Literature: Stella Gibbons' 'Cold Comfort Farm'

This is a novel to be enjoyed and discussed on more than one level. It's a feelgood, fairy tale love story; it's a satire on the life and times of its author, Stella Gibbons; it's a parody of every earnest tale of country life - it even looks ahead from the 1930s to our own times of Skype, rundown railways and women clergy. Cold Comfort Farm encourages us to ask questions: What is the difference between satire and parody? Could an irreverent novel like this succeed today? And most of all, what was the 'something nasty in the woodshed' that traumatised Aunt Ada Doom?

Some aspects we shall study include:

- Stella Gibbons - not a one-hit wonder but an accomplished journalist, novelist and poet.

- Parodies and satire - what is Gibbons making fun of?

Readers can enjoy her adventures whether or not they have read Thomas Hardy, D H Lawrence or the 'loam and lovechild' bestsellers of the 1920s and 30s, Gibbons own time, but looking more closely at her parodies of their subject-matter and style can only add to that enjoyment. You may even go back to classic literature with a fresh eye.