Grasp Nightingale Wood Conveyed By Stella Gibbons Depicted In Electronic Format

I really enjoyed this, read with the Retro Reads group, It was a bit slow for me for the first bit, until after the big ball the cover and description of my copy make it seem kind of like a Cinderella retelling, with the poor, young widow Viola wanting to meet her handsome prince Victor, the wealthy businessman/playboy with his own estate near her rigid inlaws.
But, like life, so much more happens after the ball

At first I was hard pressed to like any of the characters, from the boring, rather desiccated Withers family Violas inlaws, who feel obligated to offer her a home when their son dies, to the rather drippy Viola, and her rather oafish, pleasureloving swain.
Modern readers need to know this was written in thes, so there is casual racism, antisemitism, sexism on display among the characters, Its very much a picture of gentry rural life between the wars in England, But there is much more going on here, and the characters are so interesting and flawed and well done that they grow on the reader, and one becomes invested in them.


Gibbons can be snarky and witty and satirical about their foibles, yearnings, prejudices and obsessions, but shes never vicious, and she kept me smiling and even chuckling in a few parts.
Her writing is lovely, with beautiful descriptions of the Essex countryside, the seasons, and the inner lives and thoughts of her characters, If this hadn't been written by Stella Gibbons, I think I'd have rated it more highly, But the power of the Brand is such that I judge NW by CCF and it just doesn't measure up, There are some delightfully cutting remarks, and some pleasant enough scenesetting, But. Part of the problem is that none of the characters are particularly sympathetic or, at least, every scene that might elicit some sympathy for one person or another is followed by an antidote.
That can work well enough if there is a thoroughgoing villain against whom everyone can unite, but Mr Wither, set up initially as a domineering mysogynistic puritanical Mr Punch, is sadly marginalised.
So, while this wasn't a completely wasted afternoon, I'd hoped for more, Most people know Stella Gibbons only from her brief first novel, Cold Comfort Farm, a book I have several times started but could never finish.
So I began Nightingale Wood in a doubtful spirit, That didnt last long.

This is a very accomplished social comedy set in the mids, It centers on Viola Wither, a twentyoneyearold bit of fluff of a widow who has been forced for pecuniary reasons to leave London and go live with her stodgy inlaws in Essex.
But Viola is such a slight and shallow character that she cant really carry an entire novel, so Gibbons sagely widens her lens to focus on several of the women in the book, with little dips into the minds of the men.
Violas sistersinlaw, Madge and Tina, and a neighboring girl all get their own storylines,

Whenever the words social comedy are invoked in the context of British fiction, people immediately think of Jane Austen, In the early pages of the book Gibbons indeed reveals a deft touch for skewering a character with a phraseTina dresses “with evident pleasure to herself”but that gift for snark is not overindulged, as it might be in a novel about Bright Young Things.
What Gibbons does indulge, to my luxuriant reading pleasure, is a concurrent gift for lyricism, Her flights of language raise this book above the commonplace level of those comedies of everyday life among the middling sorts that were pumped out in profusion in England between the two world wars.
The twin gifts allow the reader to revel in the twin satisfactions of Truth and Beauty,

Speaking of a

waltz at a charity ball, Gibbons says, “It was an exciting melody, slow and dreamy and strong, with the swaying rhythm beating through it like the sea under showers of foam.
People glanced at one another and laughed, and waded into the ocean of music as the moonlit bathers had gone out into the silvergreen sea.
. . and the dancers dreamed that life was beautiful, in a world toppling with monster guns and violent death, ” That description drove me straight to YouTube to listen to the melody the description was better than the tune, sigh,

Those bursts of verbal magic are most often applied to the natural worldat one point she describes spring birdsong as “the country itself singing”and they lend the novel a touch of fairytale.
Characters often have their most meaningful encounters in a wild little wood, the place echoing with the nightingale of the title, and the story arcs of not only Viola but others are redolent of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.
Several people are dreaming their way through a life that is comfortable enough materially but deeply unsatisfactory in every other way, and they must all go through painful awakenings to break through into a richer life.
Some characters are never able to achieve it,

And because this is a novel of the twentieth century, and of a nation breaking old habits, not all of the awakenings lead to happiness or satisfaction.
They can result in disillusion and diminishment, both figurative and literal, Some happy endings are unearned and therefore fragile, Many of the characters live in a secure context of middleclass comfort, but they are still buffeted by bitter winds to use one of Gibbonss recurrent imagesfinancial upheavals, political crosscurrents, newer ideas like the psychology that disturbs Tinas peace and makes all things possible or threateningly unstable, depending on your perspective.
The novel very much captures a moment in time, and because we know what happened a few years later, it is bittersweet,

I am very glad this book has been rescued from oblivion and published by no less than Penguin, It deserves far greater stature than it currently enjoys, I read this because I'm crazy about Gibbons's more famous novel: Cold Comfort Farm, Seriously, I'm in love with that book,

