The Weather at Tregulla

by Stella Gibbons

Una Beaumont lives on a violet farm in Cornwall, dreams of London. When a self-centered young artist arrives in town, she is smitten. An uncommon novel by the author of Cold Comfort Farm.

Genres: Fiction, British Literature

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Stella 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.

Reviews

[JimZ · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was OK – it picked up near the last quarter of the book but by then I was sorta already less-than-enthused. 😐 😕

She picked a bunch of unlikable characters from the get-go, and we got to follow them in their lives. The main protagonist, Una, was 19 years old and lived with her recently widowed father (which means she just lost her mother, but she wasn’t exactly broken up about it) and wanted to go to London and pursue a career in acting. But her father couldn’t afford to pay her way, so she remained in their home on the Cornish coast in England where he had a business growing violets (go figure). Near their farm lived an itinerant brother-sister pair, Emmeline and Terence. Terence was a painter and a neer-do-well and took tranquilizers (we learn in the middle of the story). This was written in 1962 or thereabouts and the term “beatnik” is used. So, it was a period piece and a bit dated at times to readers nowadays, methinks. Not that that is Stella Gibbons fault… 😉

Gibbons seemed to want to paint ‘artist types’ in a bad light. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I sure didn’t like Terence for most of the book – but in the end I’m not sure he was so bad.
Gibbons, I guess, was disturbed after her major debut of Cold Comfort Farm that people were not as enthused about her later works as they were with CCF. She’d be pleased that there has been a resurgence of interest in her writing … Dean Street Press has re-issued five of her works. I will continue on and read her as I have liked three other books I have read by her (The Snow-Woman, Cold Comfort Farm, A Pink Front Door). And this book at times held my interest.

So there. 😉

Reviews:
• https://fleurinherworld.com/2009/06/0...
• only a brief review of this book, but she reviews many of Gibbons’ books and is a pleasure to read – http://furrowedmiddlebrow.blogspot.co...

[Mary Durrant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it!
This one being set in my beloved Cornwall.
Difficult to get hold of a copy so had to borrow from the library.
All the books of hers that I've read have been very different but lovely reads!
Wish Vintage would reprint this one so that I can add it to my collection to re-read!

[Suanne Laqueur · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like reading a book with utterly wretched characters, may I recommend.....?

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

What did I just read? Wow. I couldn't put it down today and am a bit flummoxed but I have to say I loved it. I am a bit drained from all of the emotions that Stella took me through. A bit like riding on a cliff side road a bit too fast.

[Lory Hess]

Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle

Another lovely book from Stella Gibbons. I'm most impressed by how she can keep me engaged with characters who are not terribly likeable.

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh dear…I hated this book. It was awful—possibly objectively awful? It was certainly subjectively awful. The only redeeming features were Peter, an amusing boy who is in exactly one chapter in the middle of the book, and Hugo. Hugo was sympathetic and gallant.

[Louise Culmer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Una Beaumont is fed up because lack of money means she will not be able to leave Cornwall to go to London and try to be an actress as she longs to do. Then she meets Terence, an artist and his sister Emmeline, an unconventional brother and sister who are staying nearby, and becomes infatuated with Terence. She pursues the rather lukewarm Terence determinedly, without really noticing that Terence is only really interested in his painting. Meanwhile the handsome, conventional Barnaby Trewin becomes interested in Emmeline, much to the dismay of his very conventional parents. There are lots of lovely descriptions of Cornwall, which makes the book readable, but I find most of the characters rather unlikeable, and the story has a depressing ending. It is one of the least agreeable of Stella Gibbons’s books.

[K · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am genuinely astonished that this was written by the same person who penned Nightingale Wood. If I'd started here, I certainly wouldn't have bothered picking up any other Gibbons books - I would've assumed they're all this dull and pointless.

Every single character is either utterly forgettable or staggeringly unlikable. I could deal with a cad or two - Terence was, very obviously, set up to be a disreputable artist who'd jilt the small town, naive girl who fell for his smarmy ways - but Una honestly isn't much better. She's annoyingly obsessed with a guy who'd visibly never liked her; every action she takes is embarrassingly childish. If she'd grown out of that, or shown any character development at all, that'd be something, but she really ends the book worse than she'd started - planning to take advantage of a rich suitor in much the same way she'd despised Terence and his friends for doing.

Una starts the book furious that her mother's untimely death has prevented her from going to London to pursue a career on the stage - a notion she drops as soon as a dreamy artist shows up to distract her from the otherwise boring village life. Over the course of the novel, she never shows any particular inclination for or skill in acting; she seems like she'd be better suited as a mechanic, actually, but that type of job wouldn't fit within her big dreams for herself.

The ending, where she finally gets a ticket to that idyllic London life, just...rings hollow. She didn't earn it. She's probably going to be just as miserable there, once she finds out that she'll be an even tinier fish in that huge pond. But I really never cared enough about her to think that deeply about her future.

And it's not as though I care all that much that she's using a guy's wallet and "love" for her to make her way to London. Hugo never developed a personality, either, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what he saw in her. It's not like they got along? At all? She's always despised him, and he spends the entire novel grumpy and miserable, in all areas of his life.

