The Absolutist by John Boyne

September 1919: twenty-one year old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver some letters to Marian Bancroft. Tristan fought alongside Marian’s brother Will during the Great War, but in 1917 Will laid down his guns on the battlefield, declared himself a conscientious objector and was shot as a traitor, an act which has brought shame and dishonour on the Bancroft family.

 

But the letters are not the real reason for Tristan’s visit. He holds a secret deep in his soul. One that he is desperate to unburden himself of to Marian, if he can only find the courage.

We had our full complement of twelve this month, so there were many voices with many opinions to get through. To start, there was a general consensus that the opening few chapters were a little slow and uneventful. At first, young Tristan’s plight found some empathy with us, but this was short lived. It was not long before the majority of us found him whiny, self- absorbed and intolerably needy.  

Will on the other hand, although not necessarily likable, tested our favour with his views and actions to a point that had most of us veering from extreme dislike to affable tolerance. This we decided was a clear indication of good writing and although the subject of war is not one of our favourites, we found the stark subject matter realistically portrayed with a vivid intensity that was emotionally moving.

It was no surprise that our discussion moved towards the futility and horror of war, both then and now, and what it does to not only those involved but to our society as a whole.

But the underlying themes present; homosexuality, absolutism, suppression and redemption all played a large role in bringing this story to its close.

 

The comment was made that Boyne, as a modern writer, was not able to inject a sense of realism to something as potent as World War One. True or not, Boyne’s story is more likely to be read by a young generation, bringing with it greater knowledge of the tragic suffering and hopefully, a distain for war.

And that, in our view can’t be a bad thing.

 

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

 

When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at nineteen, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starkadders, an eccentric group of relatives suffering from a wide variety of ailments. But Flora loves nothing better than to organise other people.

Armed with common sense and a strong will, she resolves to take each of the family in hand. A hilarious and merciless parody of rural melodramas, Cold Comfort Farm is one of the best-loved comic novels of all time.

Comedy is hard work. Any comedian can tell you that. But comedy fiction writing is an art only the truly talented should attempt.

And from the majority reaction of our group, Stella Gibbons falls within this talent pool.

 

There were some real belly laughs coming from some of us. In fact, Ann believes that everyone should have a copy of this book to just open up and read any page simply to lighten up your life.

 

The imagery and language we found brilliant. It was mentioned that quite often, the language used in classic fiction can be difficult to read and take in. Not so here, Gibbons did a masterful job of personification and those of us who took the most delight in this parody of the classic English novel felt her characters to be the real gems of this book.

All the Stackadders on Cold Comfort Farm often fell into madness of the most hilarious kind, but thanks to Flora and her Mary Poppins’ style ability, jollied them out of it and soon set everything straight with a toss of her pretty little head.

 

Light hearted fun at its best, although there were a few of us who found little to laugh at. Both Denise and Cathy doubted the brilliance of this novel. Found Flora a too good, control freak with many other characters coming and going from what seemed nowhere.

Elenor was not sure what to make of this novel and even unsure that it was meant as a parody.

Taken seriously or not, this little novel scored high with us. The only consensual negative by its fans was the extreme disappointment of never knowing what Mrs Stackadder saw in the woodshed … how to live with such ‘cold comfort’?