Sharp and sweet

     "She had kept her brain exercised by reading heavyish books, which might not always be truly wise but at least were not those meringues of the intellect ...- novels."
     You could do worse than indulge in some literary iles flottantes by reading Stella Gibbons' 1938 novel Nightingale Wood. Young, penniless widow Viola comes to live with her dour in-laws in their dull house and despairs of having a life, but then she meets Victor Spring, rich, handsome, fast and engaged. Will our Cinderella ever get her Prince Charming? Well, her sister-in-law Tina (she of the 'heavyish books') falls for the wonderfully named Saxon, the family chauffeur, which stirs things up no end at home, and after dramatic events featuring characters who range from the 'slumocky' to the smart - class is an important theme and one played out with the right degree of emphasis - Viola's fate is finally settled.
     Without quite the eccentric perfection of Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbons' first novel, and one that would be very hard to better) it is warm, funny, and full of delightfully knowing authorial comment on the action. With the modernity of its time, and marked by a degree of realism about its central characters' faults which shifts it out of the pure fairy tale category, it's bright and stylish and a lot of fun.

Comments

[Nicola]

This sounds right up my street. Beautiful cover. I've only read Cold Comfort Farm, didn't even know Gibbons had written other books.

[Dark Puss]

Nicola, Gibbons was a prolific writer with more than 20 novels, collections of poetry and I think at least one play. She wrote two sequels to Cold Comfort Farm neither of which I have read but I suspect they aren't nearly as good since you never (I mean I never) hear about them.

[B MacLeod]

Yes, I feel the same ... must get a copy.

[Elaine]

Am just reading this and loving it

[Phil]

I read them years and years ago after reading Cold Comfort Farm; they didn't engage me so well as CCF - I dimly remember that they seemed to carp on about bureaucracy rather a lot (they were immediately post war and she must have been fed up with it). I keep meaning to revisit them though and I love Nightingale Wood.

[Cornflower]

It is fun, isn't it.
CCF is just so 'right' that I'm wary of taking the gloss off it by reading sequels which don't quite measure up.