Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Virago (2009), Paperback, 400 pages
Description
A sly and satirical fairytale by the author of Cold Comfort Farm Unavailable for decades, Stella Gibbons's Nightingale Wood is a delightfully modern romance ripe for rediscovery by the many fans of Cold Comfort Farm. Poor, lovely Viola has been left penniless and alone after her late husband's demise, and is forced to live with his family in their joyless home. Its occupants are nearly insufferable: Mr. Withers is a tyrannical old miser; Mrs. Withers dismisses her as a common shop girl; and Viola's sisters-in-law, Madge and Tina, are too preoccupied with their own troubles to give her much thought. Only the prospect of the upcoming charity ball can lift her spirits-especially as Victor Spring, the local prince charming, will be there. But Victor's intentions towards the young widow are, in short, not quite honorable.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Kasthu
Viola is newly widowed when she’s invited by her husband’s family to come live with them in Sible Pelden. There’s Mr. Wither, who’s a fantastic bore; Mrs. Wither, who doesn’t quite care for her new daughter-in-law (due to the fact that she’s the daughter of a shop owner); and Tina and
One of the things that Stella Gibbons is famous for was her sense of humor, and nowhere is this more apparent than in Nightingale Wood. Stella Gibbons’s humor is a little more maniacally funny, but the characters and plot of this one never fail to be entertaining.
There’s a very surreal, Midsummer Night’s Dream-esque feeling to this book—all kinds of people slipping away to the woods to conduct love affairs, licit and otherwise. So, often, this book reads like a fairy tale—a fairy tale with a twist, especially since the two Prince Charmings in this book doesn’t always have the purest intentions…
The characterizations in this novel are especially strong. Viola isn’t quite what you’d expect from a woman who married someone twenty years older than she; but she’s all the more interesting for that because there’s so much more to her personality than meets the eye. Mr. Wither is, as described above, a frightful bore; Madge is a middle-aged woman who’s never totally grown up (as seen in her childlike delight over her new dog Polo); and Tina is a woman just dying to be loved. Well, she gets her wish, but not in the way she expected... the only character I didn’t tally love (for good and for worse) was Victor Spring, who was a bit stereotypical; and every time Saxon, the chauffer, appeared, I kept thinking of Thomas from Upstairs, Downstairs. Also, the plot moved a bit too quickly in some places. However, this is a well-written, funny novel; I actually found myself guffawing out loud in several places. This book is definitely worth a read if you enjoy this type of novel. I’m almost ashamed to admit that I haven’t read Stella Gibbons’s other, better-known book, Cold Comfort Farm; a problem that I should remedy as soon as possible.
Show More
Madge, their middle-aged daughters who have never quite grown up and are waiting for something to happen to them. The story follows these characters and others over the course of a year, the highlight being a charity ball at which a local eligible bachelor named Victor Spring will be present.One of the things that Stella Gibbons is famous for was her sense of humor, and nowhere is this more apparent than in Nightingale Wood. Stella Gibbons’s humor is a little more maniacally funny, but the characters and plot of this one never fail to be entertaining.
There’s a very surreal, Midsummer Night’s Dream-esque feeling to this book—all kinds of people slipping away to the woods to conduct love affairs, licit and otherwise. So, often, this book reads like a fairy tale—a fairy tale with a twist, especially since the two Prince Charmings in this book doesn’t always have the purest intentions…
The characterizations in this novel are especially strong. Viola isn’t quite what you’d expect from a woman who married someone twenty years older than she; but she’s all the more interesting for that because there’s so much more to her personality than meets the eye. Mr. Wither is, as described above, a frightful bore; Madge is a middle-aged woman who’s never totally grown up (as seen in her childlike delight over her new dog Polo); and Tina is a woman just dying to be loved. Well, she gets her wish, but not in the way she expected... the only character I didn’t tally love (for good and for worse) was Victor Spring, who was a bit stereotypical; and every time Saxon, the chauffer, appeared, I kept thinking of Thomas from Upstairs, Downstairs. Also, the plot moved a bit too quickly in some places. However, this is a well-written, funny novel; I actually found myself guffawing out loud in several places. This book is definitely worth a read if you enjoy this type of novel. I’m almost ashamed to admit that I haven’t read Stella Gibbons’s other, better-known book, Cold Comfort Farm; a problem that I should remedy as soon as possible.
Show Less
LibraryThing member BeyondEdenRock
Nightingale Wood is a fairytale says the cover, and yes it is.
The story of Cinderella, set in the 1930s, still recognisable but twisted into something new and something just a little bit subversive.
Viola is a penniless young widow. She is pretty and charming, but sadly her circumstances force her
The Withers family is terribly middle class and stifling respectable, and though Mr and Mrs Wither do not consider Viola, a former shopgirl, to be quite of their class they know their duty. Mr Withers is most concerned about Viola’s finances and his wife about her family’s perception and position in local society.
Their unmarried, middle-aged daughters are a little less concerned. Madge wants little more than a dog and to be part of the country set, while Tina is quite besotted by Saxon, the family chauffeur.
