Quirky English story. I could see how it would be made into a movie. Easy read. ( )

Cold Comfort Farm is, as one friend described, "a wonderfully snippy takeoff of rural-England novels full of steaming middens and dripping thatches, and what happens when a plucky young heroine decides to fix things up; a bit like what might happen if Austen's Emma visited some of Thomas Hardy's characters."

That said, it's been a long time since I've been this happy to be done with a book! My friend's thoughts above sum up the book perfectly, and it's probably a great read if one is in the mood for that. Apparently, I was NOT in the mood for that this week and the book ended up being irritating. It could be, also, that the characters reminded me too much of my own rural family. Ha! Still, I'm happy to have completed one more book from the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list. But, like several others I've read from that list, I probably could have died without reading this one. ( )

Flora, a socialite in reduced circumstances due to the unmourned deaths of her parents, goes to live with her distant, eccentric country cousins. The family is under the thumb of domineering Aunt Ada (she who saw “something nasty in the woodshed”), who refuses to let any of her kin leave the farm. Flora, however, is determined to change the family’s circumscribed lives for the better.

All sources agree that Cold Comfort Farm is a parody of the British agrarian novel. Unfortunately, I have not read many of those, so I didn’t always get the joke. Still, this satire makes for a pleasant afternoon read while sick a-bed. ( )

Sometimes laugh out loud funny other times smile funny or clever funny. The contrast of writing styles and dialogue between the ridiculous melodramatic ~the farm wreathed in shadows~ or ~the web of sorrows that traps me~ and Flora's no nonsense style is pretty fun and sometimes pretty funny. I imagine I'm missing a lot of humour because of my ignorance of the style it's riffing on and the culture/times of the 30s etc but it's decently funny anyway. The last 4th gets pretty absurd in a good way. There's a couple of oblique suicide jokes and a couple of the endings given to people are maybe not idyllic but it doesn't feel mean or unpleasant or anything. Things are generally played pretty lightheartedly. And the whole portrayal of Flora's London is played for laughs too. I dunno it's good. Also Wikipedia claims it's set in the future which explains why there's a few weird out of place things that confused me (eg there's a videophone at one point!)

Also although there's no gay relationships in the novel one character is notably homophobic but given he's presented as quite unpleasant and also a kind of gross pervert I quite liked it

A little disappointed we never find out what happened to Aunt Ada Doom when she was 2 or what supposedly happened to Flora's father - like they're plot devices and everything it's just specifically brought up at the end and we're told Flora never found out so neither do we. Maybe there's a point I'm missing? Maybe she just couldn't think of anything funny enough for them I guess ( )

This book made me laugh out loud while I was reading it in a cafe, so 4 stars for that. I loved how it reminded me of Wuthering Heights and thoroughly poked fun at the entire genre.
My inner raging feminist had some trouble with the 'taming' of Elfine, but in general, a great weird awkward funny irreverent book. ( )