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 :)

Hm, I don't know. At the beginning I had planned to. I have mentioned a few times so far my favourites as I've gone along; and I recognise that in any long career (in any entertainment industry, TV, music and films are the same I think) nobody can sustain their best quality work throughout.

But this whole thing started with the idea of reading and considering an author's entire oeuvre as a whole, so I think I'm coming to the opinion that an absolute ranking book-by-book might miss the point?

To the British Library tonight to read Stella's first short story collection, Roaring Tower and Other Stories, published in 1937 (although almost all of the stories were published in magazines first). First time for me in Humanities 2 tonight which a couple of people have told me they prefer to Hum 1, but I remain unconvinced. The higher ceiling in some areas is nice I guess. It was certainly busy at 4pm when I arrived, very few free desks.

There are fifteen stories in the book; I'm not as much of a fan of short stories as novels, and some of these are very short, which means almost no real story arc and deep character development. They are though an eclectic mix, some are fairly obvious, some much more thought provoking. There's no real humour; it's like Stella was using the short story format to try out other things.

Some of the stories definitely feel like the kind of thing that could be used on Tales of the Unexpected or Mystery Theater. Some are definitely fairy tale inspired. But some are just perfect little miniatures, that give about as much as you could expect from something that takes 10-15 minutes to read.

My favourites are probably Snowbound, an almost Dickensian tale of a couple who because of a broken down car end up spending Christmas in a very different way to how they had planned; "Single, St. Albans, First Class" which is a strange and macabre tale of strangers on a train; and The Visiting Moon, a melancholic tale of regret at lost lives un-lived, in which a visiting old-girl giving a speech at her alma mater, on meeting a young girl watching a secret and forbidden love playing netball, reminisces about her own time at the school.

But my favourite quote comes from the titular story, Roaring Tower:

Alas! the bitterest lesson I have since learned is how gently and remorselessly Time steals even our dearest wounds from us.

(But that may just be a symptom of getting old!)

The last pictures show the cunning protective box that the book is stored in; I believe this is something made by the BL, nothing to do with the original publication.

Back to the BL the following night, for Beside the Pearly Water, published 1954 and the last volume of Stella's short stories.

Another first time in a Reading Room, this time the Rare Books and Manuscripts room on Floor 2. I liked this room at first - it's larger, and feels much more expansive, especially at the edges where you're not underneath the 3rd floor, but the ceiling slopes upwards to the top of the building. However, between about 6pm and 8pm, the staff at the desk were very noisy which was a bit annoying!

The title story in this one, Beside the Pearly Water, at over eighty pages, isn't really a short story, it's heading towards novella territory. It's good, although the ending - and I mean the ending, as in, in the last two paragraphs - is completely shocking!

Love the language that crops up in Stella's stories:

From the air, the Firth of Clyde looked like a limitless sheet of pale cooling jam, rippling thickly, silkily, when the wind struck it, just as the surface of a still-warm preserve does when the pan is tilted.

…in the beautiful, dark, weary flesh she had worn over her spirit for thirty-seven years.

There are eight other stories which are more traditional short story length. My favourite is probably Listen to the Magnolias, about a middle aged middle class widow who is stressing about American soldiers being billeted in her now too-large, too-empty house, who turn out to be not at all what she expected.

There are now only two books left on the list that are out of print and are harder to get hold of: Collected Poems, which is at the BL and I have mentally lined up for my next visit; and The Wolves Were in the Sledge, which I've just bought in a timely eBay auction. Everything else still to be read is generally available from Vintage or Dean Street Press. The end of the year suddenly doesn't seem that far off!

Feels like I've fallen a bit behind with the Stella novels. So the next one has arrived and is ready to go. The mistake on the graphic cover has finally been fixed in this printing! White Sand and Grey Sand is the correct title as per the hardback edition, but it was wrong on the graphic cover for ages...

Those old and new front covers suggest two completely different books! So is it set in Oxford or at the coast???

The book is set in Brugge. The cover artist of the old book has used a bit of license to make the spire of the Church of Our Lady slightly more prominent - I've attached a pic of the city that's reasonably close to the cover though.

The new cover, it looks as though the artist only read literally the first scene of the book ;)

Although grey sand is mentioned in that first scene, I had assumed that the title referred to the children's song, that itself refers to the sand used in pen pots - white when new, grey when adulterated by ink. The book starts during the German invasion during World War 2, and so themes of change and darkening seem appropriate. But who knows, I'm only in chapter one, maybe what the title means will become obvious through the telling!

I couldn't sleep last night and so read your thread @Waawo from beginning to end which meant-half way through-I didn't want to go to sleep!

Anyway, I just want to say how much I have enjoyed your top notch elegant reviews.

I feel sure that you must be a literary professional of some kind and, if not, you could give lessons to those who are!

Thanks.

Thank you, what a kind thing to say 😀

Not any kind of literary professional, I do a very dull job that’s nothing to do with books. Perhaps that’s why books are my escape.