Ok then
Time to start?
Ideas - fav character (and why)
Why the strange ref. to the 50s when it's obviously 30s?
Parodied writers?
Did you know that all characters are based on people SG knew?
As are most locations,
Kate looking forward -
Jan
I have a great online ref. for this novel - but will wait to see if anyone else has it.

The strange references to the '50's is because this book is science fiction, of course. It is set in a future far from when it was actually written. I am not at all sure this was necessary, however. All the fun of the book would work perfectly fine if you lost all the science-fictiony bits, the flying cars and the phone devices.

So it does violate the first rule of SF, that the SFnal bits should be essential to the story. As I recall, the PBS film version of the book dropped the future stuff entirely. At the end the characters fly away in an ordinary airplane.

Brenda

I only noticed the television phone bit. I thought they were flying around in WWI-era planes since they mentioned its being cold, etc. I felt the rest of the book was 30s era, when it was written, i.e., bright young things and London flats.

I admit to being disappointed in the book. The end flap comments said it was the funniest book ever written, but I found a lot of it, while it made me smile, just silly. That may be because I grew up on a farm and am now the most citified country girl you ever saw. I do like sidewalks and indoor plumbing.

I know it was parody, but a lot of it seemed to verge on unkindness to rural people even if you are aware it's a big inside joke. Not something I would ever pick up again.

It's not making fun of rural people per se -- most country people are nothing like the Starkadders, and a good thing too. It's making fun of a certain set of novels about country people and country life. Thomas Hardy or Mary Webb, especially. Faline particularly smacks of some of Mary Webb's more overheated heroines, all in touch with Nature (always capitalized) and innocent with it.

Brenda

Carolyn

Maybe one needs to know some of the stcck characters either from other literature or from real life - I KNOW and have known several Mybugs. Or may be these characters and locations abd parodies dont resonate in the States as they do here.
I admit - I only smile with delight now ss I have read this so many times - but I did laugh

I read it about a year ago, probably due to your enthhusiasm, Dido.

My book club then read/watched the video as a treat in the dead of winter. I read it not knowing the parodies intended, so I would like to reread it.

I, too, am a farm girl. I still live in the country, but not on a farm. I didn't feel that the farm folk were categorically treated badly. I knew that there were a few in our region who were more like the Starkadders than others, I suppose. My parents were young, modern farmers, so we had more advantages than some of the neighbors.

My 13-year-old DD and I will occasionally reference the video. "I saw something nasty in the woodshed!" We have a good time watching it together.

We're both home today on a snow day, so we might just pop it in and watch it!

Extract from Mary Webb's 'Golden Arrrow'
' See you Deb! The flockmaster goes westering; and the brown water and the blue wind above the cloud and the kestrels and you and me all go after the shippen with the starry door. Hear you Deb, what a noise o' little leaves clapping in the far coppy! Tis he, that shakes the bits of
leaves and the bits of worlds, and sends love like forkit lightning- him as the stars fall before like white 'ool at sheep shearing...' "

Exract from 'Iron and Smoke' by Sheila Kaye-Smith
'The long vault of Darlington station was cold and howling with winds, and as the train ran out towards Thornaby and Middlesbrough the grey sky was smeared with scuds of evil-scented smoke. She noticed the stunted trees that could not grow in the sulphur-laden atmosphere, the cottage windows that were grimy with smoke, the cottage gardens that were starved for the smoke-hidden sun.
"Lor!" shrieked her Brighton-born nurse in fear, as an emptying truck sent a stream of molten flame down the side of the great slag heap outside Dinsdale. The falling night seemed full of evil eyes, as flames winked from the mouths of ovens and kilns or flew from the tops of chimneys. The works of Dorman, Long and Co. just outside Middlesbrough were going full blast.'
And of course, as mentioned
Hardy
Lawrence
Bronte E

I did know what she was doing; it just didn't crack me up. "It was a dark and stormy night."

