My year with Stella...

[Waawo]

...has begun!

I plan to spend my fifty somethingth year - and that surely is some kind of mistake - reading all of Stella Gibbons' novels. There are 26, of which I've previously read less than half, and own less than a quarter.

Since I want to read other things too, I'll try to squeeze each novel into a week, leaving a week in between for some variety. Some are not quite novels that can be read "while you eat an apple" though, so this may not work out.

Yesterday I wandered down to Waterstones to treat myself to a nice new reading copy of Cold Comfort Farm - the first novel, published in 1932. I've read this before, a few times in fact. It's a tale of our heroine Flora's attempts to tame her somewhat wild Sussex-based distant relations, as an alternative course to just getting a job.

I'm a few chapters in now, and the familiarity makes it a bit like slipping on comfortable pyjamas or slippers. I'm amazed how amongst the, honestly, slightly obvious seeming rural parody, Stella shows herself as sharp as a tack. For instance, she clearly knew what more recently we might call a 'crazymaker', since this is one the best descriptions of such a person I have read, by any author:

"If she intended to tidy up life at Cold Comfort, she would find herself opposed at every turn by the influence of Aunt Ada. Flora was sure that this would be so. Persons of Aunt Ada's temperament were not fond of a tidy life. Storms were what they liked; plenty of rows, and doors being slammed, and jaws sticking out, and faces white with fury, and faces brooding in corners, and faces making unnecessary fuss at breakfast, and plenty of opportunities for gorgeous emotional wallowings, and partings for ever, and misunderstandings, and interferings, and spyings, and, above all, managing and intriguing. Oh, they did enjoy themselves! They were the sort that went trampling all over your pet stamp collection, or whatever it was, and then spent the rest of their lives atoning for it. But you would rather have had your stamp collection."

Really looking forward to discovering the rest of her oeuvre. Enbury Heath is one of my favourite books ever - if there's anything else as good as that, this will have been time well spent!

I know there are a few here who like to see covers, so I've added a picture :)

Finished The Spring of Joy by Mary Webb a few days ago. It’s a series of short “essays” about the countryside and the joy that spending time in nature can bring. It’s very different to the novels; but still obviously Mary’s style, full of natural imagery. But also quite magical realist. Not sure I’d read it again lol. I suppose you could consider this loosely something of a precursor to people like Robert McFarlane.

For some reason picture didn’t post…

Novel #7 done! The Rich House

I have struggled with this a little more than any others so far. I'm not entirely sure why: it's another perfect little world, that draws you in and is so believable. There is no humour to speak of though; pubished in 1941 (and set just before the war) perhaps that's not surprising. Mostly I think it's because almost everyone in the book has an unpleasant characteristic. That may be accurate. But it does feel a bit unremitting.

The story concerns a small coastal village in Essex and what goes on their, with the expected intrigues amongst the people who live and especially love there. Stella is great at tiny observations that just feel very direct.

A couple of notes that I made on the way:

"'What I like about the wireless is that you needn't listen to it,'" said Mr. Somers as his son came into the room, quoting an observation by their charwoman that was a family classic - if only this were true of social media and the internet in general!

Just's Library and Brown's The Household word were pleasant places to work in because they were controlled by good men. Beard's was an unpleasant place to work in because it was controlled by bad men. These disappointingly simple facts will irritate those who think in terms of economics and politics. They would prefer to think of the Mr. Beards, old Mr. Just, and all the Mr. Browns as cogs, symbols, social units, and symptoms. Nevertheless, the sun rise every morning and will continue to do so; human beings have souls; and it is better to be good than to be bad.

The dreamlike, wretched days and nights went on, and became all alike, as they do to people who are very unhappy.

Food can work miracles. If everyone in the world had a little more than enough to eat we should perhaps see loving-kindness ruling the entire globe, and great new works of art created.

Next up is Ticky - which hasn't arrived yet.

In between Stella, I'm slowly acquiring and reading Mary Webb's books. The fourth one has just arrived: The House in Dormer Forest, a lovely copy printed in 1946. Looking forward to it! Oh, and a previous owner had left what they were using as a bookmark inside, always a nice surprise to find little things like that. Imagine Swiss Cottage having four digit phone numbers lol!

Finished the House in Dormer Forest, and so tomorrow, Stella #8: Ticky!