The family and its interactions are presented with gentle wit and humour, but the sadness is just below the surface. Sadness at a lack of understanding and at a class system that keeps them all in their places and allows so much potential in the women of the household to be wasted.
A few miles away live the Spring family. Mrs Spring is proud of he successful son Victor, ambitious for him, and delighted that he is virtually engaged to an eminently suitable young woman. Her bookish young niece, Hetty is less impressed.
Viola’s arrival, and her certainty that Victor must be her Prince Charming after she dances with him at a ball, is the spark that changes everything. Lives change, conventions are broken and opportunities are seized.
Stella Gibbons tells a lovely, complex tale with all of the wit and humour you could want, and she balnces that perfectly with real understanding, real emotions, and just a light sprinkling of fairy dust.
This is the third of her novels that I have read, and I really have grown to love the way her authorial voice is always present but never obtrusive, and the wonderful trick she has of seeming to be heading down a traditional, well trodden path, only to head off somewhere different and rather more interesting at the last minute. That really is clever.
This time around her pace seemed a little slow, but it is was worth lingering because there are so many lovely details, dialogues and observations, and some telling points are made about the class system, the lack of opportunity for women and the difference that money makes
But what held everything together was wonderful characterisation, and I continued to be engaged no matter which of the diverse cast was taking centre stage. Such a wonderful variety of people, relationships, and things going on!
I willed Tina on as she took tentative steps to deft convention and make her relationship with Saxon official. I laughed as Madge entertained the huntin’, shootin’, and fishin’ brigade. I worried about Hetty’s future. And I wondered if Victor really was Prince Charming, if he was good enough for Viola.
The ending was in doubt until the very last minute, but when it arrived it was perfect and there was a little sting in the tail.
The perfect ending for a fine entertainment and a lovely piece of social comedy.
The story of Cinderella, set in the 1930s, still recognisable but twisted into something new and something just a little bit subversive.
Viola is a penniless young widow. She is pretty and charming, but sadly her circumstances force her
Show More
to move to the country to live with her in-laws.The Withers family is terribly middle class and stifling respectable, and though Mr and Mrs Wither do not consider Viola, a former shopgirl, to be quite of their class they know their duty. Mr Withers is most concerned about Viola’s finances and his wife about her family’s perception and position in local society.
Their unmarried, middle-aged daughters are a little less concerned. Madge wants little more than a dog and to be part of the country set, while Tina is quite besotted by Saxon, the family chauffeur.
The family and its interactions are presented with gentle wit and humour, but the sadness is just below the surface. Sadness at a lack of understanding and at a class system that keeps them all in their places and allows so much potential in the women of the household to be wasted.
A few miles away live the Spring family. Mrs Spring is proud of he successful son Victor, ambitious for him, and delighted that he is virtually engaged to an eminently suitable young woman. Her bookish young niece, Hetty is less impressed.
Viola’s arrival, and her certainty that Victor must be her Prince Charming after she dances with him at a ball, is the spark that changes everything. Lives change, conventions are broken and opportunities are seized.
Stella Gibbons tells a lovely, complex tale with all of the wit and humour you could want, and she balnces that perfectly with real understanding, real emotions, and just a light sprinkling of fairy dust.
This is the third of her novels that I have read, and I really have grown to love the way her authorial voice is always present but never obtrusive, and the wonderful trick she has of seeming to be heading down a traditional, well trodden path, only to head off somewhere different and rather more interesting at the last minute. That really is clever.
This time around her pace seemed a little slow, but it is was worth lingering because there are so many lovely details, dialogues and observations, and some telling points are made about the class system, the lack of opportunity for women and the difference that money makes
But what held everything together was wonderful characterisation, and I continued to be engaged no matter which of the diverse cast was taking centre stage. Such a wonderful variety of people, relationships, and things going on!
I willed Tina on as she took tentative steps to deft convention and make her relationship with Saxon official. I laughed as Madge entertained the huntin’, shootin’, and fishin’ brigade. I worried about Hetty’s future. And I wondered if Victor really was Prince Charming, if he was good enough for Viola.
The ending was in doubt until the very last minute, but when it arrived it was perfect and there was a little sting in the tail.
The perfect ending for a fine entertainment and a lovely piece of social comedy.
Show Less
LibraryThing member LyzzyBee
(26 Jan 2012)
Another charity shop buy. An engaging and absorbing but slightly odd novel – it does satirise (religion, over-use of psychology in books when it’s staring you in the face … ) as Gibbons is known for doing in her best-known work, “Cold Comfort Farm”, but can also be read
Another charity shop buy. An engaging and absorbing but slightly odd novel – it does satirise (religion, over-use of psychology in books when it’s staring you in the face … ) as Gibbons is known for doing in her best-known work, “Cold Comfort Farm”, but can also be read
Show More
‘straight’ as a country house / family novel. There ware some awkward references to Jewish people, but then again this is of its time, and it could of course be satirising the characters whose experiences are being described; it’s hard to tell. It also plays with whom our sympathies are meant to lie – the ‘heroine’ of the novel is introduced in a fairly sympathetic light, newly widowed and down on her luck, forced to move in with her forbidding in-laws, but undermined, and her sisters-in-law become less monstrous and more human. And it plays with ideas of Shakespeare and romance, too, with dashing heroes fatally undermined by their flaws, romantic woods complete with hermits, etc. So, overall intriguing and entertaining. Show Less
LibraryThing member isabelx
Civilisation as we know it is corrupt. It may be doomed; there are plenty of omens. Its foundations are rat-eaten, its towers go up unsteadily into the lowering clouds, where drone the hidden battle-planes. But it can, and does, supply its young daughters with luxuries at a price they can afford.
