' writing improves or merely because the reader gets more used to it.
September 25, 2020
Son relatos en forma de precuela de la obra más leída de la autora, La hija de Robert Poste, utilizando a sus personajes. Al ser libro de relatos, hay de todo. Pero no sé si es porque desconecté de los personajes de la obra primigenia o porque no me interesa lo que se dice en los relatos, no conecto con el libro.
November 14, 2021
The book title is slightly deceiving. It’s not all Christmas nor Cold Comfort Farm. But, it is all enjoyable. This is a book of short stories. I loved them all. Ms. Gibbons wrote during a time when morality and good standards still mattered. Thankfully, she also enjoyed a tidy happy ending even if much of it was left to your imagination. I’m so glad I own this one.
Quotes from Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm that I liked.
“Tolerance has two sides, you know.”
“A marriage…has got to have a wall around it, like a garden. Inside the wall everything’s safe. It’s got to be, so that the fruit can grow…and the children.”
“But surely all marriages aren’t like a wall garden?”
“All proper marriages are,” answered her husband.
Quotes from Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm that I liked.
“Tolerance has two sides, you know.”
“A marriage…has got to have a wall around it, like a garden. Inside the wall everything’s safe. It’s got to be, so that the fruit can grow…and the children.”
“But surely all marriages aren’t like a wall garden?”
“All proper marriages are,” answered her husband.
December 4, 2023
A Stella Gibbons la leí por primera vez este año y fue un gran descubrimiento, en este libro nos presenta 16 historias que cubren un respetable rango de emociones y sucesos de naturaleza diversa.
1. 🎄🏡 ⭐️⭐️ El arbolito de navidad: Rhoda está soltera y en época navideña se siente incómoda rodeada de gente por lo que alquila una casita en el campo para pasar una navidad en paz, pero unas visitantes muy simpáticas interrumpen sus planes y quizás cambian su vida para siempre. Esta historia es muy acorde a la época navideña, empieza melancólica y termina con una promesa futura de felicidad, sin grandes emociones pero acorde para leerla mientras se toma un chocolate caliente con galletas 🍪.
2. 🧙 ⛄️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Navidades en Cold Comfort Farm: Los Starkadder son una familia singular y antipática, tan antipática que caen bien. Sus navidades son iguales que ellos, son oscuras, irónicas, con comida aborrecible y llena de malos deseos entre ellos. Es una historia escrita de manera impecable y que te saca risas una vez y otra también, para mi la mejor historia de esta recopilación.
3. 🧡 🥰 📝⭐️⭐️⭐️Amar y anhelar: la señora Carte lleva 20 años siendo esposa, un día cualquiera se harta y hace planes para dejar a su esposo y liberarse, para ello consigue varias entrevistas de trabajo. Ay la vida no es tan fácil y a veces no valoramos lo que tenemos, y esa difícil lección aprenderá la señora Carter.
4. 🕵🏻 💊 🔪 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ La marca del crimen: una de detectives, un boticario aburrido y conformista tiene un casi amigo escritor de novelas policiacas al que nunca ha llamado por su nombre, una noche común y corriente pasa algo…… aunque es buena, anticipe muy rápido el final, y le quito diversión a la lectura.
5. 👩 🕺 🎭 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ El zapateador y la dama: Alicia es una jovencita bella, con cara de ángel y casadera, en un espectáculo de vodevil ve a un bailarín y se enamora, obsesionada con el joven va a verlo diariamente. Muy divertida, tiene un giro que uno no espera.
6. 👶 🏥 🏡 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Hermanas: en un pueblo vive la señorita Garfield, tiene una pequeña granja y una pequeña mensualidad que la hace estar por encima de la gente del pueblo, vive una vida solitaria pero tranquila, todos la respetan y ella es muy discreta. Es una historia que se torna sombría, uno no imagina que tan grande son los prejuicios de la gente hasta que se enfrenta a ellos.
7. 🥼👩🌾👨👩👧👦 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ El jardín tapiado: Susie fue alguna vez diseñadora y vivió en Londres con sus amigos, una vida divertida y descuidada hasta que conoció a un Dr, se caso, se convirtió en ama de casa, tiene dos niños y vive en un pueblito, cuando sus amigos vengan de visita, sera como el encuentro de dos mundos, la reflexión es real y vigente, la gente cambia, y que no todos somos felices en las mismas circunstancias.
8. 📚 💊 ☠️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Un hombre encantador: el padre de George es uno de los personajes más prominentes del pueblo, pero tiene un anhelo secreto. Muchas cosas se cuecen en la cabeza de un ser humano, y casi nunca las opiniones compartidas son verdaderas y nunca nos cae tan bien alguien como cuando muere.
9. 📚 🧡 ✍️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Vanidad dorada: la biblioteca de un pueblo es el epicentro de este relato, ahí se dan revelaciones que impactan, en este relato se hace una crítica a las lectoras de la época que se obsesionaban con el género romántico en lugar de vivir y escribir su propia historia en la realidad.
10. 🐑 🎩💍 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Pobre oveja negra: Basil es un incurable soltero mujeriego, pero ahora que ya cumple 40 y las épocas han cambiado radicalmente, de repente sus tácticas de seducción no son tan efectivas como solían ser, este me ha hecho reír y sentir ternura por Basil. Cómo estás líneas: “Antes nos reíamos de todo, incluso de las cosas que no tenían gracia. Pero a estas jóvenes de hoy en día no les hace gracia nada, ni siquiera las cosas que las tienen.”
11. 🏡🛌🧸 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Más que amable: Lilian se casó hace 10 años con un hombre divorciado y en nombre de los benditos tiempos modernos alberga una vez al año a la ex esposa, para que pase un fin completo con sus hijos, ya que la civilidad de un buen divorcio es pilar en esta nueva sociedad inglesa. Como he pasado por emociones leyéndolo, primero asombro luego enojo terminando con alivio mezclado con risas, es genial de principio a fin y prueba que las convenciones siguen vivas.
12. 🐕 👨 🧡 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ El mejor amigo del hombre: este relato plantea temas muy interesantes: puede existir la amistad entre un hombre y una mujer, son nuestros prejuicios capaz de arruinarnos la vida, nos conocemos tan bien como pensamos.