I am also one person who doesn't enjoy the Stepanie Plum books. Please don't think I don't have a sense of humor!

I am glad I read this book, it gave me many smiles during this dreary December. I think I laughed hardest at the things that weren't actual jokes; i.e. the idea that Flora could just turn up at her cousins's home and solve all their problems so neatly! Of course it is a parody! And I want to know what happened to the goat!

Hooray, the library came up with a book and video. I've done my Xmas cards and wrapped the presents, so I'm free!
My Penguin of 1986 has a note "The action of the story takes place in the near future", so that would be around the 1940s perhaps, as the book was published in 1933. Not really Science Fiction as we know it, Jim?
More like a shot at H.G. Wells, perhaps.

I just read it. I must admit I did not think it particularly amusing. I understood the parody. I just didn't like any of the characters or the plot .. or anything. Who wants my copy?

I do! ; )

(I read a very old library copy which has since gone back.)

I thouroughly enjoyed the parody, even though I have not read many of the actual stories being parodied. I have read similar literature in Icelandic, and the parody of the genre came across very well.

I would not exactly call this book science fiction, more like futuristic fiction. The difference being that in sci-fi, science and technology rule, while in futuristic fiction, they are merely a small part of the story background.

Netla, I agree. I have just finished the book and I don't think any of the future Gibbons envisioned has happened.
What about the mystery angle? I notice that Adam says that Flora is returning to CCF. She doesn't mention this so was probably a baby. The family had obviously met her father. Any theories as to what happened, especially to the goat!

And what do you think was in the toolshed?

Carolyn, I have given this some thought. I don't know if there is much hinting at nasty things happening to children in the novels being parodied, but we are all familiar with neurotic fictional characters whose neurosis is never completely explained, and who use their condition to manipulate others. I think Gibbons wanted to write an over-the-top parody of such a character, but also wanted there to be a reason behind her condition, so the "nasty thing in the toolshed" was created. Leaving it up to the reader to decide just what Ada saw is just brilliant, and makes the character funnier and slightly mysterious.

Ada was quite young when she saw the nasty thing in the shed, so it could have been anything: a mouse that startled her, a slaughtered animal, a ghost, or a child molester. I am inclined to think that since it's a comic novel, it was probably something quite small that would only have frightened a small child, but the people around her made so much of it that she learned to use it to manipulate them.

In Chapter 10 Ada recollects the Nasty thing in the tool shed. The smell of her mother's cleaning polish and bicycles bring back the memories. Whatever she saw spoiled her for marriage. Grim stuff! Read into this what you will.
I think it is meant to tantalise the reader and possibly Gibbons didn't know either - or what happened to the goat.

I love the 'saw something nasty' that affected Aunt Ada for the rest of her life - it speaks so typically and topically of the therapy age in which we now live. Interesting comments - I remember giving the passage about the porridge to some A level students - with no indication of its context - and it was a joy to read all the profound responses - they just couldn't get it until I explained the unlikelihood of the figurative language therein. I'm glad to say that most went to read and enjoy the novel. Here is the web page link I promised http://www.catharton.com/stellagibbons/worksfarm.html Enjoy.

Sorry to say I returned this to the library, unfinished. Just could not get interested in either the story or the characters, or even the setting. Not my cup of tea....

Did anyone check out my link above? I thought it was a fascinating insight into Gibbons.

I tried-repeatedly-to read this book-they're horrible! Sorry-just couldn't find any way to connect to it. Wish I could have, as it should be the kind of book I enjoy. I'm bummed. But back it goes-too many other books on the TBR shelf.

ccrdmrbks I also had trouble and gave up! And I also thought it would be just the kind of thing I would enjoy.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who didn't like this book. As others said, I just couldn't connect to it. The heroine's efforts to fix her odd extended family just seemed kind of pointless to me. And I DID want to like it, which made it all the more frustrating.

