Talk:Cold Comfort Farm

message: ==Broken link==
Love the movie; anyway seems like the biographer's web site is down (re-directs to ad site). A quick google search did not turn up anything useful as replacement. I noted the broken link in the first reference (1-3 are broken), but wasn't sure what format was best so please correct as I did not see a standard format in the help pages. Thanks. Pthorson 02:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

message: The idea of Sussex (one of the home counties between London and Brighton) as a remote place of widespread festering rural ignorance cut off from the modern world is almost certainly itself a joke (running against more ordinary expectations of Cumbria or northern Wales etc.), though I don't really know how to best phrase an explanation. AnonMoos (talk) 08:33, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: But remember it was written in the 1930s. before the Yuppification of Sussex: the South Downs and Weald had patches that were pretty isolated. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 10:15, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the point is that Gibbons is parodying novels which characterize places like Sussex as like that (out of strange ignorance or uncaring), when so far as I know even in the 'thirties they weren't.  It's supposed to be ridiculous.Artemis-Arethusa (talk) 00:33, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I have lived in Sussex for most of my life, and let me tell you that parts of it are still mired in dark medieval superstition such as "applied kinesiology", "muscle testing", "homeopathy", "Bach flower remedies", "Reiki" etc. etc. Oddly, perhaps, these are to be found more often in the major urban centres such as the "city" of "Brighton 'n' Hove". Hundovir (talk) 20:11, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: deepest darkest Sussex

message: I think the Solutions section needs a proper work over. Some things are inaccurate and others aren't solutions or not purposefully done by Flora at all. She didn't plan for Urk to marry Mariam, that was just a natural byproduct of Elfine's engagement. And She didn't plan on Mr. Mybug marrying Rennet, that was just a byproduct of his character traits and his own pursuit of Flora allowing the chance meeting. It's possible the whole section should be scrapped, doesn't this constitute as spoilers? Anyway, it should have a different heading and preface. It could also be broken up into something like "Flora's Solutions" and "What Happened to Everyone Else," because "Urk: forgets his desire for Elfine and marries Meriam." is not a solution. And Adam going to live at Hautcouture Hall was Adam's idea.
Also, none of the gentry are listened under characters. You'd need Richard Hawk-Monitor, Mrs. Hawk-Monitor and Joan Hawk-Monitor. And poor Claud Hart-Harris isn't listed anywhere. If you're going to list all the cows then you should list a character who speaks and is mentioned more than once when not present (on the telephone and through telegrams). And considering a lot of Flora's efforts go into getting Richard to propose to Elfine, not listing his character is silly.
A better way to list characters is by their natural location (London, Cold Comfort Farm, Howling, Hautcouture Hall, etc.) and within that list, if people cared to, they could be listed by order of appearance. 74.71.120.162 (talk) 13:10, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Flora's solutions and Character Listing

message: I've just started reading George Eliot's Adam Bede and the first thing that has struck me is that it must have been a strong influence on Cold Comfort Farm (rural setting, modernisation of traditional agricuture, characters called "Adam" and "Seth," Methodist preachers, etc.). I don't have time at the moment to look for published sources, but I'm sure that I'm not the first to notice this connection, so maybe someone would like to add some sourced content about this to this article? Phil Bridger (talk) 21:23, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adam Bede 

message: "Bohemianism" is misspelled in Note 1. 
03:59, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Notes

message: Is it just me or are there several striking parodies of J Alfred Prufrock ?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.96.58.212 (talk) 18:36, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  T S Elliot 

message: I've deleted (1) the thing about Gibbons' description of Mr Mybug being seen by some people as anti-semitic and (2) her attitudes to Jews being archaic. I was puzzled by both these points when I read the WP article and I don't think either of them stands up to scrutiny.
(1) The reference given was to The Feminine Middlebrow Novel by Nicola Humble, specifically to a footnote on p.30 which relates to Flora's discovery that My Mybug's name is actually Meyerburg. It reads, 'A fact, we are told with slyly subtle anti-Semitism, not calculated to raise [Flora's] spirits.' Given that CCF was written in the 1930s, isn't it rather more likely that Flora's spirits were in fact depressed by the thought that Mr Mybug may be German?
(2) The only specific mention I can recall of Jews being mentioned is early in the book where Mrs Smiling buys a bra from a "Jew-shop". This had no negative connotations in the 1930s - if anything the opposite.
There's an interesting discussion of both points here: http://whileaway.livejournal.com/83975.html. I feel that the assertions of anti-semitism create a false picture both of CCF as a book and Stella Gibbons as a person. Or is there some more persuasive evidence to contradict this opinion? OldSpot61 (talk) 23:47, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I just read the book a few weeks ago. The "Jew-shop" line really puzzled me, and I haven't been able to find many other contemporary examples, though Gibbons uses it again in Nightingale Wood (which has a couple other antisemitic lines besides). But the ones I did find were definitely intended to be insulting, applied to non-Jewish shops that were suspiciously successful. One of her other books features "Arnold Levinsky," a very rude Jew with an enormous nose, and there's a line in Miss Linsey and Pa about the son not liking Jews. On the Meyerbug thing -- I think people miss it out of lack of familiarity with this particular stereotype, which has fallen out of fashion. But compare Svengali and other contemporaries -- Ashkenazi Jews were portrayed as sexually voracious and immoral in their pursuits, especially toward gentiles (their ritual law was said to permit endless sexual and fiscal advantage of non-Jews), and as rich and intellectually dominant. Meyerbug is more complicated, though -- his particular (sexist)  nonsense is funny and effective satire. GordonGlottal (talk) 02:29, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mr Mybug 

message: This section is useless, but more than useless: it adds to the reader's confusion instead of relieving it. The diagram is totally indecipherable, with no clue as to what the red and blue lines mean—although that is by no means its most serious defect. ALL the diagram does is confirm the assertion that "The interrelations of the characters are complex", but it only compounds the complexity, not in any way clarifying it.
I think this section should be removed until someone can come up with a diagram that helps rather than hinders understanding the complex relationships. —104.244.192.86 (talk) 01:15, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Family tree 

message: He's specifically given as singing a song learnt for the wedding of George IV. Assuming this to be the legitimate marriage of 1795 and novel being post 1946 (Anglo-Ashanti war)he is over 150 years old even if he learnt the song in his infancy which is, perhaps , less likely given the bawdy nature of the song. 82.4.241.172 (talk) 14:06, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adam Lambsbreath's age