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You Should Read This: Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

English novelist Stella Gibbons. Photo to accompany review of Cold Comfort Farm.
Cold Comfort Farm was Stella Gibbons' first novel but not her last - 22 other literary works followed it.
Another adequate movie that was a brilliant book. I came to Cold Comfort Farm having seen it referenced somewhere as a comic novel. It was that, in spades.

What: Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons was published in 1932. It’s a send-up of all the books of the time romanticizing the rural life. It references many of the popular novels of its time, adding a layer of appreciation if you’re familiar with that work, but it isn’t necessary to know that much order to enjoy it.

Who: People who enjoy English humor at its subtlest will particularly enjoy Cold Comfort Farm, as will those familiar with the literature of the time. And, if you are a woman who has ever been hit on by a particular type of academic male, you will recognize Mr. Mybug and glory in the very very accurate portrayal of a man soaked in nature’s fecund blessing.

Why: If you’re considering writing humor, this is an excellent book to take a look at for its myriad of different strategies, including a very accurate send-up of the ways dialect are often portrayed. At the same time, it remains an interesting and engaging story.

When: Read this when you want a little humor and charm. Read it when you have been too long among the self-important, and need to see them skewered a little.

Where and how: Don’t read it in the woodshed; there’s something nasty in there.

#sfwapro

4 Responses

  1. Yay Cold Comfort Farm!

    …But I loved the movie as well as the book.

    …One thing I haven’t seen people talk about is the ways in which the story echoes _Emma_. Some day I’ll write a blog entry about that.

  2. I love this book! I thoroughly enjoyed the writer’s commentary threaded through the text. It was also a great story and when they made it a movie, they did a good job. Thanks for the reminder!

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You Should Read This: An Appreciation of Maya Angelou

President Barack Obama presenting Angelou with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, 2011
This picture makes me happy. What a well-deserved honor.
I first read Maya Angelou at twelve or thirteen, with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I was a white Midwestern girl with an academic and a journalist as parents and the world Angelou described was so different from my own experience that it helped me learn early that there were outlooks beyond my own.

I read Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus and Rubyfruit Jungle around the same time and in each case, the narrator stayed with me for years, was like a friend I’d met at summer camp or some other event, never seen again but well-remembered all the same.

Later I’d come to her poetry at a time when my ears were ready to drink it in. Her voice was sharp and observant, outspoken and nuanced all at once. Here’s one of my favorites among her poems, “I Rise.”

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Learning of her death this morning was a blow. She was bold and wonderful and eloquent, all that a poet should be. She spoke about our times and testified to her experience so others could learn from it. I have a special family in her heart, made up of the writers that have shaped me. Chaucer’s there, and Joanna Russ, and so many others. I wish I’d had the chance to meet her in person.

Here’s a recent quote from her I came across this morning and love: The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

I’m glad you’re home, Maya. But oh, those of us still aching for it will miss you.

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Pages Breathing Fire: 10 Books About Dragons

Dragons, dragons, dragons – so many writers have written about them in one form or another. Here’s ten books featuring dragons for fellow lovers of the form.

  1. R.A. MacAvoy’s Tea With the Black Dragon (Kindle version) features urban fantasy and an ancient Buddhist dragon in search of spiritual teaching. Two of my favorite characters of all time occur in the form of the dragon and his teacher, Martha. There’s a sequel, Twisting the Rope (Kindle version) but it doesn’t quite live up to the magic of the first book.
  2. James Maxey’s trilogy, Bitterwood (Kindle version), Dragonforge (Kindle version) and Dragonseed (Kindle version),. This unique take on dragons has characters engaging enough to make you want to follow them forever.
  3. Tooth and Claw (Kindle version) by Jo Walton, is an awesome novel of manners featuring dragons. Smart and funny.
  4. Naomi Novik has taken dragons and mashed them up with Horatio Hornblower in her Temeraire series: In His Majesty’s Service (Kindle version), His Majesty’s Dragon (Kindle version), Throne of Jade (Kindle version), Black Powder War (Kindle version), Empire of Ivory (Kindle version), Victory of Eagles (Kindle version), and Tongues of Serpents (Kindle version).
  5. I first encountered Gordon R. Dickson’s The Dragon and the George (out of print and no Kindle version) in high school. This story of life from a dragon’s point of view is a solid fantasy read and one of the classics.
  6. No list like this would be complete without Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels, which feature not just dragons but miniature ones in the form of fire lizards. My favorite of the books remain the Harper Hall trilogy, Dragonsong (no Kindle version), Dragonsinger (no Kindle version), and Dragondrums (no Kindle version).
  7. Another classic is J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit (Kindle version), in which the dragon Smaug plays a crucial role.
  8. A stuffed dragon is one of the entrancing side characters of Charmed Life (only available in Kindle version) by Diane Wynne Jones. All of Jones’ Chrestomanci books (or anything by her, really) are worth picking up.
  9. Michael Swanwick’s The Iron Dragon’s Daughter (no Kindle version) and The Dragons of Babel (Kindle version) feature gritty industrial dragons in one of the greatest fantasy settings of all time, full of danger and delight.
  10. Last but certainly not least, many of us are looking forward to George R.R. Martin’s Dances with Dragons (no Kindle version listed yet).

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