Which co-incidentally, arrived on Wednesday. Basically it's the same cover as The Rich House, i.e. the title in white on a red ground. That's especially annoying as the seller had used the other cover in their ad, humph. That's buying remotely I suppose, and the dreaded "stock image" problem. Having said that, it cost £3 against £15 for the new book, and is in unread condition, having barely been opened if the spine is anything to go by. Considering there are still another 19 books to go, every little helps!

Novel #8 done! Ticky

Got to say, this one is so different from the first seven novels, but brilliant in so many ways. I can't believe it's not more well known. Considering it was written in the 1940s, it has a vibe that today could almost be called steampunk. And the familiar but slightly strange, almost dream like atmosphere of this London, makes me think most of Murakami, but written before he was born.

The 'almost steampunk' I mean literally by the way: the tech is all mixed up, this isn't a different time, this is a London on a different branch of time. In this London, there are skyscrapers made of glass; but instead of using lifts, people ascend to the top on exterior roadways that corkscrew around the tower, in strange tramlike vehicles with stone hot water bottles and built in blankets, that are pulled by horses.

In one great scene, someone sits at the dining table in the top floor of one of these towers and summons lightning using a pile of all the cutlery in the building. Just because he can.

From the blurb, I wasn't looking forward to this at all. The premise is so male, set in the HQ and club of a regiment in the army with an all male “headline” cast, but of course there’s still room for two brilliant Stella-esque women to steal the show. There’s a lovely moment towards the end when a certain “Starkadder, from somewhere in Sussex apparently” makes a brief appearance. Stella, always so good with her made up titles, prefigures “reaction to reaction” videos with one of her character’s papers entitled “Commentary Upon the Text of Molassus the Younger’s Notes upon Molassus the Elder”. And at the end, the novel looks back to Austen AND forward to Richard Curtis, with a triple wedding no less, in a London glistening white after an unexpected frost.

I can't wait to read this one again! :)

Next up is An Awfully Big Adventure by Beryl Bainbridge (for Slightly Dated); next Stella is The Bachelor, and then Westwood (another Slightly Dated).

Ah I really enjoyed The Bachelor!

Looking forward to it, I have the book here ready, will probably start tomorrow 😀

Just finished my third Barbara Pym of the year, Jane and Prudence. It’s perhaps not as laugh out loud funny as the first two - at least I didn’t - but is infinitely sadder. And Fabian! What a rotter, but also how pathetic he is, in his pseudo tragic states lol. Hope you’re still enjoying Barbara @MyyearwithBarbara 😀

Now, back to Stella and The Bachelor…

Just realised it's been an age since I posted. Life has been kind of blowing up (!) so there hasn't been as much time on here.

Latest Stella finished, #9, The Bachelor. This was a re-read actually, and I loved it just as much as the first time around. It's such a gentle take on what are actually huge things, down at the level where life is actually lived: siblings, their relationships, the differences people who come and go in our lives can make. And the irony is that it is set during WW2, which elicits only occasional mentions, mostly around the annoyance of having to blackout every night, and what food isn't available.

I was reading Read Yourself Happy by Daisy Buchanan this morning, and at one point she says:

Every time I begin a new book, I'm hoping to fall in love. I want to experience limerence - an intense infatuation with a story and its characters. My favourite books don't make me feel smart, they make me briefly stupid, as though a spell has been cast on me and I'm completely willing to submit to it.The best books convince me that something imaginary is entirely true. I want to believe.

And for me, that's the appeal of Stella's novels - each (so far!) is a perfect self-contained world, that's entirely believable for the duration of the story. In that respect, the "20th century Jane Austen" tag is bang on :)

Next up is #10, Westwood.

I love the photographs of book covers you post @Waawo

Thought you might like this beauty that arrived yesterday.

I love this thread. It is informative, a feast for the eyes, and probably most important of all; it encourages me to read. Thanks for starting it @Waawo.

Ah yes, those original Virago covers are fab! 😃

I know nothing of EH Young, just had a quick look at Wikipedia though and she sounds right up my street!

I watched a play based on the book on YouTube, enjoyed it so much I ordered it from World of Books!

Thank you! Love your username! 😀

Another picture from a (kind of) Stella location today.

In My American, Amy works in a publisher's office very close to St. Paul's Cathedral.