13. 🎉 🙊 🥤 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fiesta salvaje y mansa: una secretaría es invitada a una fiesta organizada por una actriz, y con ello empieza la noche más desconcertante y extraña de su vida, con este relato compruebo que bien escribe la autora, en pocas líneas expone tantas cosas claramente y una de ellas es que el mundo del espectáculo es un mundo aparte de los demás mortales.
14. 👨🎨 🥸💋 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ El joven andrajoso: este relato lo anticipe, por lo que no pude disfrutarlo tanto, aunque sigue siendo entretenido, por su toque romántico casi de cuento de hadas.
15. 🎂 🚆 🍷 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ El pastel: Jenny representa a la nueva generación de mujeres, exitosa, trabajadora, independiente, cuando su marido tiene una aventura, le pide el divorcio, pero en su última noche juntos ocurren cosas. Una crítica ácida al feminismo extremo, si es que existe tal cosa.
16. 🍷🏡👶 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ El hermano del señor Amberly: este es un claro ejemplo que la felicidad no entra si no dejamos por lo menos una ventana abierta, por donde se pueda colar.
1. 🎄🏡 ⭐️⭐️ El arbolito de navidad: Rhoda está soltera y en época navideña se siente incómoda rodeada de gente por lo que alquila una casita en el campo para pasar una navidad en paz, pero unas visitantes muy simpáticas interrumpen sus planes y quizás cambian su vida para siempre. Esta historia es muy acorde a la época navideña, empieza melancólica y termina con una promesa futura de felicidad, sin grandes emociones pero acorde para leerla mientras se toma un chocolate caliente con galletas 🍪.
2. 🧙 ⛄️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Navidades en Cold Comfort Farm: Los Starkadder son una familia singular y antipática, tan antipática que caen bien. Sus navidades son iguales que ellos, son oscuras, irónicas, con comida aborrecible y llena de malos deseos entre ellos. Es una historia escrita de manera impecable y que te saca risas una vez y otra también, para mi la mejor historia de esta recopilación.
3. 🧡 🥰 📝⭐️⭐️⭐️Amar y anhelar: la señora Carte lleva 20 años siendo esposa, un día cualquiera se harta y hace planes para dejar a su esposo y liberarse, para ello consigue varias entrevistas de trabajo. Ay la vida no es tan fácil y a veces no valoramos lo que tenemos, y esa difícil lección aprenderá la señora Carter.
4. 🕵🏻 💊 🔪 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ La marca del crimen: una de detectives, un boticario aburrido y conformista tiene un casi amigo escritor de novelas policiacas al que nunca ha llamado por su nombre, una noche común y corriente pasa algo…… aunque es buena, anticipe muy rápido el final, y le quito diversión a la lectura.
5. 👩 🕺 🎭 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ El zapateador y la dama: Alicia es una jovencita bella, con cara de ángel y casadera, en un espectáculo de vodevil ve a un bailarín y se enamora, obsesionada con el joven va a verlo diariamente. Muy divertida, tiene un giro que uno no espera.
6. 👶 🏥 🏡 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Hermanas: en un pueblo vive la señorita Garfield, tiene una pequeña granja y una pequeña mensualidad que la hace estar por encima de la gente del pueblo, vive una vida solitaria pero tranquila, todos la respetan y ella es muy discreta. Es una historia que se torna sombría, uno no imagina que tan grande son los prejuicios de la gente hasta que se enfrenta a ellos.
7. 🥼👩🌾👨👩👧👦 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ El jardín tapiado: Susie fue alguna vez diseñadora y vivió en Londres con sus amigos, una vida divertida y descuidada hasta que conoció a un Dr, se caso, se convirtió en ama de casa, tiene dos niños y vive en un pueblito, cuando sus amigos vengan de visita, sera como el encuentro de dos mundos, la reflexión es real y vigente, la gente cambia, y que no todos somos felices en las mismas circunstancias.
8. 📚 💊 ☠️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Un hombre encantador: el padre de George es uno de los personajes más prominentes del pueblo, pero tiene un anhelo secreto. Muchas cosas se cuecen en la cabeza de un ser humano, y casi nunca las opiniones compartidas son verdaderas y nunca nos cae tan bien alguien como cuando muere.
9. 📚 🧡 ✍️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Vanidad dorada: la biblioteca de un pueblo es el epicentro de este relato, ahí se dan revelaciones que impactan, en este relato se hace una crítica a las lectoras de la época que se obsesionaban con el género romántico en lugar de vivir y escribir su propia historia en la realidad.
10. 🐑 🎩💍 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Pobre oveja negra: Basil es un incurable soltero mujeriego, pero ahora que ya cumple 40 y las épocas han cambiado radicalmente, de repente sus tácticas de seducción no son tan efectivas como solían ser, este me ha hecho reír y sentir ternura por Basil. Cómo estás líneas: “Antes nos reíamos de todo, incluso de las cosas que no tenían gracia. Pero a estas jóvenes de hoy en día no les hace gracia nada, ni siquiera las cosas que las tienen.”
11. 🏡🛌🧸 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Más que amable: Lilian se casó hace 10 años con un hombre divorciado y en nombre de los benditos tiempos modernos alberga una vez al año a la ex esposa, para que pase un fin completo con sus hijos, ya que la civilidad de un buen divorcio es pilar en esta nueva sociedad inglesa. Como he pasado por emociones leyéndolo, primero asombro luego enojo terminando con alivio mezclado con risas, es genial de principio a fin y prueba que las convenciones siguen vivas.
12. 🐕 👨 🧡 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ El mejor amigo del hombre: este relato plantea temas muy interesantes: puede existir la amistad entre un hombre y una mujer, son nuestros prejuicios capaz de arruinarnos la vida, nos conocemos tan bien como pensamos.
13. 🎉 🙊 🥤 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fiesta salvaje y mansa: una secretaría es invitada a una fiesta organizada por una actriz, y con ello empieza la noche más desconcertante y extraña de su vida, con este relato compruebo que bien escribe la autora, en pocas líneas expone tantas cosas claramente y una de ellas es que el mundo del espectáculo es un mundo aparte de los demás mortales.
14. 👨🎨 🥸💋 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ El joven andrajoso: este relato lo anticipe, por lo que no pude disfrutarlo tanto, aunque sigue siendo entretenido, por su toque romántico casi de cuento de hadas.