A delightful tale from the late 1930s, from the author of "Cold Comfort Farm". As in that book, the story starts with a young woman going to live with relatives, but Viola is a young widow moving in with her in-laws, and she is not a domineering character like Flora Post so it is someone else who turns the household upside-down.
Show More
No woman need be dowdy, or shabbily genteel. while she has a few shillings to spend on clothes, she can buy something pretty and cheerful. This may not be much, but it is something. Tomorrow we die, but at least we danced in silver shoes.A delightful tale from the late 1930s, from the author of "Cold Comfort Farm". As in that book, the story starts with a young woman going to live with relatives, but Viola is a young widow moving in with her in-laws, and she is not a domineering character like Flora Post so it is someone else who turns the household upside-down.
Show Less
LibraryThing member otterley
Fairy tale endings always have beginnings and middles that are much less promising, and Nightingale Wood, which ends with a real fairy tale wedding is no exception. This is a comedy of acute social observation, which is by no means laugh out loud. Stella Gibbons portrays many different ways in
Show More
which underoccupied women make themselves unhappy - and how they can find happier endings, sometimes with the help of men, and almost always in the most unexpected of ways. A fascinating description of semi-rural life (from the big house to the hovel, mostly via the suburban villa) this has unexpected pleasures Show Less
LibraryThing member Eliz12
Can I be alone in finding this book tedious?
Perhaps.
I'm more of one for non-fiction, but I gave it a try.
It was initially a bit amusing, then quickly became dreary - like a very bad episode of some pretentious British drama filled with self-absorbed characters who interested me not at all.
Perhaps.
I'm more of one for non-fiction, but I gave it a try.
It was initially a bit amusing, then quickly became dreary - like a very bad episode of some pretentious British drama filled with self-absorbed characters who interested me not at all.
LibraryThing member TRWhittier
Not as awesome as Cold Comfort Farm (then again, what is?), but this semi-Cinderella story is still a very enjoyable read. I did, however, find myself getting a little annoyed with the protagonists of this tale, Viola and Victor. His character is completely deplorable at first; hers is reminiscent
Show More
of a wet dishrag. But, they grow and change for the better, thank goodness, and the ending is a satisfying one :) Show Less
LibraryThing member abbottthomas
1930s chick-lit, I suppose. Do not expect to find anything of Robert Poste's child in the heroine, Viola, and, apart from the beastly Hermit, who would have fitted in quite well around the Starkadders, the characters are middle-class stereotypes. I liked the way Mr Wither, paterfamilias to the
It is intriguing that the good-looking chauffeur (a Seth character??) who inherits a huge fortune simply by being agreeable towards his employer carries what is, for him, a huge social burden by being regarded by all and sundry to have been the old bachelor's catamite. The book is generous to its characters in that almost everyone gets, if not exactly what they desire, at least their just deserts.
Show More
fearfully dull household into which Viola is thrust after the untimely death of her young husband, regards his money, seeing it as an individual with uncertain health, sometimes robust and then taking a turn for the worse. We are shown the various ways in which young women made their way in life in middle-class inter-war years Britain. Maybe finding a comfortably off husband, maybe espousing sex, left-wing ideology and 'Art' and having a somewhat uncomfortable time, or else extending their childhood by going on living with Mummy and Daddy.It is intriguing that the good-looking chauffeur (a Seth character??) who inherits a huge fortune simply by being agreeable towards his employer carries what is, for him, a huge social burden by being regarded by all and sundry to have been the old bachelor's catamite. The book is generous to its characters in that almost everyone gets, if not exactly what they desire, at least their just deserts.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Dabble58
This is probably the most fantastic book I've read in months. First - Stella Gibbons!!!! Of Cold Comfort Farm fame!!!! I loved her then, and this one is even worries if such is possible.
A wonderful spoof of Sense and Sensibility, in a way, the story abounds with wistful heroines, inappropriate
A wonderful spoof of Sense and Sensibility, in a way, the story abounds with wistful heroines, inappropriate
Show More
romances, and hounds. It's absolutely hilarious and everyone should read it. It made me laugh out loud on a crowded plane carrying a chihuahua that barked incessantly, and that's saying something. Show Less
Original publication date
1938
Physical description
400 p.; 7.76 x 4.96 inches
ISBN
1844085724 / 9781844085729