(no subject)

[tree_and_leaf]

Anyone else get massive "Always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm" vibes off this (i.e., I am not reminded of Cold Comfort Farm, but of what it's satirising?)

Comments

[caulkhead]

How could you not! There's something distinctly Mybuggian about that cover, too.

[tree_and_leaf]

I hadn't thought of that, but... yes.

[nineveh_uk]

Galactic-scale vibes.

[naraht]

Oh dear, yes.

[17catherines]

My mother tells me that my father's stories about growing up in an impoverished village in Southern Italy always remind her of Cold Comfort Farm. My father doesn't argue with this assertion.

I find it a little alarming, personally!

[oursin]

Better than it sounds, but I thought it was a bit of a fix-up piece: 4 (as I recall) short stories/novellas rather loosely connected.

[aella_irene]

I'm assuming that her brother went mad because of Something In The Woodshed.

[tree_and_leaf]

Mind you, part of me now wants Starkadders In Space (a terrifying thought).

[tree_and_leaf]

Eeek!

[tree_and_leaf]

I'm glad to hear that, but I don't think I'll add it to my tbr pile, all the same (particularly given said tbr pile's size....)

[tree_and_leaf]

Well, of course! What else?

[aella_irene]

"Moll from the vicarage, aye, and Casey from the astronaut's rest, and Xylqi from that light freighter, yes my son, I know."

[lilliburlero]

With a dash of As I Lay Dying.

[17catherines]

"They used to hit each other with rocks for fun"

There are also all the stories of cousins who are maybe not quite so bright because poppy seed syrup was considered a soother for babies, and maybe was used a little too often...

[tree_and_leaf]

I have to admit that I've never read that (though I have just googled it, and I think I see what you mean...)

[tree_and_leaf]

That sounds a little like the farm Eric Newby hides on as an escaped POW, wonderfully described in "Love and War in the Appennines" (though he is also very conscious of how hard their lives were and very grateful to them for the risks they took).

[tree_and_leaf]

*sporfles*

[zeborah]

I read Cold Comfort Farm without ever, I believe, having read the kind of thing it's a parody of. This made for a confusing read. It didn't help that before picking it up I'd assumed (based on the title which reminded me of 'Brave New World' and 'Animal Farm') that it was a futuristic dystopia. Eventually I decided it was a gothic comedy.

[holli]

The bit I was not expecting was that it's actually set 10-20 years past when it was written, and assumes a videophone in (I think, haven't read it in a while) the village post office and ubiquitous plane ownership.

[tree_and_leaf]

I don't think I've ever read any of the things Gibbons was taking off- but they're sufficiently present tropes in British culture even yet that I got the point all the same.

[tree_and_leaf]

And the Anglo-Nicaraguan war, in which Charles Saw Too Much!

The idea that plane ownership is going to become ubiquitous seems to have been floating about at the time - it's satirised in "Murder Must Advertise", where a rival ad agency has come up with a scheme to save up coupons from cigarette packets, and Wimsey is challenged to come up with something equally attention grabbing. ("But not aeroplanes. The country's not ready to be overrun with private planes, and young people's fathers are starting to complain.")

[tree_and_leaf]

I think the video phone was in a public telephone box, but same difference, really.