Not cold at at all

Cold Comfort Farm
by Stella Gibbons






Okay, so you're judging the Olympics.  Along comes a balance beam contender--a sharp, sassy little girl who gets every movement right with precision and easy grace, throws in a triple flip with a one-handed stop, hops twice backward to dismount and--
Fails to stick the landing!
What rating do you give that one?  And more to the point, what rating do I give this?

I'm a sucker for the triple flip--I'd take off a token point but still rate it high.  So in the case of this book, I'd recommend it but give you a warning--she's going to drop out at one point and disappoint the heck out of you.  I can't be more specific other than to say that the runner crossed the finish line but apparated from the three-quarters mark to the seven-eighth.  She got there in the end, but missed a serious bit of detail.  The missing detail is later explained--in one short sentence that I missed the first time through--but you don't get one iota of the fun out of that short summation.

Hmm...this review is missing a bit of detail, too.  So here goes.  Flora Poste is like a female P. G. Wodehouse original.  Smarter than the average, nosy, opinionated (but not overbearing), and determined to do some good with herself, she invites herself into the family at Cold Comfort Farm and immediately starts to improve their situation.  You're not sure whether she's doing it to help the others or just to help herself to a cleaner, more agreeable lifestyle; but the results are the same in the end. 

She starts in first on the old servant, Adam, by suggesting he speed up his dish-clettering (washing) by replacing the thorny twigs used for scouring,  with a little mop, with a handle.  When he protests that he has no use for the extra time, she cleverly points out that he might spend more time in the cowshed attending to his beloved beasts.  He won't admit it, but he starts thinking.

And on she goes--to Amos, the eldest, who runs the farm but has a secret life of the evening; Seth, the idle lady-charmer with a secret passion of his own; Meriam, the hired girl, working on her fourth baby out of wedlock--does Flora has a remedy for her!  Then Reuben, the only son who really cares about the farm and is deathly suspicious that Flora is here to take it for herself.  We know how unlikely that is, but how can she convince him?  And sweet Elfine, the seventeen-year-old beauty running wild in the forest and just crying out for a good fairy Godmother to turn her into a princess.  And Judith, the nutty mother, and of course the reclusive and overbearing Aunt Ada Doom, who lies in her bed upstairs and controls the farm with unseeing eyes.  Open them suckers, Flora!

Loved, loved, loved this book.