2010 July 14 » Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

Summer Class 2010, Day 7: Cold Comfort Farm Intro

Posted by Anastasia on July 14, 2010 No Responses »

Jul 142010

Previously: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6

Days left: 12

Can I just say right off the bat that I LOVED Cold Comfort Farm? The beginning is a little rough but soon enough it becomes WONDERFUL and I can’t wait to actually write my review instead of just thinking about it and wishing I had enough energy to write more than one post a day. ~~I saw something nasty in the woodshed!~~ Ahem.

In today’s class we did a somewhat roundabout introduction to Stella Gibbons and Cold Comfort Farm. Roundabout as in we went off on several tangents about other authors and there was decidedly less of actual Stella Gibbons content than I had hoped for. But I’ll try to put something together for you all–

Stella Gibbons

Stella Gibbons came from a dysfunctional family (my prof called them “weird”); he father was an alcoholic, opium addicted drama queen who spent all the family’s money and didn’t make Stella or her mother’s life easy. Luckily, I suppose, he dies pretty early on in Stella’s life, soon after her mother died. Stella was left an orphan, something that shows up in CCF.
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Summer Class, Day 6: The Last Bit of Wodehouse

Posted by Anastasia on July 14, 2010 No Responses »

Jul 142010

Previously: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5

Days left: 13

Sorry this is a day late! I felt lazy yesterday.

In yesterday’s class we talked yet again about Wodehouse and his books. It’s surprising how much you can glean from a humor book, but apparently my prof is all into Wodehouse and that’s why we spent three days on him instead of what was supposed to be two. So!

Wodehouse and women. The women in his life were the ones that helped him stay on the path of not being a ninny, and so you’d think he’d be treating them favorably in his books. Well…he doesn’t really. Not that he’s mean about women– Wodehouse is never mean, or cruel, or any of those things– but his books are a decidedly male-driven world. By that I mean the focus of his books are always on the male characters, with the female characters regulated to secondary roles.
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