15. 🎂 🚆 🍷 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ El pastel: Jenny representa a la nueva generación de mujeres, exitosa, trabajadora, independiente, cuando su marido tiene una aventura, le pide el divorcio, pero en su última noche juntos ocurren cosas. Una crítica ácida al feminismo extremo, si es que existe tal cosa.
16. 🍷🏡👶 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ El hermano del señor Amberly: este es un claro ejemplo que la felicidad no entra si no dejamos por lo menos una ventana abierta, por donde se pueda colar.
June 28, 2016
It is a smart and enjoyable collection of a short stories. Witty, wise, lovely. Most of them I really like.
1. **** for "The little Christmas Tree" - I love this atmosphere and characters. I would like to read a novel in which this short story is a first chapter. I one word: lovely.
2. ** for "Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm" - I don't feel it. Maybe I didn't understand it.
3. **** "To Love and To Cherish" - It so true and smart! Just brilliant insight in one kind of marriages. It speaks so much in so little words.
4. ** for "The Murder Mark" - I am not a fan of detective stories, so I enjoyed it little.
5. **** for "The Hoofer and the Lady" - A sweet and true study of a first love.
6. **** for "Sisters" - Simple, yet, again, true example of human nature (especially prejudices).
7. *** for "The Walled Garden" - A wise and (even nowadays) true, authentic aspect of marriage.
8. ** for "A Charming Man" - I don't feel it. It is, I think of human nature but it isn't good idea for a short story, in my opinion. It would be best for a full, mystery novel.
9. **** for "Golden Vanity" - Lovely, sweet, about love and being yourself.
10. *** for "Poor, Poor Black Sheep" - A nice and wise story about that that generations differ.
11. *** for "More Than Kind" - About marriage and social changes.
12. **** for "The Friend of Man" - Next charming love story.
13. *** for "Tame Wild Party" - A story which shows one part of society in UK (I think) in the middle of the XX century.
14. **** for "A Young Man in Rags" - Another enchanting love story.
15. *** for "Cake" - Story with something to tell about society and social changes and how to make own way in this all.
16. **** for "Mr Amberly's Brother" - Another wise story about dreams and what ways we chose to live.
One is sure, I am going to read at least one full novel of Stella Gibbons in the future. According what I have just read she could write a charming love story and a deep, sociological and psychological story. She was a good observer and analyst of her times and her contemporaries. Especially with regard to women, their position in society and how it had changed in time and how women tried to deal with it.
1. **** for "The little Christmas Tree" - I love this atmosphere and characters. I would like to read a novel in which this short story is a first chapter. I one word: lovely.
2. ** for "Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm" - I don't feel it. Maybe I didn't understand it.
3. **** "To Love and To Cherish" - It so true and smart! Just brilliant insight in one kind of marriages. It speaks so much in so little words.
4. ** for "The Murder Mark" - I am not a fan of detective stories, so I enjoyed it little.
5. **** for "The Hoofer and the Lady" - A sweet and true study of a first love.
6. **** for "Sisters" - Simple, yet, again, true example of human nature (especially prejudices).
7. *** for "The Walled Garden" - A wise and (even nowadays) true, authentic aspect of marriage.
8. ** for "A Charming Man" - I don't feel it. It is, I think of human nature but it isn't good idea for a short story, in my opinion. It would be best for a full, mystery novel.
9. **** for "Golden Vanity" - Lovely, sweet, about love and being yourself.
10. *** for "Poor, Poor Black Sheep" - A nice and wise story about that that generations differ.
11. *** for "More Than Kind" - About marriage and social changes.
12. **** for "The Friend of Man" - Next charming love story.
13. *** for "Tame Wild Party" - A story which shows one part of society in UK (I think) in the middle of the XX century.
14. **** for "A Young Man in Rags" - Another enchanting love story.
15. *** for "Cake" - Story with something to tell about society and social changes and how to make own way in this all.
16. **** for "Mr Amberly's Brother" - Another wise story about dreams and what ways we chose to live.
One is sure, I am going to read at least one full novel of Stella Gibbons in the future. According what I have just read she could write a charming love story and a deep, sociological and psychological story. She was a good observer and analyst of her times and her contemporaries. Especially with regard to women, their position in society and how it had changed in time and how women tried to deal with it.
December 25, 2011
Rating clarification: 3.5 stars.
This is a lovely volume of short stories by the author of the classic comic novel Cold Comfort Farm. But be warned, they differ in style to that popular novel, all excepting the titular story, Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm, of course. Also the title of the collection as a whole is somewhat misleading, as only the fist two stories are Christmas themed.
These short stories won't be to everyone's taste as they are period pieces about the upper classes in England during the 1930s. While they are outdated in many respects, they are a wonderful insight into the lives of people of a certain class, in a certain place, at a certain time, and some themes touched on in these stories will definitely resonate with the modern reader.
December 16, 2015
As a departure from tradition, this year I have picked Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm as my December read rather than A Christmas Carol. I love Stella Gibbons and not just for the Starkadder-related shenanigans, I read Starlight last year over Hallowe’en and it alternately unnerved and enthralled me. Although only one of the stories relates to Cold Comfort Farm, the collection still has a cosy and familiar feel, perfect fare for nippy December mornings on the bus or indeed chilly evenings snuggled under a blanket. In many ways, this is a piece of social history; first published in 1940, the war is never mentioned even once but instead Gibbons’ stories celebrate the traditional values which were being fought for, underlining with each the importance of domestic harmony. With many of the entries first having been published in magazines such as The Lady, Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm may appear hopelessly old-fashioned to some but for fans of 1940s literature, this is book is like a hot cup of tea on a cold day.
The flagship story features a prequel look at Cold Comfort Farm on Christmas Eve, with Adam going round in three of the mistress’ old shawls so that he can act as Father Christmas. I have always imagined Adam as a slightly more decrepit kind of Filch from Harry Potter, so the image of him doling out the swedes and turnips as Christmas presents to the indignant Starkadders is one to treasure. The episode of the Christmas pudding accompanied with the question of who found the coffin-nail in their portion (the marker of impending doom) also made me laugh out loud. Unlike the other stories however, this felt like something ‘for the fans’ – like a mini-movie accompaniment to a Pixar film rather than something that can stand up on its own merits. It was lovely though to glimpse the child Elfine and her budding attachment to Dick Hawk-Monitor – we know that Flora will soon be on her way to set everything to rights.