Jan I just read the whole article on Gibbons and found it most interesting especially the similarities/take off of the styles of Lawrence and Walpole . . . and Rambling Sid Rumpo! I haven't read CCF for over 30 years and can understand many people coming to it today having difficulty with the humour. Not long ago I picked up Anita Loos' 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes', which was written at much the same time as CCF and not finding it at all funny. . . . ~ . . . ~ . . . ~ . . .~ . . . ~ . . . Some years ago we used to live in a small Cotswold village, where there were plenty of characters just like the Starkadders. A local farm was called Cold Comfort (another was Starve-all). Children of dubious parentage were happily accepted and the local men liked nothing better than outdoing each other, usually while in the pub, about how they had outwitted 'townie' or 'Yank' tourists with their rustic witticisms.

I've been going through my bookshelves trying to find my copy of CCF, without luck -- I must've lent it to someone.~~~~~~~~~It's been four or five years since I read it last, and I read it a couple of times previous to that, so I remember thinking it was funny but I'm a bit hazy on the details.~~~~~~~~~I read the piece on Gibbons, Jankin, and it explains one thing that always bothered me: that everything was tied up too neatly in the end, with Flora straightening everyone out most satisfactorily. Since Gibbons couldn't do that for her real-life dysfunctional family, it must have been particularly gratifying for her to write that Flora got the Starkadders sorted out. Flora, in a way, I think, must be Stella's autobiographical wishful-thinking.~~~~~~~~~About the humor/humour thing, I suspect that the characters are a bit too quirky for many American readers -- not that Americans don't have quirks! We sure do, but the eccentric things that we laugh at ourselves about aren't necessarily what Britons and the rest of the world find funny about us. Cold Comfort Farm is so British -- make that ENGLISH -- in its attitude that it is a bit of an inside joke. I notice the peculiar relationship the urban English have with the rural English -- a rather sniffy superiority that infuriates the latter, so it's small wonder to me that the locals often get a gleeful pleasure at jerking the chains of townies and Londoners, particularly, and a few Yanks and other outlanders. Gibbons -- perhaps deliberately but I'm not sure -- endowed Flora with that maddening urban, upper-class superiority and even worse Gibbons made Flora always right! Personally, I would have liked the Starkadders to take Flora down a peg or two, but that's probably a typically American "leveling" attitude -- many Americans delighted in the Beverly Hillbillies sending the sophisticates around the bend, the nearest American equivalent -- but in mirror image -- of Cold Comfort Farm that I can think of. ~~~~~~~~~Another "Wilds of Suffolk"-type novel that I can't help but compare Cold Comfort Farm to is Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle. Smith's characters are just as eccentric as Gibbons', in their way, but Smith warmly delineates, I think, while Gibbons is astringent. Of course, the writers have two different purposes, but they still remind me of one another, except that I much prefer Smith's. ~~~~~~~~~Which reminds me: In the film, Withnail & I, Marwood (the I in the title) makes a comment about the unfriendly locals in the Lake District -- a location at practically the opposite end of the country but I still think it's apropos. (I'll have to paraphrase): **They are certainly not what I had come to expect from reading novels by H.E. Bates. I thought they would all be out back, drinking cider and discussing butter.** Yee! And Marwood was the nicer of the pair of insufferable Londoners. :-)

Frieda-interesting to see your comparison with I Capture the Castle. I really enjoyed that one and expected CCF to be like it. Maybe it's because in Castle the narrator is so much a part of her eccentric family.

Ditto to the above. I adored Dodie Smith's novel and found it laugh-out-loud funny (the fur coat scene). But "Cold Comfort Farm" struck me as boring and dragged out. I truly thought I might get something from it as I had read Mary Webb's books years ago, but was supremely disappointed....

(light bulb) That's what has been bothering me!
I loved Capture the Castle and wanted CCF to be like it. I loved the characters in Capture the Castle, but the ones in CCF were not lovable. When the mother said to the handsome son "Do you want to break my heart" and he answered "yes"...that was it for me.

