Nightingale Wood

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 the 1930’s 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 show more 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 people’s money. The Wither’s invite Viola to live with them, out of nothing more than a sense of duty, and Viola’s gentle soul quails rather at the coldness she finds. Mrs Withers regards her daughter-in-law 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 drawing-room 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 non-productive 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 not…Well 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. Tina’s relationship with her unlikely seeming lover Saxon, Viola’s romantic infatuation of Victor Spring, Victor’s unsatisfactory relationship with the eminently eligible Phyllis, manage to be wonderfully satirical and touching. Without giving too much away – in the resolutions of these fairy-tale 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. show less

When young and pretty Viola Wither finds herself widowed at the age of 21, she goes to live with her in-laws, the Withers, who take her in because they see it as their duty. The Withers aren’t thrilled to have her, however, because she used to work in a shop and is not quite a lady. Additionally, she threatens to upset the middle-class dullness of their lives: Mr. Wither cares only about money; his wife cares only about observing the proprieties; their spinster daughter Madge wants a dog more than anything in the world; and their slightly younger spinster daughter Tina secretly dreams of love. None of them seem to be close to achieving their desires, however, until several unexpected incidents occur, bringing surprising joy and even a show more little romance with them.

I was expecting this book to be like Cold Comfort Farm, which is light and sparkling and parodic. This book is equally funny in places – every once in a while, usually at the end of a long paragraph, comes an amazing and shocking one-liner. I was expecting the humor, but I wasn’t expecting the serious and strangely touching passages. The characters all have flaws, most of which are dull and ugly rather than spectacular, so in one sense it’s hard to root for them. Yet even the least sympathetic characters have a little spark that made me pity and love them. I don’t think this book is as good as Cold Comfort Farm, but it still left me with a lot to enjoy and think about. show less

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 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.

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 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 show more 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

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 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 show more 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

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 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

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.