After leaving Howling, Sussex, the tone dials down from the uproarious to the more small-c conservative but each feature ties itself up with such neatness and completeness that it would be easy to miss the artistry at work. Having studied the film and literature of the 1940s at university, I already knew that this had been a true golden era for short fiction but there is one thing to have read something repeatedly, it is quite another to experience quite what that meant. In the era of the internet, there is a glut of short story material – literally anyone can get published (I include myself in this, I have been writing this for four years with absolutely no qualifications whatsoever), but while this is wonderful in many ways, it is nice to read short fiction from an era where editors practice more discernment. I have been sent several short story collections over the past few years and none have I enjoyed as much as this.
There is The Little Christmas Tree where the single woman suddenly gains a family on Christmas Day, To Love And To Cherish where an embittered wife delights in her preparations to leave her husband until she realises over the course of the day that she is unqualified to live alone and rushes to undo her decision, Poor, Poor Black Sheep where a man returning from abroad finds himself out of place back at home – each presents a character at the point of a dilemma and each finishes with a tightly sewn together conclusion. In several stories, Gibbons takes a young woman in a dilemma over how to catch/select a husband and while the ultimate conclusion may be predictable, there is a snugness and security in how she guides them to their happy resolution. In The Friend of Man, Pandora finally sees through the terribly charming man she has believed herself in love with, realising the blank selfishness that lies beneath – and so runs to the roughly-spoken man who wants to truly love her and make her happy. In another, a young librarian sees past her infatuation for a fictional author and reaches towards a true relationship. There are more. These are pure escapist stories written for a time when people had a lot of waiting around – on trains, in air raid shelters, on night shifts – there is little that is experimental here, what we have are hearty and satisfying narratives designed to reassure.
Of course, not all of the stories are happy. In Sisters, the kindly spinster Elaine Garfield tries to show charity to the affected Ivy, a teenage unwed mother, by giving her a job as maid. Ridiculed by the rest of the village for her sweetness, Elaine works hard to show kindness and to ignore Ivy’s irritating habits but upon reaching out to the girl about her own long-lost love affair, she finds herself instead branded with society’s disapproval. One of my personal favourites was More Than Kind, where second wife Lilian dreads the arrival of her husband’s loud ex-wife, come to stay in the house to visit the children. Despite being called-upon by Ian to be ‘civilised’ and modern about the arrangement, eventually old values rear up and Lilian determines to stand up for herself with a true battle cry for the middle class woman. I could practically hear Gibbons’ female readership cheering.
What really interested me was how the key dilemmas facing women remain constant. In The Walled Garden, Susie quietly laments how she has lost her old life of travelling far and wide upon marriage, until her husband reassures her responsibilities have simply shifted and that what she has is more satisfying. In Cake, the cold career-obsessed wife Jenny learns the error of her ways via an interview with an ageing Suffragette and decides to embrace domesticity. Having just finished I Call Myself A Feminist, it was interesting to see how alien these values were to the stout women of the 1940s; the term ‘feminist’ is acknowledged and dismissed in the same breath. Jenny looks down her nose at the militant suffragettes who had had no idea about ‘having their cake and eating it’ while her own generation had ‘man-jobs, man-salaries, and all the fun of being a woman’ – and then realises her mistake and runs back to her ne’er-do-well husband’s side where he strikes her and she proclaims herself to have deserved it. Cake was a story which I thought had dated too far – the incidence of violence in particular making it a discordant note in an otherwise lovely book. However, more than anything, this collection does read like a love letter from a passing era – the survivors of the fast 1920s are at a loss at how to cope in the earnest 1940s; the middle-aged louche Basil Merryn is appalled to be told by young girls to mend his ways’ or provide information on the dietary habits of Mexico while his peer ‘Pompey’ laughs in commiseration that ‘everyone’ is like that ‘these days’. Even in More Than Kind, Lilian may proclaim that she wishes to show ‘charity’, but deep down her values are those of her own mother’s ‘severe’ generation – the past is something to be clung to.
As a piece of social history alone, Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm is a book to treasure, but despite its vintage style and morality, many of the situations described are not so very different to those faced by women today, meaning that, for the most part, this is a buoyant short story anthology designed to bring a lift to anyone’s day – in short it is an ideal gift for Christmas!
For my full review: http://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/2...
The flagship story features a prequel look at Cold Comfort Farm on Christmas Eve, with Adam going round in three of the mistress’ old shawls so that he can act as Father Christmas. I have always imagined Adam as a slightly more decrepit kind of Filch from Harry Potter, so the image of him doling out the swedes and turnips as Christmas presents to the indignant Starkadders is one to treasure. The episode of the Christmas pudding accompanied with the question of who found the coffin-nail in their portion (the marker of impending doom) also made me laugh out loud. Unlike the other stories however, this felt like something ‘for the fans’ – like a mini-movie accompaniment to a Pixar film rather than something that can stand up on its own merits. It was lovely though to glimpse the child Elfine and her budding attachment to Dick Hawk-Monitor – we know that Flora will soon be on her way to set everything to rights.
After leaving Howling, Sussex, the tone dials down from the uproarious to the more small-c conservative but each feature ties itself up with such neatness and completeness that it would be easy to miss the artistry at work. Having studied the film and literature of the 1940s at university, I already knew that this had been a true golden era for short fiction but there is one thing to have read something repeatedly, it is quite another to experience quite what that meant. In the era of the internet, there is a glut of short story material – literally anyone can get published (I include myself in this, I have been writing this for four years with absolutely no qualifications whatsoever), but while this is wonderful in many ways, it is nice to read short fiction from an era where editors practice more discernment. I have been sent several short story collections over the past few years and none have I enjoyed as much as this.
There is The Little Christmas Tree where the single woman suddenly gains a family on Christmas Day, To Love And To Cherish where an embittered wife delights in her preparations to leave her husband until she realises over the course of the day that she is unqualified to live alone and rushes to undo her decision, Poor, Poor Black Sheep where a man returning from abroad finds himself out of place back at home – each presents a character at the point of a dilemma and each finishes with a tightly sewn together conclusion. In several stories, Gibbons takes a young woman in a dilemma over how to catch/select a husband and while the ultimate conclusion may be predictable, there is a snugness and security in how she guides them to their happy resolution. In The Friend of Man, Pandora finally sees through the terribly charming man she has believed herself in love with, realising the blank selfishness that lies beneath – and so runs to the roughly-spoken man who wants to truly love her and make her happy. In another, a young librarian sees past her infatuation for a fictional author and reaches towards a true relationship. There are more. These are pure escapist stories written for a time when people had a lot of waiting around – on trains, in air raid shelters, on night shifts – there is little that is experimental here, what we have are hearty and satisfying narratives designed to reassure.