Hmm, I think I see a cultural divide on this book. The Americans -- with the exception of rouan, BrendainVA, Siobhan, and Jayne -- don't relate well to CCF and can't appreciate it very much (I'm lukewarm about it). But Jankin, Dido, Kate, Netla, and AnnPan (I'm not sure about Vee) either like it or really like it a lot. I would like to read why you all enjoy it so much.

I understand that "getting it" has to do with recognition of certain types of folk, and the kind of literature that is being parodied, and perhaps knowing a bit about the time period in which Gibbons was writing. It might help some of us Americans to know what tickles you about CCF.

I think the word examples -- clettering and mollocking are a couple -- are entertaining because...well, because they are just funny sounding to me but that's about all I have to go on. I like the characters' names -- the most appropriately named Mybug and Ada Doom, particularly -- and the animals' names are hilarious: Cows called Aimless, Feckless, and a couple of other -lesses I can't think of at the moment (I still don't have a copy of the book to refer to).

It always happens when readers are sharply divided on their reactions -- and when I could swing either way -- that I would like to know more about why such and such readers like or dislike what they do.

It occurred to me that most of the Americans who love I Capture the Castle can relate better to Dodie Smith's gentler humor, quaintness of place and characters (Cassandra would've disliked our loving the quaintness!) partially because there are American characters, too. Smith, herself, lived in the US for several years and knew, and could write for, both sides. Gibbons, on the other hand, was writing for an inside audience. Many of us have managed to relate to Austen, the Brontes, Trollope (except I can't get past The Eustace Diamonds), and what'shername who wrote the Bridget Jones books without American props, though. We're not necessarily a lost cause, Jankin! :-)

Frieda, I've loved CCF for years recognizing at first reading that it was a satire on Mary Webb a popular contemporary writer in the first 25 years of the 20th Cent. Her soulful, stories were set in Shropshire. The best known is probably 'Precious Bane.' The Elphine character is the fey and ultimately tragic heroine of 'Gone to Earth' who attracts the lustful desires of the local squire. SG has the same thing occur but reverses the result.Another title was 'The Golden Arrow.' I can't now remember who all the original characters were. Her books were so well known that when CCF was first published it became an almost instant best seller. I think there's also some nods to 'Wuthering Heights' and Thomas Hardy.

I love the made up words like 'rennetpost' [rennet being something added in milk processing] the character who has 'Strange longings when the Sukebind be in bloom' the names of the cows as well as the people 'Aunt Ada Doom' who saw something nasty in the woodshed and has never let anyone forget it. The Starkadders along with assorted hangers on are so horribly self-indulgent with never a sense of humour amongst the lot of them. I read the link which Jan posted and it's very informative. I first read CCF long after I'd left home and recognized the way the Starkadders chief excitements came from staging melodramas as often as possible, because to them it's normal behaviour.

I'd recognised by then that my parents were exactly the same and drove them nuts by saying calmly 'But why are you getting so worked up?' 'I can't get her to understand!' My Mum petulantly told my Dad, so it really isn't wildly fictional. My beloved surviving uncle [Dad's younger brother] paid me one of the greatest compliments ever when I went to the UK after my father's death. 'I can't get over it' he said, 'You're so _sensible_!'

FriedaG: I read CCF many years ago.I read it again and saw the video to join the discussion. I think that I can relate to the humour because I am British born and used to this kind.
I used to love a column in a UK newspaper by the humourist Beachcomber and he conjured up the wildest imaginings. The Monty Pythons and Goons were the same.
Some things came over better in the film too. Judith asking Seth if he wanted to break her heart, to which he answered simply "Yes" which upset one poster was quite natural in the film scene and the film left out some of the wilder things such as the cow's leg dropping off which could have been unpalatable to a film audience.
(I didn't like the book by Alexander McCall Smith that had a dog losing it's legs, by the way. Just as anarchic but cruel imagery. The cow's loss was ridiculous, I suppose that was the difference.)
Anyway, I quite enjoyed the book and the discussion and I read the link too!

