Friday, April 20, 2012
Cold Comfort Farm
A few days ago we chanced to see what is described in the 'Time Out' film guide as 'this woeful adaptation of Stella Gibbon's pastoral parody' and thought it rather fun. A pleasant change from our normal evening eye-candy from ITV3. It is not the first time that we have found this guide a bit sniffy about things we liked; perhaps a consequence of the guide's reviewers being rather younger than our good selves.
Followed the viewing up by rereading, for the first time in some years, the book itself. I note in passing that our rather dusty copy has retained its blue dust jacket all the way from the mid seventies. The book was quite shallow but fun, although it was hard to see how the film was supposed to better capture its pastiche of other writings of its day and I had forgotten, or not previously noticed, its having fun at the expense of D. H. Lawrence, recently dead at the time of writing but presumably still one of the men of the literary moment. And the blurb to the book suggests that there were plenty of other aspirants to his loins filled prose around at the time, so a worthy target.
Next step, take another look at the film, which I think will have been improved by study of the source.
A few days before that we chanced to see 'Death on the Nile' once again. Didn't have a copy of this one but chanced across one in a charity shop the next day and have now read it. Quite a decent adaptation, especially considering that the story is rather fantastic and one in which most of the interest lies in trying to spot the significant clues and sort out the kippers from the red herrings before Agatha does it for you. Not like the similarly successful and even more prolific Simenon at all. But I did come across an interesting phrase - 'horse coper' - and was moved to look 'coper' up in OED. Where it occupies the best part of a page and turns out to have collected all kinds of odd meanings. Starting with the cape derived meaning, from which we get the cope now only worn by priests. Then a bargain, then to strike or come to blows with someone. To meet with or be a match for. To buy, exchange or barter. To trim the claws of a goshawk. Lastly, to sew up the mouth of a ferret. From all of which we get 'horse coper', a sort of low grade horse dealer.
PS: if you are really bored you can try reporting a fault on the telephone you rent from BT, starting from scratch at their web site. I needed to talk with four different people, make two telephone calls and take about an hour. Plenty of chargeable options and fancy technology scattered along the way. The outcome will probably be satisfactory, but the process by which one gets there is not.
Followed the viewing up by rereading, for the first time in some years, the book itself. I note in passing that our rather dusty copy has retained its blue dust jacket all the way from the mid seventies. The book was quite shallow but fun, although it was hard to see how the film was supposed to better capture its pastiche of other writings of its day and I had forgotten, or not previously noticed, its having fun at the expense of D. H. Lawrence, recently dead at the time of writing but presumably still one of the men of the literary moment. And the blurb to the book suggests that there were plenty of other aspirants to his loins filled prose around at the time, so a worthy target.
Next step, take another look at the film, which I think will have been improved by study of the source.
A few days before that we chanced to see 'Death on the Nile' once again. Didn't have a copy of this one but chanced across one in a charity shop the next day and have now read it. Quite a decent adaptation, especially considering that the story is rather fantastic and one in which most of the interest lies in trying to spot the significant clues and sort out the kippers from the red herrings before Agatha does it for you. Not like the similarly successful and even more prolific Simenon at all. But I did come across an interesting phrase - 'horse coper' - and was moved to look 'coper' up in OED. Where it occupies the best part of a page and turns out to have collected all kinds of odd meanings. Starting with the cape derived meaning, from which we get the cope now only worn by priests. Then a bargain, then to strike or come to blows with someone. To meet with or be a match for. To buy, exchange or barter. To trim the claws of a goshawk. Lastly, to sew up the mouth of a ferret. From all of which we get 'horse coper', a sort of low grade horse dealer.
PS: if you are really bored you can try reporting a fault on the telephone you rent from BT, starting from scratch at their web site. I needed to talk with four different people, make two telephone calls and take about an hour. Plenty of chargeable options and fancy technology scattered along the way. The outcome will probably be satisfactory, but the process by which one gets there is not.
# posted by Jim @ 2:11 AM 