Of course, not all of the stories are happy. In Sisters, the kindly spinster Elaine Garfield tries to show charity to the affected Ivy, a teenage unwed mother, by giving her a job as maid. Ridiculed by the rest of the village for her sweetness, Elaine works hard to show kindness and to ignore Ivy’s irritating habits but upon reaching out to the girl about her own long-lost love affair, she finds herself instead branded with society’s disapproval. One of my personal favourites was More Than Kind, where second wife Lilian dreads the arrival of her husband’s loud ex-wife, come to stay in the house to visit the children. Despite being called-upon by Ian to be ‘civilised’ and modern about the arrangement, eventually old values rear up and Lilian determines to stand up for herself with a true battle cry for the middle class woman. I could practically hear Gibbons’ female readership cheering.
What really interested me was how the key dilemmas facing women remain constant. In The Walled Garden, Susie quietly laments how she has lost her old life of travelling far and wide upon marriage, until her husband reassures her responsibilities have simply shifted and that what she has is more satisfying. In Cake, the cold career-obsessed wife Jenny learns the error of her ways via an interview with an ageing Suffragette and decides to embrace domesticity. Having just finished I Call Myself A Feminist, it was interesting to see how alien these values were to the stout women of the 1940s; the term ‘feminist’ is acknowledged and dismissed in the same breath. Jenny looks down her nose at the militant suffragettes who had had no idea about ‘having their cake and eating it’ while her own generation had ‘man-jobs, man-salaries, and all the fun of being a woman’ – and then realises her mistake and runs back to her ne’er-do-well husband’s side where he strikes her and she proclaims herself to have deserved it. Cake was a story which I thought had dated too far – the incidence of violence in particular making it a discordant note in an otherwise lovely book. However, more than anything, this collection does read like a love letter from a passing era – the survivors of the fast 1920s are at a loss at how to cope in the earnest 1940s; the middle-aged louche Basil Merryn is appalled to be told by young girls to mend his ways’ or provide information on the dietary habits of Mexico while his peer ‘Pompey’ laughs in commiseration that ‘everyone’ is like that ‘these days’. Even in More Than Kind, Lilian may proclaim that she wishes to show ‘charity’, but deep down her values are those of her own mother’s ‘severe’ generation – the past is something to be clung to.
As a piece of social history alone, Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm is a book to treasure, but despite its vintage style and morality, many of the situations described are not so very different to those faced by women today, meaning that, for the most part, this is a buoyant short story anthology designed to bring a lift to anyone’s day – in short it is an ideal gift for Christmas!
For my full review: http://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/2...
January 10, 2020
3.5 stars rounding down. The title Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm is a misnomer; I can only remember one of the short stories taking place at Christmas and Cold Comfort Farm. However, the other short stories in the collection were very enjoyable and spanned topics such as unhappy housewives, inflated egos, blended families and detective work.
December 8, 2011
Really hated the vintage style of writing, managed half of it and decided life was too short to waste it on reading this!
January 10, 2024
Si nos ponemos estrictas con mi sistema de puntuación, quizás debería haberle puesto 1,5 estrellas y puede, si me sintiera generosa, que redondease por lo alto a 2 estrellas pero NO ME DA LA GANA.
Antes de nada, solo los dos primeros relatos de esta antología son navideños. El resto no tienen nada ni remotamente navideño.
Motivo principal de mi gran decepción (aunque, en realidad, no me sorprende): moralina plus flema británica. Vamos, que abres esta antología y suelta un tufillo a rancio que echa para atrás. Hace nada leí una colección de fábulas escritas en el S.XVIII que eran más progresistas que las "lecciones morales" de muchos, si no la mayoría, de estos relatos.
Mención de honor al relato más retrógrado es para "El pastel", en el que una mujer que dedica demasiado tiempo a su carrera y no quiere tener hijos con su marido decide divorciarse cuando resulta que el marido (todo un partido) ha tenido una aventura con una mujer más joven y por lo visto, más bonita. Él insiste en que la dejaría si le da otra oportunidad a su matrimonio (y un hijo) y que la amante no significa nada. Pero, obvio, él se marcha con la amante al extranjero a rehacer su vida. Al final, por miedo a acabar como una vieja gloria feminista sola sin hijos y con gatos a la que tiene que entrevistar, decide no divorciarse y evitar que su marido se vaya con la amante ese mismo día. Él la abofetea tras reconciliarse porque "ha estado jugando con él durante 3 años y le ha hecho quedar como un imbécil delante de su amante". Ella le agradece el bofetón y, es más, le dice que tendría que haberlo dado antes. Avisa que volverá a zurrarle en el futuro si se lo merece. Esta maravilla de relato termina con la feliz pareja invitando a la vieja gloria feminista a que sea madrina del retoño fruto de esta maravillosa historia de "amor".
Y no nos olvidemos de aderezarlo todo con un par de comentarios racistas por ahí y un puñado de clasismo por acá.
Lástima que la edición de Impedimenta de esta antología sea tan bonita. Es preciosa, creo que como casi todas las ediciones de esta editorial, aunque la calidad deja bastante que desear pues se estropean y manchan con mirarlas. Y a su diseño y la ilustración de la sobrecubierta le debo el haber perdido el tiempo leyéndola. Estaba empeñada en que algo consiguiese que quisiera conservar mi ejemplar. Va a ser que no...
Voy a donarla. Si no fuese porque odiaría desperdiciar papel, la tiraría a la basura.
Antes de nada, solo los dos primeros relatos de esta antología son navideños. El resto no tienen nada ni remotamente navideño.
Motivo principal de mi gran decepción (aunque, en realidad, no me sorprende): moralina plus flema británica. Vamos, que abres esta antología y suelta un tufillo a rancio que echa para atrás. Hace nada leí una colección de fábulas escritas en el S.XVIII que eran más progresistas que las "lecciones morales" de muchos, si no la mayoría, de estos relatos.