I am annoyingly well-read in English literature, and have read all of Mary Webb's works. So I recognized the satire immediately.

The other thing about CCF is that it is older humor. So you have two fences to get over -- the distance in time, and the distance in space. Not surprising that it is not everybody's cup of tea.

Brenda

I have been desparately trying to post again - finally managed today - but have forgotten many of my points - however I think the appeal of CCF is that the characters are all exaggerated people that we know (well I knew and know) either from real life or from other sources. Maybe the divide that Frieda has so eloquently discoursed upon is dependant upon the eccentrics and eccentricities that abound, thank goodness, in the UK - yes I know and love eccentrics from all over but maybe ours have had longer to practice.
I've just started to reread 'Mapp and Lucia' several steps up the social ladder from the Dooms and Starkadders but just as engaging!

Jankin, I LOVED Mapp & Lucia. I completely understood their social one-up-man-ship (sp?) and found it hilarious.

Of course, I had enjoyed Hyacinth Bucket on "Keeping Up Appearances" for several years prior to discovering M&L. The book must have been a partial, if not the, inspiration for Hyacinth.

Thanks to all for the great responses! Yes, it is clearer to me why CCF strikes a chord with you.

Heh! Well, I'm neither annoyingly well-read or unannoyingly not-so-well-read in English literature, but I had read Precious Bane and Gone to Earth by Mary Webb before I read Cold Comfort Farm. I guess it just never occurred to me that there was satirical potential in either of those books, but perhaps a steady diet of that sort of literature would make one inclined to view melodrama with a jaundiced eye. One of the funniest things I ever saw on television was a spirited spoof of William Faulkner-type Southern Gothic by Benny Hill, in drag of course; so, yes, I suppose anything can be parodied -- and has been -- to the appreciation of some audience.

Jan, I think you nailed it: Exaggeration is the key. The Starkadders are caricatures -- not necessarily recognizable unless you've known them well. Flora, though, is more problematic for me. You say that she's your heroine, which I'm not sure that I understand. I don't like Flora; she's supercilious, in my opinion, and I'd like to thump her a good one for it. :-)

Now, the difference between Flora and Hyacinth Bucket (Boo-kay, as she prefers): as I see it, Hyacinth is pretentious but not at all confident (and that is what makes her hilarious), but Flora is too confident in her patronizing, never-doubting-that-she-is-right kind of way (and I don't find that very amusing). But, the piece about Gibbons and her family enlightened me a bit, and though I don't really like Flora much better, I do understand the impetus for making her the way she is.

Mapp & Lucia and their wars amused me for the first couple of books, but then they got tedious. I have known many -- too many, probably -- real-life contenders, in what Sheri aptly describes as one-upsmanship -- American, Briton, French, etc.

Frieda
If you saw the state of my bookshelves and my 3 desks you would know why I admire Flora - she would put it right at once. Oh to be disciplined and methodical - others may dream of South Pacific nights (except those of us lucky enough to live them!) but I dream of order and control - well sometimes.
I too love Hyacinth - she refuses to acknowledge any self-doubt - perhpas she never experienced any. _ Pat Routledge has just the right accent and demeanour of a 'Wirral born and bred' 'lady of the house' real life characteristics of those I have known.

I loved all the Mapp and Lucia books. Tom Holt wrote a couple of sequels, which were all right but not quite the same. (Then he went on to write his own Brit comedy, EXPECTING SOMEONE TALLER.)