This one I liked quite a bit, but it wasn't nearly as outright satirical and laughoutloudinpublic funny as Cold Comfort Farm, Nightgale Wood is entertaining, well written, a bit cliche, but Gibbons took the stereotypical novel and gave it a bit of selfawareness, The story knows it follow the standard storyline, and the voice points out its own silliness,

Very entertaining. Didn't love it quite as much as CCF, but still enjoyed it, I wish I had the time to write a longer review, because there's so much I loved and want to share about Nightingale Wood.
. . but I don't. So I'll just say that I simply loved it, It was funny, wistful, goofy, thoughtful, . . pretty much everything I want in a book, Well, some fisticuffs would have been nice, There are some, but they mostly occur offstage, I'll also note that this book is not just about Viola, Hetty and Tina are main characters in their own right, and I enjoyed their stories tremendously, Tina's in particular,

Written and published just before the outbreak of WWII, there's also a sort of defiance to Nightingale Wood, as if Gibbons is daring the reader to fault her for writing something so charming while the world is beginning crumble.
It's a fascinating glimpse into the times, and a type of lifestyle that the reader knows is breathing its last,

Warning: Expect, however, a few bits and pieces of material that will raise modern eyebrows in terms of what we consider racist, antiSemitic, etc.
I don't judge Gibbons too harshly for these, as she was clearly a progressive woman for her time, I imagine she would never have written such things if such prejudices weren't so ingrained into the era in which she lived, I also think it's possible she was satirizing prejudice, but I don't think I can tell for sure,

Highly recommended, and I will certainly be adding Nightingale Wood to my Comfort Book rotation of rereads, Nightingale Wood is a really delightful Cinderella type tale from the author who of course is better known for having brought us Cold Comfort Farm.
However I think that the novel is a little deceptive, it is not as light as it may appear, and there is a complexity and poignancy to it that is especially well done.
Gibbons has captured a rural community of thes with its class divisions and restrictions, highlighting the differing social positions of her characters and the way those positions are perceived by others.

Viola Withers is just twenty one, newly widowed of a much older husband, she finds herself obliged to go and live with her in laws at The Eagles in Essex.
This household of women Mrs Withers, middle aged daughters Madge and Tina and their three female servants are all very much in thrall to Mr Withers, a strict patriarch preoccupied by the management of other peoples money.
The Withers invite Viola to live with them, out of nothing more than a sense of duty, and Violas gentle soul quails rather at the coldness she finds.
Mrs Withers regards her daughterinlaw with some suspicion, a former shop girl who married her son rather suddenly her main occupation seems to be keeping her husband calm.
Tina, thirty five, and secretly in love with Saxon the chauffer twelve years her junior, hopes that Viola will bring some much needed life to The Eagles.
Madge on the other hand nearing forty having never really grown up, is only concerned with hunting, fishing and dogs, Madge famously known for “not howling”, sobbing hysterically as she begs her father to allow her a puppy, is pitifully memorable, Stella Gibbons portrays the family at The Eagles with her familiar humour, but there is a definite sharpness to it which is very telling,
"The family at The Eagles was assembled in the drawingroom at that dreary hour when tea is long over and dinner not yet in sight.
It was a tranquil scene it would have annoyed a Communist, Five nonproductive members of the bourgeoisie sat in a room as large as a small hall, each breathing more air, warmed by more fire and getting more delight and comfort from the pictures and furniture than was strictly necessary.
In the kitchen underneath them three members of the working class swinked ignobly at getting their dinner, bought with money from invested capital, But perhaps this is not a very interesting way of regarding poor Mr Wither and the rest,
Not far away from The Eagles, and another rung or two up the social ladder are the Springs, Mrs Spring, her bookish niece Hetty and her son Victor, handsome and full of confidence, he is the undisputed Prince Charming of the neighbourhood.
Victor is unofficially engaged to Phyllis a rather hilariously awful character that Gibbons is so good at creating, Victor Spring may be the Prince Charming of the piece, but he certainly appears to not be in any way a hero, At a ball which serves to bring some much needed distraction to the inhabitants of The Eagles, Victor first really notices Viola, despite having already given a lift to her and Tina when caught in a rain storm his intentions however are anything but honourable.

“Yes. . of course, she was a widow, He had forgotten that. She looked the very image of innocence, she talked like a schoolgirl, but widows were not innocent, However young and simple a widow might seem, you could not get away from the fact that widows, presumably, were notWell this girl was actually more experienced than old Phyl.
”
What I really enjoyed about Nightingale Wood aside from the humour and the wonderful characterisation are the several different plot strands which weave together so nicely.
Tinas relationship with her unlikely seeming lover Saxon, Violas romantic infatuation of Victor Spring, Victors unsatisfactory relationship with the eminently eligible Phyllis, manage to be wonderfully satirical and touching.
Without giving too much away in the resolutions of these fairytale stories Gibbons is ever so slightly subversive, It all makes for a hugely readable and engaging novel maybe less of a classic than Cold Comfort Farm it is still well worth reading.

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