Mención de honor al relato más retrógrado es para "El pastel", en el que una mujer que dedica demasiado tiempo a su carrera y no quiere tener hijos con su marido decide divorciarse cuando resulta que el marido (todo un partido) ha tenido una aventura con una mujer más joven y por lo visto, más bonita. Él insiste en que la dejaría si le da otra oportunidad a su matrimonio (y un hijo) y que la amante no significa nada. Pero, obvio, él se marcha con la amante al extranjero a rehacer su vida. Al final, por miedo a acabar como una vieja gloria feminista sola sin hijos y con gatos a la que tiene que entrevistar, decide no divorciarse y evitar que su marido se vaya con la amante ese mismo día. Él la abofetea tras reconciliarse porque "ha estado jugando con él durante 3 años y le ha hecho quedar como un imbécil delante de su amante". Ella le agradece el bofetón y, es más, le dice que tendría que haberlo dado antes. Avisa que volverá a zurrarle en el futuro si se lo merece. Esta maravilla de relato termina con la feliz pareja invitando a la vieja gloria feminista a que sea madrina del retoño fruto de esta maravillosa historia de "amor".
Y no nos olvidemos de aderezarlo todo con un par de comentarios racistas por ahí y un puñado de clasismo por acá.
Lástima que la edición de Impedimenta de esta antología sea tan bonita. Es preciosa, creo que como casi todas las ediciones de esta editorial, aunque la calidad deja bastante que desear pues se estropean y manchan con mirarlas. Y a su diseño y la ilustración de la sobrecubierta le debo el haber perdido el tiempo leyéndola. Estaba empeñada en que algo consiguiese que quisiera conservar mi ejemplar. Va a ser que no...
Voy a donarla. Si no fuese porque odiaría desperdiciar papel, la tiraría a la basura.
December 5, 2024
I'm a huge fan of Cold Comfort Farm, but these short stories didn't work for me. I didn't even like the tittle story. In fact, after the first two I almost returned this to the library without trying again, but that seemed a pity, so I read on, and found the third, The Murder Mark, fascinating. So I kept reading and was mostly disappointed. A lot of these felt more like character sketches than actual stories, which will work for some people, but they're not for me.
December 16, 2019
More light holiday reading for this year. This book consists of some 16 short stories by the author of “Cold Comfort Farm.” I must say the title story is the best of the bunch by far, but I may be biased by having read “Cold Comfort Form” (see my review) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Nonetheless, most of these tales are, I think, geared towards women of the 1940’s and have a common theme of finding love where and when one is not really looking for it, often after having looked elsewhere with mightily negative results and/or seeing the person for who they really are. The most enjoyable of these stories for me were “The Friend of Man” (sort of a variant on Jane Austin’s “Emma,” or perhaps the movie “Clueless,” based upon same); “The Wild, Wild Party,” “More than Kind,” and “Golden Vanity,” in which the protagonist learns first hand the axiom that one shouldn’t meet one’s heroes.
Nonetheless, there are several other stories with different themes; “To Love and Cerish” is O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” but with a sad twist. “The Murder Mark” is what happens when perhaps the likes of Sherlock Holmes and Inspector Poirot were to join forces to solve a mystery. “The Little Christmas Tree” describes the redemption, if you will, of a lonely spinster from an unexpected source.
All of these are enjoyable to a greater or lesser extent. However, the title story is the crowning jewel in this collection. (Warning: Read “Cold Comfort Farm” before this story, as the former introduces and fleshes out the characters and the deplorable state of both the family and the farm itself, before the arrival of the plucky Flora Poste). This is everyone’s favorite bunch of derelicts, led by the aptly named Ada Doom, a more hilariously dysfunctional bunch I’ve not run across. So Adam, the farmhand, puts on a couple of Ada’s red shawls to play Santa Claus and goes about with a feed bag for his Santa bag, filling everyone’s hung stockings with fruits and vegetables; but the stockings have holes in them, so the family keeps tripping on the “presents” that have fallen through the holes. And in another scenario, there is the tradition of “The Year’s Luck,” a sort of variation of the Mardi Gras King Cake with the baby baked therein (to either represent the Baby Jesus or General good luck, or to identify who will bake next year’s King Cake). Well, baked into the Dooms’ Christmas Pudding are various articles representing negative happenings to family members over the next year, for example, a coffin nail signals death before the New Year; a menthol cone signals going blind with headache; a roll of sticking-plaster means breaking a leg, and so on. The only family member with any common sense at all is the free-spirited Elfine, who finds a way to celebrate that has at least some positivity to it. Great fun all around.
Alexander McCall Smith, in the book’s introduction, acknowledges that Ms. Gibbons’ success as a writer tended to wane after the wild success of “Cold Comfort Farm,” because it’s hard to top that plot and character description. I would agree. All the same, I did enjoy this collection and would recommend it. I also plan to read “Conference at Cold Comfort Farm,” the sequel to the original. Four stars.
Nonetheless, there are several other stories with different themes; “To Love and Cerish” is O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” but with a sad twist. “The Murder Mark” is what happens when perhaps the likes of Sherlock Holmes and Inspector Poirot were to join forces to solve a mystery. “The Little Christmas Tree” describes the redemption, if you will, of a lonely spinster from an unexpected source.
All of these are enjoyable to a greater or lesser extent. However, the title story is the crowning jewel in this collection. (Warning: Read “Cold Comfort Farm” before this story, as the former introduces and fleshes out the characters and the deplorable state of both the family and the farm itself, before the arrival of the plucky Flora Poste). This is everyone’s favorite bunch of derelicts, led by the aptly named Ada Doom, a more hilariously dysfunctional bunch I’ve not run across. So Adam, the farmhand, puts on a couple of Ada’s red shawls to play Santa Claus and goes about with a feed bag for his Santa bag, filling everyone’s hung stockings with fruits and vegetables; but the stockings have holes in them, so the family keeps tripping on the “presents” that have fallen through the holes. And in another scenario, there is the tradition of “The Year’s Luck,” a sort of variation of the Mardi Gras King Cake with the baby baked therein (to either represent the Baby Jesus or General good luck, or to identify who will bake next year’s King Cake). Well, baked into the Dooms’ Christmas Pudding are various articles representing negative happenings to family members over the next year, for example, a coffin nail signals death before the New Year; a menthol cone signals going blind with headache; a roll of sticking-plaster means breaking a leg, and so on. The only family member with any common sense at all is the free-spirited Elfine, who finds a way to celebrate that has at least some positivity to it. Great fun all around.