Brenda

Ah! I'm beginning to see the appeal of Flora, for some. But, Jan, I probably need a Flora more than you do! As a lifelong clutter-maker, I once hired a highly-recommended Feng Sui expert, guaranteed to simplify my house and life. I had to clean house for two days before her visit -- well, I couldn't let her see the way it is normally. Anyway, after she wandered through my rooms and vibrated for a while, the first thing she said was: "What are you willing to get rid of?" Then she went on to suggest that I winnow my book collection and alphabetize the canned goods in my pantry. I said thankyouverymuch, here's your fee; let me see you to the door. Professional organizers give me the creeps! :-)

What are some examples in British literature, films, and television where the little guy gets to puncture the snoots -- the Mitford-types who might not have a proverbial pot but still know they are superior? It seems that Americans like this opposite tack, even though we may be fascinated with the U and non-U thing.

Ah! but can "snoots" be punctured? In my occasional views of truly upper-class people, any attempt at "taking down" is ignored, as bad manners should be. A relative who had worked in "good houses" said that the children were taught that "one should always pity the ignorant".
A lady I knew took this a step further and being corrected on her pronunciation of a word by a shopgirl took a dictionary to the shop and pointed out how that word should be spoken!
Or did you mean books etc. about snobby people being taken down a peg? I expect there would be a few of those!

Please - if you haven't read it - buy or borrow 'Kipps' by HG Wells a superb study of attempts to up one's social status - and the nonsense that goes with such a desire.

AnnPan, good point, the upper class are so insulated that wouldn't realize when they've been had. Some of the upper class do have exquisite manners, though a lot of them can be deplorably rude but consider whatever they do or say as their privilege. I wouldn't get into a verbal wrangle with them, because it simply wouldn't do any good -- as you say, they are probably impervious to puncture in that respect.
a superb study of attempts to up one's social status - and the nonsense that goes with such a desire.

I don't doubt that there's a lot of nonsense that goes with it. And there are scads of examples in British lit, etc. of those: The Eliza Stories and The Little Ottleys are a couple more. It really is -- and especially was -- a British preoccupation, taking the wind out of anyone with pretensions. But Americans don't consider it a sin to "up one's social status." The sin is being pretentious about it and exhibiting poor taste (like the robber barons). But Americans can slide around in social status; with the British, it's a fixed thing (at least in the mind) and woe unto the person who presumes that just because s/he can afford something, she has attained a different level of class. It's a matter of breeding -- your own and that of your ancestors (as if you can choose!) Now that's what Americans find funny -- the fixedness -- and it's what Americans like to see deflated occasionally. But I can't think of many British examples of that type humor.

I can think of non-comic situations where the upper class have proved their privilege doesn't make them immune to idiocy: the first World War is one. But I prefer to stick with comedy.

Frieda, interesting what you say about Americans sliding around in social status. Is that a financial thing rather than 'breeding' (and I don't like that expresion either)? I remember watching an episode of Roseanne some years ago, where Dan has just lost his job and R says (or probably shouts) "We used to be a middle-class family, look at us now."
I can here Hyacinth B snorting at that . . .but then the thing about poor HB is that she never quite gets things right. She tries far too hard!
There is still certainly plenty of class divide/snobbery in the UK although I feel that since probably the 60's many people in the UK have gone out of their way to make out they come from a 'lower' social group than they actually do.
I first met inverted snobbery when I went to college and was questioned closely as to what my father 'did'. This was often followed by "Oh, I suppose he has a car?" Well, yes we did have a family car I had never given the matter much thought, but it seemed to enrage my questioners. "My Dad's a miner (it was always a miner), he only rides a bike and he's proud of it."
It was all very Jimmy Porter/angry young man of the period.
You have a good ear for accents Frieda and must have noticed the difference in how English people speak. A great watering down between the classes . .. Princes William and Harry could almost be the boys next door. Of course some think our speech patterns resemble the Mid Atlantic tones of the popular DJ's and soon Estuary English, as spoken in the Thames Valley will take over the land.