Honestly, all these characters are pretty miserable. Terence is literally doped up on tranquilizers - three a day, minimum - and the rest aren't any better at dealing with their problems. Una's father turns into a bitterly depressed drunk after his wife's death, and she barely notices - and then does nothing about it once she realizes - and everyone else seems to be just scraping by on whatever dreary handholds they can find in a life that doesn't particularly suit any of them.

I don't even know where to begin with the final chapters, where poor Terence's sister just...dies, out of nowhere? With no explanation of what happened to her? Since she was in Finland, was it a skiing accident or something? Being paralyzed from the neck down made it seem like something along those lines, but it was extremely vague and just dreadfully, stupidly bleak. It's not as though I even particularly liked her, but...why?

Actually, "why" is how I felt about most of this book.

I wonder if it's the time period; this was published in 1962, and I honestly am just not as interested in the whole hippie/beatnik culture. Maybe I should stick to things Gibbons wrote a couple decades earlier, before WW2 soured the country and stripped away whatever hope might've been infused in her writing.

Or maybe it's a more personal issue; this was the first book Gibbons published after the death of her husband, which could've fed into the depiction of a grieving, alcoholic widower and the succession of bitterly loveless relationships.

I don't know. I'm struggling to find anything I liked about this book, and really, the only thing I can think of is that some of the descriptions of the coast were beautiful. I was hoping - expecting - to find much more to like in this novel, because not only had I enjoyed Gibbons's other work, but I have a particularly nostalgic spot in my heart for the setting of this one: Cornwall.

There are some nice depictions of the areas I'd enjoyed visiting so much, but for the most part, they're tainted by the miserable lives of the characters Gibbons placed in them.

I still have a couple of her other novels at hand, so I'll try again, but this was a jarring disappointment. It is difficult to believe it's the same author I'd liked so much: all the charm, wit, and masterful character-building is missing. This is a book without a soul.

[Ms Jayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gibbons has a real gift at creating the inner life of young people who are at a crossroads in life. Una is troubled, selfish, passionate, judgemental, naive, reckless and frustrated and an utterly convincing character! I felt so sorry for her having her dreams snatched away by her father and consequently falling headlong into a passionate crush.

There were several other aspects of this novel which I liked too. Gibbons often writes about 'bohemian' couples who are obsessed with their art and who go around sponging off more conventional folk (while despising them) and I think that Gibbons captures the filth and squalor really well. She's also great at selfish young men who are perfectly happy to kiss girls but then will disappear for ages and break their hearts by ghosting them. Again, this is very well done and subtle. The inner lives of such men are very understated and often redeemed by other qualities.

I enjoyed reading this. I have read about half of her tremendous output and always come to the same conclusion: convincing and realistic whatever the setting. Excellent.

[Sennen Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took me two months to read for various reasons. Not as magical as the first two books of Stella’s I read - the Pilchers fell flat to me, and while this is set in my beloved Cornwall it is set in aristo Cornwall which is as alien to me as the Sahara desert. Odd ending, too. Loved Una though, and there were some magical turns of phrases, and descriptions of landscapes. I’ll read as much Stella as I can get my hands on, still.

[Catherine Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect weekend reading . The contrast between the locals of Tregulla and their dislike of the artist visitors is very funny. Only Stella Gibbons could dream up the name The Sadist for the black car belonging to the visitors. The central character Una is quite ghastly and drawn to perfection by the the author.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in 1962. Set in Cornwall. A time of upheaval, as old ways clash with new. Has some humorous, slightly snarky moments, but isn't a funny book. Good.

[N.S. Ford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review first appeared on my blog - https://nsfordwriter.com - on 7th May 2022.

This was a pleasant surprise. One of the author's more obscure books, The Weather at Tregulla was the next to be published after A Pink Front Door. Despite the unpromising title and an unenticing first chapter, this novel turned out to be a good read and quite unusual because the setting is Cornwall, rather than London.

We begin with the predicament of 19-year-old Una, whose dream of leaving the hamlet of Tregulla behind to study drama in London is taken away when her mother dies and leaves no money. Her father does not know how to deal with her and spends most of his time drinking whiskey and growing violets. Life becomes less mundane when a brother and sister, Terence and Emmeline, rent a cottage close by. Una finds herself falling in love with Terence, who only cares for his painting. Meanwhile, Una's best friend Barnabas, a Navy officer, is entranced by Emmeline. However, the newcomers bring friends with them, a constantly arguing working-class artist couple who are going to cause trouble.

I would describe this novel as a tragi-comedy. There are some very amusing moments but it's sad and certainly no fairytale romance. Ominous leaps forward in time and strange digressions keep the narrative interesting. As always with Gibbons' novels, they illustrate the social issues of the day. She pokes gentle fun at the modern arts scene (kitchen sink realism and abstract expressionism being recent inventions when she was writing the book) and scoffs at people being divided into 'modern' kinds / 'beatniks' ('hippies' not being a commonly used term yet) and 'squares'. There's an unpleasant scene with a shark that I'd rather not have read, but the majority of the book was delightful in an existentialist sort of way. It's odd to consider that it was published 30 years after Cold Comfort Farm - there are indeed some parallels but the style of her later books is more natural and contemplative. I hope that Stella Gibbons would be pleased to know that many of her titles are being rediscovered by readers today.

[Kay Robart · Rating 4 out of 5]

See my review here:

https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2022...