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Women in Wartime
Aug. 31st, 2012 12:00 amMar 2012
Westwood - Stella Gibbons - Vintage, 2011
* * * *
There is a general belief that Stella Gibbons only wrote one book, but that it was a good one. This is Cold Comfort Farm, a fabulous satire that brutally skewers the pretensions of the late Victorian rural romance and which should be on the syllabus as a necessary corrective for any students who have been forced to endure a Thomas Hardy novel. However, it is not true - Gibbons went on to write some twenty more books that were reasonably popular in their time but which have not been reprinted until now.
On the evidence of Westwood, it is hard to see why. While not the best written book in the world, it makes some interesting observations of wartime London and, more importantly, it has an unusual focus on feminine concerns.
( Read more... )
Westwood - Stella Gibbons - Vintage, 2011
* * * *
There is a general belief that Stella Gibbons only wrote one book, but that it was a good one. This is Cold Comfort Farm, a fabulous satire that brutally skewers the pretensions of the late Victorian rural romance and which should be on the syllabus as a necessary corrective for any students who have been forced to endure a Thomas Hardy novel. However, it is not true - Gibbons went on to write some twenty more books that were reasonably popular in their time but which have not been reprinted until now.
On the evidence of Westwood, it is hard to see why. While not the best written book in the world, it makes some interesting observations of wartime London and, more importantly, it has an unusual focus on feminine concerns.
( Read more... )