How about the stories by P G Wodehouse for the humour between the classes? Do you notice that whatever the situation it was always Jeeves or Beech,the Blandings butler who had all the answers and held all the cards. I don't think this was deliberate 'putting down' of the nobs, but I think it was something unsaid. Lord Emsworth, Bertie W, and all the other young asses and flighty girls that people the stories, couldn't function without this array of staff that ran their bathwater, told them what cuff-links to wear or sorted out their love lives.

Re similarities between Cold Comfort Farm and I Capture the Castle. Except for the time in which the books are set I see litle comparison (and admit I haven't read CCF for years). Dodie S wrote I C the C while in the US, and although she went on to own a cottage in the prettiest village in Essex I don't think she had any particular feeling for the countryside. Her book does not contain many/any country characters. I don't know where Gibbons got her country info but she certainly managed to nail that particular 'type'. Up until about 10 years ago I knew several houses that could have stood in for CC Farm . . the sort of places where casual cruelty to animals was a part of everyday life and where it was wise to wipe your feet on leaving someones kitchen.
Most of these properites have been gentrified and are bought by pop and football stars and change hands for millions of...

Vee, the comparison between CCF and Capture is superficial: the timeframe, the locale, eccentric families, and a young, female main character. Reading a brief description of each, though, makes them seem more similar than they actually are. And I think that is what disappoints some readers -- particularly Americans, as noted above -- who have enjoyed Capture and want CCF to be more like it.

The country folk, as Gibbons describes them, share several features with American rednecks, hicks, and hillbillies. Oh, certainly they exist, but their rusticity is usually exaggerated wildly. And these rural types are often unfairly maligned by snotty urbanites who think they know everything there is to know when the truth is they would make fools of themselves in the rural environment. Urbanites are always trying to solve the rurals' problems without any sensitivity whatsoever to those people's feelings, mores, and tradition. That's the way I've seen Flora and her ilk, including Gibbons because she created Flora (but that was before I knew a little more about Gibbons herself).

Yes, Vee, class in America has more to do with money than breeding, at least broadly. Some areas of the country, though, have more of an English-influenced view -- New England and the other original colonies, naturally. What Roseanne meant about losing middle-class status was the money and what the wherewithal can provide. There's such a thing as middle-class values, though, that indicates that Roseanne, the character, is a prole and always will be. That's behavior. Dividing American society that way, we have: high class (doesn't matter what your socio-economic level, you are gracious and have superb moral fibre); middle class (average Joe & Jane and thus most Americans, or at least we like to think so); and low class (the dregs of society, the stupids, the criminals, and the people with no manners, even if they were born in a palace, have several zillion dollars in the bank and were Fulbright scholars).

Oh, yes, I ran into that inverted snobbery in England and at first didn't know what to think about it. I was asked similar questions -- what kind of mod cons did I grow up with; how big was my refrigerator? Often my answers produced barely-concealed sneers and sniggers. But then I was considered a rude, no-class American no matter how polite or sensitive I tried to be. In fact, when I learned to be truly RUDE (my definition), they seemed to like and accept me better, but I doubt they would've given the same consideration to a Londoner or other southerner.

Aha! I happened to find a secondhand bookshop today and thought I'd see if they had a copy of CCF. They did! Then I went to a video rental place and found the film, too. Geez, I have better luck in strange towns than at home.

Rereading CCF, I've found it more congenial than I remembered. I even like busybody Flora a bit better. Vee, I found a couple more similarities to Castle: Both Flora and Cassandra wanted to be writers and were practicing and gathering material. Cassandra, I think, would go on to become one (after the book ended), but Flora decided to give up that aspiration. And the final dispersal of characters has Seth (in CCF) going off to Hollywood to be in films while Stephen (in Castle) is going to be a film star, too.

