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 novel #19, The Weather at Tregulla (1962).

This is pretty bleak. For me anyway. Art always exists at the intersection between the work and the person experiencing it. The setup in this story - rural location, the fascination and ultimately conflict between age-old local families and incoming "arty" types is something I experienced first hand as a child. Ditto the desperate desire to leave said rural area and head to the bright lights...

Anyway, Una is a nineteen years old and desperate to get to London to pursue a career on the stage. The somewhat unfortunate death of her mother, and subsequent loss of the mother's income, means that her plans are scuppered and she is condemned to remain on the farm in her Cornish village.

Things take a turn for the better though when a nearby cottage is rented by an artist, Terence, and his sister Emmeline. This pair are pretty bohemian and I have to say I recognise them. Growing up on a farm in the Celtic fringes, there were plenty of people like this, with kids called things like Merlin and Zed, and seemingly no "real" work to do: writers, painters, musicians, who all bumped along in a kind of marijuana infused hippy lifestyle. Terence and Emmeline appear similar, and rumours start to spread about how the last place they rented was left trashed, and they seem to be doing their best to spoil this place too.

Terence is an absolute magnet for Una of course; but more interestingly, local boy Navy sailor Barney is the star attraction for Emmeline, who may not be quite as enamoured of the hippy lifestyle as her brother is.

Things take a darker turn, as they nearly always do: when it comes to communities like this, of locals and incomers with vastly different outlooks on life, alas "never the 'twain shall meet" is so often the case.

Reading other reviews, this book isn't massively popular, even amongst people who love Stella and her London novels in particular. I think that's probably because most of the characters are actually pretty unlikeable. I wouldn't say it's one of my top reads; but for someone who grew up and spent their entire life in London, I can recognise that Stella has really captured the tensions of the situation.

Next up: The Wolves Were in the Sledge.