Alexander McCall Smith, in the book’s introduction, acknowledges that Ms. Gibbons’ success as a writer tended to wane after the wild success of “Cold Comfort Farm,” because it’s hard to top that plot and character description. I would agree. All the same, I did enjoy this collection and would recommend it. I also plan to read “Conference at Cold Comfort Farm,” the sequel to the original. Four stars.
December 23, 2012
I'm afraid that this book of short stories, rather than being as quirky and arch as the title story and the previous book it was based on, is actually rather painful and haunting. I find myself dreading my spinsterhood as example after example of "Smart Set" who settle are paraded after me. I don't know whether I should rejoice that they've successfully evaded the smug, cruel and immoral Smart Set or mourn that they've married into the slow, uninteresting or deeply flawed world of convention. Let me provide and example, which won't ruin the whole book for you (wee bit of spoiler):
In "The Walled Garden," the sensible husband says, when his wife doesn't put her old friends ahead of her young family,
"You needn't feel bad about it. You can't live like a married person and a bachelor as well. [Your old friends] are still living a bachelor life. They're married but they've no children and no responsibilities and so they can change their plans at a second's notice and give all the time they want to the work they like doing or pop aboard whenever they like. [...] It's no use. You've chosen to be a married person. You've chosen the people you're responsible for me and Kitty and Baby [...] You can't go helping every lame dog you meet; that's the bachelor's job. A marriage has got to have a wall round it, like the garden. Inside the wall everything's safe. It's got to be so that the fruit can grow."
Well, that sounds pretty darn wise to me. In fact, it sounds just like what I'd like to say to some of my acquaintances who insist in trying to do everything all at once instead of recognizing that different periods of life have different priorities. But then, just when Gibbons seems to be giving you a clear moral of the story, she hits you with this:
"But surely all marriages aren't like a walled garden.
"All proper marriages are," answered her husband.
Aaaarg! Am I agreeing with the cold convention of repressed Victorians? Am I resigning our heroine to a selfish, stultifying life? Suddenly, I doubt the choices I willed her to make.
Anyway, the whole book is full of these kinds of dilemmas coming to women in their late-20s and early 30s. It's a bit like a depressing Tina Fey, there are so many women struggling to "have it all": career women with disappointing husbands and women stuck in the friend zone, and so many familiar types. Should be re-read but I don't know whether Gibbons' Triumph of Tradition is supposed to be tragedy or not.
In "The Walled Garden," the sensible husband says, when his wife doesn't put her old friends ahead of her young family,
"You needn't feel bad about it. You can't live like a married person and a bachelor as well. [Your old friends] are still living a bachelor life. They're married but they've no children and no responsibilities and so they can change their plans at a second's notice and give all the time they want to the work they like doing or pop aboard whenever they like. [...] It's no use. You've chosen to be a married person. You've chosen the people you're responsible for me and Kitty and Baby [...] You can't go helping every lame dog you meet; that's the bachelor's job. A marriage has got to have a wall round it, like the garden. Inside the wall everything's safe. It's got to be so that the fruit can grow."
Well, that sounds pretty darn wise to me. In fact, it sounds just like what I'd like to say to some of my acquaintances who insist in trying to do everything all at once instead of recognizing that different periods of life have different priorities. But then, just when Gibbons seems to be giving you a clear moral of the story, she hits you with this:
"But surely all marriages aren't like a walled garden.
"All proper marriages are," answered her husband.
Aaaarg! Am I agreeing with the cold convention of repressed Victorians? Am I resigning our heroine to a selfish, stultifying life? Suddenly, I doubt the choices I willed her to make.
Anyway, the whole book is full of these kinds of dilemmas coming to women in their late-20s and early 30s. It's a bit like a depressing Tina Fey, there are so many women struggling to "have it all": career women with disappointing husbands and women stuck in the friend zone, and so many familiar types. Should be re-read but I don't know whether Gibbons' Triumph of Tradition is supposed to be tragedy or not.
December 22, 2011
I have been looking forward so much to reading these stories, although I approached it nervously as I had read some fairly luke warm reviews. If anything I was disappointed in the title story - it was too short I wanted more, the only other Christmassy story was charming though. Overall I so enjoyed these old fashioned stories, and it has made me want to read more Stella Gibbons. I of course read Cold Comfort farm years and years ago, and it is now time for a re-read I think. I also have Westwood and Starlight on my ever expanding TBR. Theses new Vintage editions are very attractive looking books. Stella Gibbons' stories are obviously set in a world that no longer exists, they are about bored housewives, aging Bright Young Things, "modern" career women, spinsters in country villages and librarians. Often the endings are not much of a surprise, but they are generally just what the reader wants, and this makes them wholly satisfying. In his introduction to the new Vintage edition, Alexander McCall Smith writes about the short story as an art form. His description of the modern short story made me smile - and nod in agreement. These short stories come from a different time. They were written before it was fashionable to create a mood or to leave the reader artistically hanging. The modern short story are just the kind I usually hate. These lovely stories however, are just the kind I love.
October 25, 2013
A collection of short stories written and set pre-WWII. They are, perforce, very class conscious, with characters who behave as though they're in straitjackets made of conventionality. Some, like "The Little Christmas Tree" or "The Hoofer and the Lady," are quite sweet; people try to do the right thing and are gently, unobtrusively rewarded for it by making connections with other people who understand and appreciate them. Others are terrifyingly sad, like "Sisters," in which an older woman tries to help an unmarried mother and is destroyed by it. A great number of them are about being happy with what little one has, with being unambitious and (especially for women) pliant to convention. I found these dreadful and soul killing, and got quite depressed by the prospect of Gibbons' contemporaries reading them and thinking they were wise. I also quite enjoyed "The Murder Mark," an unconventional murder mystery, and the unrepentantly unserious characters in "Poor, Poor Black Sheep." To my surprise, I quite loathed the story I originally checked this book out for: "Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm" isn't funny, it's just a bundle of terrible people being terrible at each other, with a saccharine bit between Elfin and Dick Hawk-Monitor tacked on at the end. I think I was supposed to laugh at how awful everyone was, but they just seemed sad and poor.