I had forgotten all about the Quiverers, Amos's fire & brimstone sect -- that's where "There's no butter in hell!" comes in. Well, I have to admit that it was clever of Flora to get Amos to tour in a Ford Van. Reuben appreciated it, too. Okay, I'll accept that it was pretty neat that Flora made all the folks happy and even got Rennet to take a bath. :-)

The film is sweeter than the book, in tone I mean. And I think it worked better without all the futuristic stuff that's in the book, although the idea of an Anglo-Nicaraguan war intrigues me! But I always thought of Mybug as a real pest; Stephen Fry makes him almost-endearingly daffy, asking "Do you think women have souls?" And his idea of Branwell penning Wuthering Heights has certainly occurred to other literary critics, but I suppose it's funnier that he attributes Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall to Branwell, as well.

But the funniest part to me -- which the film brought out better than the book, I think -- was Judith's histrionics about Seth leaving. The Hollywood agent was impressed and said he would take her, but she was too gloomy.

After playing Flora, it's no wonder Kate Beckinsale was given a shot at "Emma," Flora's forerunner.

I hope this more favorable reading and viewing (I like the tandem approach) will stick and my former impressions fade. :-)

Well, I hate making three posts in a row with no one intervening, but I have legitimate questions, I think: Why was poetry so out of favor amongst the elites in the early 1930s? Or was Gibbons being ironic by having Mrs. Smiling say that to Elfine, trying to get Elfine to tone down her poetizing?

Without a copy of the book and not having much memory of the finer points since about 1967 or whenever I last read CCF, I have to ask what sort of poetry was Elfine spouting?
Over here in the UK, and I'm sure the same would hold true in many other countries, poetry was/is a pretty specialised field and many people of a 'poetic frame of mind' would be thoroughly mocked, told to get a hair cut and find a proper job. Think of the send-up in G & S's 'Patience' of poor old Bunthorn (a take off of Wilde). 50 years or so earlier but attitudes don't change that quickly.

And I could never take to Flora . . .far too bossy, it's amazing that she didn't land up in the slurry pit.

I read CCF last weekend and enjoyed it in the spirit that it was intended i.e. a farce. However, I wouldn't have known it to be satirical without having it read here. Otherwise, I would have read it in seriousness and hated it. Knowing it was satire helped me enjoy the book a lot more as did this thread (which I read once I had finished the book).

It's like book club - I tend to like the books MORE once we have discussed them...

I always liked Flora - she's so practical and I can really relate to putting a stop to the nonsense. It's really quite sophisticated because it's necessary to recognize it's satire to enjoy it. We don't all have the same taste in humour either. I often find Scottish and Irish humour funnier in some ways than English humour. Billy Connolly is incredibly skilled and articulate but a co-worker at the library [Married to the son of English immigrants] can't understand a word he says. I told her 'Ivan the Terrible' in a muted BC accent. It took her five minutes to stop laughing and she kept giggling for the rest of the day.

My older son and his wife [English parents] are nuts about Wallace and Grommett, which I find funny but W&G don't make me laugh the way 'Coupling' does. BTW 'Coupling' writer Steve Moffat is Scottish. Oh and my daughter in law [Her name ironically, is Fiona] doesn't get Scottish humour at all - but then on a bad day we have to explain the joke in English humour.

Woodnymph said:

Sorry to say I returned this to the library, unfinished. Just could not get interested in either the story or the characters, or even the setting. Not my cup of tea....

And I'm afraid I agree - despite being British! I'm halfway through, and really struggling. Shades of Anne of Green Gables come to mind..... Flora is just too 'bright and breezy' for me. And thick-skinned. Maybe I'm just not in the right frame of mind for CCF.

Jane
UK

I read this last week and found it very amusing. It was refreshing to read something funny for a change. One of my favorite passages is her description of play being performed in London:

"...a Neo-Expressionist attempt to give dramatic form to the mental reactions of a man employed as a waiter in a restaurant who dreams that he is the double of another man who is employed as a steward on a liner, and who, on awakening and realizing that he is still a waiter employed in a restaurant and not a steward employer on a liner, goes mad and shoots his reflection in a mirror and dies. It had seventeen scenes and one character."