Here she is arriving there for the first time, with her mother for company:

But when they came out of St. Paul's Station, blinking in the brilliant sunlight with Amy holding rather tightly to Mrs Beeding's plump arm, they looked across the road as they stood on the edge of the pavement and saw Rosemary Lane at once. It was the narrowest little passageway imaginable, whose old houses seemed to be leaning slightly towards one another because they were so close together, their windows like dusty old eyes 'playing owls' as children do, and a ray of sunlight striking dramatically aslant their walls. A flower-shop stood just under a beam of sunlight and a long sheaf of flowers outside looked exactly as though it were made of blue stained glass. And far above the little lane, soaring in the sunlight, was a tall white tower; and even farther above that, like a colossal dark blue mussel shell that hid half of heaven and dwarfed the hurrying people and the red 'buses and the shaking lorries and dusty vans loomed the mighty dome of the Cathedral, it's golden cross shining against the pale blue sky of summer.

That part of the City has changed utterly since this was written; not much of that time remains outside of the cathedral and churchyard itself. And there's no record of there having been a Rosemary Lane in the area. But King Edward Street does give a flavour of the narrowness of the street and preserves the view of the dome seen through a small aperture.

Just for fun, I asked ChatGPT to take my picture of St. Paul's, and that paragraph of Stella's text, and make a watercolour style image of the location in the 1930s, for a slightly different take on Amy's location.

Okay, so a day in the British Library today, to check out some of Stella's long out of print poetry.

First up, her very first published book: The Mountain Beast and other poems, which came out in 1930.

The cover of this volume is very dull, and not even original. The pages have been re-bound into this leather cover, which is quite unusual I'd have thought for a British Library copy, which after all are supposed to be deposited here on publication. There is a second copy of this book at the library which lives in Yorkshire, I may order that anyway for another visit and see what format that one is in.

The blue title page is the original cover - it seems like all three early volumes of poetry were printed at the same place and in a very similar format.

Here is one of the more modern poems from the volume:

FLOWER CONVERSATIONS

"Where's the wild child who played here yesterday?
The honeysuckle child, dancing with favoured winds?"

"Thank you; she was my daughter. Hot hands took her,
And cut her down,and carried her away.

"And I am told, by a bee who saw it happen,
She bled, in a tall glass vase, till the afternoon,
And then, in a cackle of red-faced, eating women,
She died in a swoon."

"Oh, in that stagnant air her spirit failed?"

"Yes, for a slow miasma, coloured green,
And pricked with words—'cancer,' 'three operations,'
'Only fifteen guineas,' 'they say the Queen'—

"Crept to her honeyed knees; and though she shrieked,
Writhing, they thought she danced in graceful pride,
And left her there. The bee hummed loud for help—
Her tiny ghost gave up; the flower-child died."

What a great use of Chat GPT @Waawo I don't have a very good mind's eye so I struggle with imaging places when they are described in books. I'm going to give that a go!

Just finished The Greengage Summer by Rumer Goddden in between Stella - what a fantastic novel! Written in the fifties, set just after The Great War. I'm amazed at how modern it seems. I believe there's a film version which I may check out. I could totally imagine Keira Knightly in her younger days playing Joss in a Merchant Ivory type production.

[Just googled and in fact Susannah York actually played Joss in the film, which was made in 1961]

Happy to hear you liked it, @Waawo - we did it as a Rather Dated book a couple of years ago and iirc it got the thumbs up from pretty much everyone.

The film pops up occasionally on TV so you may be able to catch it (it’s probably downloadable but I’m just a dinosaur who still watches things in real time 😂) Susannah York looks far too old for the role and Kenneth More isn’t really very much as I imagined Elliot but he was a star at the time so 🤷‍♀️. They stay reasonably close to the plot. Apparently Rumer Godden hated it.

Interesting article here….

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54526146

Just read a synopsis of the film. Main difference I guess - stop reading anyone who doesn’t want a massive SPOILER! - is that Paul dies falling from the drainpipe rather than being killed by Elliot. Presumably that was studio rules, like in the Olivier film of Rebecca: if he had been a killer in the film he would have had to get his comeuppance in the same film, which would have meant showing that he was captured etc. I had no idea those rules lasted as long as the sixties though!

Yes, exactly re the spoiler!

Great article @Terpsichore, thanks for the link!

I've just read the first quarter of Four French Holidays by Anne Hall (published 2023) which is about the novel and the real hotel it's based on, which brings the story up to date regarding the identity of the thief!

[This book is how I came to Godden in the first place: part 4 is about a holiday in France that Stella took, but I'm working my way there gradually, reading the other three novels and parts 1-3 of the book first!]

Hugh Scofield (he of the BBC article you linked) also contributes an introduction, part of which I've pictured.