December 24, 2015
Take a look at the shelves of a second-hand bookshop or, even more mournful, the library of a country hotel with pretensions. It's where books go to die, standing unread and unremarked upon bookshelves, their authors' names slowly fading. It's an achievement in itself to get a book published but... then what? A career, if you're lucky, writing, but those melancholy shelves tell the likely truth: most writers are forgotten as completely as most books.
So, in that respect, Stella Gibbons is luckier than most of us. Cold Comfort Farm, possibly the funniest book I've ever read, means that she stays in print and thus, in literary terms, alive. And, being alive, publishers have cast through her back catalogue and hung a collection of short stories on Gibbons' brief return visit to the Starkadders' farm.
It's the other stories that impress here, though. They're an insight into a vanished Britain, an England and English banished by the cultural revolution of the last few decades: repression and restraint, propriety and prudishness, and the smart, usually literary, set that pioneered the revolution: as complacent and self-obsessed group of people as one could imagine.
Without Cold Comfort Farm, this book would never have been republished. But Gibbons lives on, and worthily so.
So, in that respect, Stella Gibbons is luckier than most of us. Cold Comfort Farm, possibly the funniest book I've ever read, means that she stays in print and thus, in literary terms, alive. And, being alive, publishers have cast through her back catalogue and hung a collection of short stories on Gibbons' brief return visit to the Starkadders' farm.
It's the other stories that impress here, though. They're an insight into a vanished Britain, an England and English banished by the cultural revolution of the last few decades: repression and restraint, propriety and prudishness, and the smart, usually literary, set that pioneered the revolution: as complacent and self-obsessed group of people as one could imagine.
Without Cold Comfort Farm, this book would never have been republished. But Gibbons lives on, and worthily so.
January 6, 2013
Reading Stella Gibbons is like taking a lovely warm bath - an inherently comforting experience. Obviously the plum in the pudding is her revisiting of the eponymous Cold Comfort Farm on Christmas Day a little before Flora Post makes their aquaintance. Here the Christmas "gifts" are to be given out - although with the gothic twist expected of the Stark household. Pity the recipient of the coffin nail in the pudding. Ada Doom, the matriarch of the clan, commands her descendants to - "Be Gay, Spawn!" - a line which I have adopted as my own and whip out at any opportunity with my own ungrateful children.
The stories do show their age a little (they were written in the late '30's) - unfortunately this is still a time when men can slap their wives and it is seen as masterful rather than abusive. There is a little too much vintage cath kidston-y femininity for my liking on display but there is still vituperative, grumbling Ada Doom brandishing her stick in a fetid farmhouse kitchen to warm your cockles. Definitely a good Christmas read.
The stories do show their age a little (they were written in the late '30's) - unfortunately this is still a time when men can slap their wives and it is seen as masterful rather than abusive. There is a little too much vintage cath kidston-y femininity for my liking on display but there is still vituperative, grumbling Ada Doom brandishing her stick in a fetid farmhouse kitchen to warm your cockles. Definitely a good Christmas read.
March 3, 2023
Trying to find a seasonal read, I happened upon this one, an author whose books I had read and collected a few years ago. . .and found a copy of Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm and decided to give it a go, even though the original Cold Comfort Farm hadn't particularly floated to my top 10 list. . . .still. Christmas needs a nod in the TBR category.
As it turns out this isn't really more than two stories specifically about Christmas, and only one that takes place at and with Cold Comfort Farm characters. In fact, the entire collection of stories, there isn't even more than a general cold weathery aspect to join them all together.
Of them all, my favorites were The Little Christmas Tree, To Love and To Cherish, Golden Vanity, and Mr. Amberly's Brother.
It kept me humming carols, though, while I adjusted the ornaments about the tree for the millionth time this season.
As it turns out this isn't really more than two stories specifically about Christmas, and only one that takes place at and with Cold Comfort Farm characters. In fact, the entire collection of stories, there isn't even more than a general cold weathery aspect to join them all together.
Of them all, my favorites were The Little Christmas Tree, To Love and To Cherish, Golden Vanity, and Mr. Amberly's Brother.
It kept me humming carols, though, while I adjusted the ornaments about the tree for the millionth time this season.
January 11, 2021
This was a delightful collection of short stories which took me on a trip through time and space to an earlier era concerned with polite society, propriety and love. All somewhat quirky, part of the draw for me, but also somewhat staid. I kept having to remind myself this was written in 1940!
Be forewarned, only the first two stories are set during Christmas and only the second, the title story, takes place on Cold Comfort Farm. This did not stop me from enjoying the stories in this collection, although not sure any will stay very long in memory.
Why I'm reading this: Just learned about this from IRL reading friend, Jennifer, who herself just discovered it. I'm struggling with the "other" Christmas novels of Charles Dickens (yawn) so I will dip into a story or two from this collection.
Be forewarned, only the first two stories are set during Christmas and only the second, the title story, takes place on Cold Comfort Farm. This did not stop me from enjoying the stories in this collection, although not sure any will stay very long in memory.
Why I'm reading this: Just learned about this from IRL reading friend, Jennifer, who herself just discovered it. I'm struggling with the "other" Christmas novels of Charles Dickens (yawn) so I will dip into a story or two from this collection.
February 16, 2024
I rather LIKE dated, period stories.
After a reading a couple of these, however, one has pretty much met the characters-- or character types-- that will appear in the next story one reads, and the next. These people are engaging enough, and the atmosphere is pleasant. The trick would be to read them with a nice long time-for-forgetting in between.
Ah, perhaps the title is a reader's clue: slip into a dressing gown, obtain a cup or tea (or a gin fizz) and read one of these tales every Christmas.
After a reading a couple of these, however, one has pretty much met the characters-- or character types-- that will appear in the next story one reads, and the next. These people are engaging enough, and the atmosphere is pleasant. The trick would be to read them with a nice long time-for-forgetting in between.
Ah, perhaps the title is a reader's clue: slip into a dressing gown, obtain a cup or tea (or a gin fizz) and read one of these tales every Christmas.
December 16, 2019
This book is so depressing I gave up halfway through!!! Dreary and disappointing. The story 'Christmas at cold comfort farm' appears to be set on a hellish farm peopled by those who are mentally ill. 'Sisters' is desperately sad, and 'A charming man' is simply horrid. This is more scandi noir than Christmas cheer!!!!
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