JASNA Greater Phoenix hosted, via ZOOM, a study of
Cold Comfort Farm
Discussion facilitated
by Dr. Holly Welker
Sunday, February 12,
2023
2:00 PM MST
Cold Comfort Farm (1932) by Stella Gibbons satirizes and rejects the gloomy fatalism of tragic English novels in favor of the happy endings Austen excelled at, an outcome hinted at by the novel’s epigraph from Mansfield Park: “Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.” The main character, 19-year-old Flora Poste, hopes to write a novel as good as Persuasion when she is 53, and resolves to live the sort of life that will help her do that.
Austen is not merely a literary but a moral authority in the novel; Flora feels that she and Austen are similar in that they both like “everything to be tidy and pleasant and comfortable,” and Flora, who enjoys managing others’ lives every bit as much as Emma Woodhouse, musters the courage and wisdom to tackle and solve a particularly thorny problem after randomly opening Mansfield Park “to refresh her spirits.” Moreover a sentence Gibbons wrote in the novel is attributed to Austen in the 1995 film adaptation so that it can be spoken by the characters as a truth that should be universally acknowledged. Although not based on any of Austen’s plots, Cold Comfort Farm is a “light and bright and sparkling” novel indebted to Austen for its playfulness and wit.
Enjoy these images from the delightful Deluxe Edition from Penguin Classics (introduction by Lynn Truss.)
The 1995 film based on the novel is a delightful adaptation. Directed by John Schlesinger, and starring Kate Beckinsale as Flora Poste, it features a witty screenplay and a wonderful supporting cast. Readers may wish to view it to enhance their enjoyment of the book.
Read more about it here:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112701/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Or stream on Vudu (for a fee):
https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/details/Cold-Comfort-Farm/5328
Below is the official trailer: