Anyone read 'Cold Comfort Farm' and 'I Capture The Castle'?

[peggotty]

I've just ordered them from amazon to take on holiday to read, and am expecting great things from them, are they any good...?

Love CCF. Just so sharp. Think you can enjoy it without getting the context - although certainly smarter/funnier if you know them/

ICTC was a bit too cutesy/whisical for me. One of those books best read when you're a teenager for me.

Cold Comfort is a great book. It laughs at DH Lawrence and his ilk. Oddly enough, I actually prefer the film to the book, it benefits from losing a lot of excess cousins and the cast is completely perfect.

I've heard lots of good things about ICTC but haven't read it - I will now!

I read both relatively recently. Loved ICTC partly because it made me nostalgic for the books that I loved as a teenager. Enjoyed CCF but would have enjoyed it even more with the benefit of Kathy6'' background info.

ICTC is shite.

Don't mind if ICTC is aimed at teenagers actually. Have just finished reading entire set of HArry Potters so may have to graduate back up to grown-up books

Duchess, agree about the casting. Except for Stephen Fry as Mr Mybug, perhaps.

i loved them both but did read as teenager and was a bit disappointed on a reread of ICTC. ooer and sequels of ccf dire.

around the same time i also liked rosamund lehman, beverley cleary and antonia may (why is she so out of fashion?)

I haven't seen the Kate Beckinsale film, but I doubt it could be better than the BBC version of 1968 - Alistair Sim as Amos "Ye're all doomed" was classic...

ICTC was a huge disappointment to me.
Tis shite.

Attila - I see your Alistair Sim and raise you Ian McKellen - the quivering brethren scene is superb! Eileen Atkins is Aunt Judith, Freddie Jones is Adam and Rufus Sewell is all tanned and sweaty and brooding (damn, he's good at it) and Rupert Penry-Jones is about 20 and wears riding breeches and long boots a lot

Duchess who were/are you?

I can see I will have to see it even if only for Rufus Sewell - who was Reuben? (Brian Blessed in the BBC version)
And how about Fay Compton as Aunt Ada & Rosalie Crutchley as Judith?

I can't imagine a better Mrs Beetle than Miram Margoyles.

I first read ICTC aged about 18 and loved it, so I still have a soft spot for it...

I think if you can suspend your adult self and pretend to be a romantic late adolescent it still works.

moondog - I've been NorksBride for years. Duchess is this years vanity project.

Attila - Reuben was played by Ivan Kaye (top row, 4th to the right) and Aunt Ada by Sheila Burrell.

Brooding.
Sweating.

I still love both books, does that mean I haven't grown up yet? I don't think I would have got the maximum benefit of CCF as a teenager. Agree I was disappointed when I found one of CCF sequels in the library.

Yes, Rosamund Lehman - An Invitation To The Waltz and Dusty Answer. I read ICTC and these around the same time.

(Aside: A Jilly Cooper afficionado may notice that JC obviously also loved RL as there is a scene in Harriet where two paragraphs of description are cribbed almost word for word from either DA or AITTW, can't remember which. Harriet also borrowed snippets of text from Nancy Mitford and The World My Wilderness by Rose Macaulay. Very strange . Perhaps almost as strange as the fact that I know the works of JC so thoroughly that when I read these books the "borrowed" text jumped right out at me .)