My ‘Unnecessary Rankings!‘ series have quickly become my favourite blog posts to write, and I love reading your comments – sometimes in agreement, but usually not, and that’s the most fun. Of all the authors I’ve done so far, Stella Gibbons has the widest range – i.e. some of her novels are all-time favourites, and some are unbearable trash.
As I put this together, I realised I’d read fewer than I thought – and she was very prolific. So it’s only ranking eight of her 30 or so books. Let’s treat this more of a way to find out what I SHOULD be reading… recommendations, please.
8. Beside the Pearly Water (1954)
This feels like one of the worst books I’ve ever read, let alone Gibbons’ worst. It’s based on an idea that doesn’t make any sense and is worked out with frustrating stupidity. An attempt to stay up-to-date that truly didn’t work.
7. Here Be Dragons (1956)
There are elements of Here Be Dragons that I really enjoyed, particularly the heroine getting a job in a café and seeing that world – but the rest didn’t arrest my attention particularly. A theme I’ll return to is that Gibbons is fantastic in general but very bad at romance storylines.
6. Nightingale Wood (1938)
A lovely Cinderella-style story that reminded me quite a lot of the scenes from I Capture the Castle where Cassandra and her family visit their rich neighbours. The individual characters haven’t stayed with me, but the atmosphere has.
5. Bassett (1934)
The first half of this novel is absolutely sublime – two incompatible spinsters decide to set up a boarding house together. It’s hilarious, and just the right side of outright farce. I lapped it up. And then… the second half weirdly transfers to a love triangle between three very tedious young neighbours. Apparently that half is autobiographical, and it is not at all interesting – Bassett is so high because the first half is so delightful.
4. Westwood (1946)
Gibbons in slightly more poignant mode – the introduction to my edition, by Lynne Truss, says: “If Cold Comfort Farm is Gibbons’ Pride and Prejudice then Westwood is her Persuasion.” I think that’s a very astute observation – the humour is still there, but this is a more sombre, heartfelt novel.
3. Enbury Heath (1935)
I’ll race to any novel about house moves, and the first third of Enbury Heath is about siblings setting up a little cottage together with a small inheritance – and jettisoning the advice of their pestering aunts and uncles. The rest of the novel didn’t quite match that high for me, but I really enjoyed my time with this one.
2. Miss Linsey and Pa (1936)
Gosh, I love this book! Miss Linsey and her dad move to be near relatives but aren’t welcomed in their home – so move to a horrible flat in a run-down building. Miss Linsey works in the home of some thinly-disguised Bloomsbury types, and Gibbons has great fun mocking them. The whole cast of characters are wonderful, and I think it’s Gibbons’ greatest success at combining pacing, humour, and pathos.
1. Cold Comfort Farm (1932)
I think Gibbons is a good example of the most famous book also being the best. Cold Comfort Farm is such a tour de force, quite unlike any of her other books, and she fuses the madcap cast of characters with endless energy – whether they are bitter, annoying, good-intentioned or witless. Having Flora as the breezy, unsentimental outsider is perfect. Unmatched and unmatchable.