@jemmesedi @bookstodon

Looks interesting, unfortunately my #TBR list is so long the thought of it keeps me awake at night.

@bibliolater @bookstodon

I know the feeling!

@girlbandgeek @bibliolater @bookstodon

Ooh, I might give that a try. I know that the Stella Gibbons parody of the genre "Cold Comfort Farm" achieved a fame that might have outrun the original.

Do you and/or your wife like Thomas Hardy?

@jemmesedi @bibliolater @bookstodon It was in fact because "Cold Comfort Farm" became one of our favorite movies that we went down this road. One Christmas I got her the Stella Gibbons book, as well as some of the books upon which it was based (2 by Sheila Kaye-Smith and 1 by Mary Webb). The Kaye-Smith books were good? but pretty rough going. Mary Webb however really has a beautiful and authentic voice...

@girlbandgeek @bibliolater @bookstodon

I haven't read anything by Sheila Kaye-Smith either, so you are opening up new avenue for me here - or would a better metaphor be pointing me to new fields to till?

@jemmesedi @bibliolater @bookstodon Fields to till is very apt. There is a far sight of plowin' and farmin' going on! If you love Cold Comfort Farm, it is fun to see the antecedents. You would definitely recognize some of the characters.

There are some interesting religious experiences also. "Susan Spray" by Sheila Kaye-Smith contains the inspiration for Amos Starkadder. All of them contain powerful religious themes and wonderful descriptions of nature.

@jemmesedi @bibliolater @bookstodon It has been decades since I read Hardy. I was an English Lit major 🙂 I recall both "Tess" and "Jude the Obscure" as being beautifully written, but the characters had such impossible and depressing lives 😭

There are so many great English authors of the 19th & 20th century. I especially love the Brontës and D.H. Lawrence.

@girlbandgeek @bibliolater @bookstodon

Ah yes, "Jude the Obscure" is singularly bleak. Sometimes, though, I think it would be a good volume to press into the hands of those overly enthusiastic about self-help and all that.

I'd love to hear more of your thoughts and memories of D.H. Lawrence. I'm still trying to sort my ideas out with regard to him - see this post I made a couple of weeks ago:

https://c.im/@jemmesedi/114163241335238201

I now duly note that you are the living contradiction to the implied claim in my post that Lawrence would not find much of a welcome on the campuses of California! Mea culpa!

@jemmesedi So I'm long past the point where I want to "work" too hard enjoying my art. I just want to read/listen/watch/look at whatever stirs me, and I don't feel the need to understand, or explain everything about it. My Dad was a professor of Comp Lit, maybe it's a reaction 😉

I remember in high school English we read a short story by Lawrence. There was something about a mole that got killed...

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@jemmesedi I remember the teacher (who was English!) Mr. Steed even (?) making a point about the blood. So I guess my connection to Lawrence boils down to a kind of primal, lusty kind of energy that he's got going on.

I really love the trilogy of Sons and Lovers, Women in Love and the Rainbow. But I just love the writing, there's some class stuff going on, the relationships, whatever.

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@jemmesedi And if I'm to be perfectly honest, I also really loved the Ken Russell films based on these books, to the point where in my mind the characters look like those actors when I read the books. It's kind of mashed up in my imagination.

Anyway, this is probably an inadequate answer, but I do think he's a great writer, and seemed to know something of women, despite probably being a sexist wanker as well.

@girlbandgeek Oh yes - "Women in Love" is great cinema.

@girlbandgeek @bookstodon

Dialect is no problem.