Jilly Cooper

[LaMarschallin]

I hope I'm not doing a TAAT. There's a thread about Rupert Campbell-Black on AIBU but I had thought for a while about starting a general Jilly Cooper thread and don't want to ask if I'm BU, hence posting on Chat. I certainly don't mean to BU; please tell me if I am.
I'm at a loose end today as Mr LaM is off doing one of those madly outing hobbies (he's playing chess. I'll put the kettle on for all the stalkers who are bound to charge up**).
I come really, really not to bury Jilly but not to totally praise her either (pace Shakespeare).
I love her books. They are my comfort reading (along with Eva Ibbotson) and I swear I could romp home with the works of JC as a specialist subject on Mastermind (I'd obviously flunk general knowledge). I have had to re-buy three of her books because they fell apart.
And yet, and yet...

She gets away with bloody murder! She's racist, sexist, classist (is that a thing?) and - even worse from my point of view - she's repetitive. For an author that's not good.
She comes up with the same phrases. Eg: "threw up and up and up"; "hit him across the room/parking lot/whatever"; "drenched herself in scent"; "stank like a polecat" etc

When it comes to breastfeeding everything who does it will "whip out a triangular grey tit" and stuff it in their revolting offspring's mouth. Unless they're Janey who's been on holiday and has such lovely suntanned breasts that nobody minds her breastfeeding. Luckily Taggie's breasts didn't drop because she'd never fed a baby.*

The lower classes are fine if they:
a) stay in their place and make amusing malapropisms: "Let's get up a partition!"
b) make a lot of money but keep their hilarious regional accents: "Grite, grite! That 'elps a lot".
If they dare ape their betters they are ghastly, talk "ever so posh laike that" and ask for "a portion of that delicious gateau" and tell dukes they would be "delayted to receive them in their gracious 'ome". And always - if female - wear shirtwaister dresses.

I know! I'm over invested. I should stop reading her if I think all these things.
I enjoy her books. I'm surprised she's hardly ever called out in interviews about her dated views but - hell yes! - I wish was as rich and successful and well-connected.

I just want a gossip. Anybody else?

*I have wondered if this is JC trying to cheer herself up because she couldn't give birth to children; I know she has two children and it sounds as though that's been a great success but maybe occasionally she thinks, "Well, at least I kept my figure".

**Just decided on previewing to change "charge up" to "rock up". Another Jilly-ism.

But Taggie, you also have beautiful breasts, the curve of which show beneath your soft grey jumper, (rescued from my room, as I had pinched it) which brings out the glittery grey of your enormous eyes 😂

Ah, gyppo Jake! He of the tansy in his boot and his ability to sooth troubled horses and women

I loved Jilly's books for years. The Rutshire ones were my comfort reads. But, why on earth did she make RCB cheat on Taggie in her last book? My amateur psychology view is that she was so distraught after her husband's death that she had to destroy the Taggie/RCB love story.

I KNOW RIGHT? Re Rupert cheating on Taggie, I was very shocked as well.

OBVIOUSLY Valerie and Fwed-Fwed were very nouveaux riche (well she was, he was grite, esp after he took up with Lizzie Vereker) - but that bed sounded heavenly to me, far preferable to most of the actual ‘old money’ set ups which seemed to be full of dark four posters and enamel claw footed baths that all sounded FULL of spiders.

If I was going to wallow in a foot of scented water with a gin and tonic that was more gin than tonic, and then shave my legs and trim my bush leaving a ring of fox brown hairs in the bath, I’d definitely prefer to do it in Valerie and Fred’s* bath than anyone else’s!

*Not with them there. Obviously

It was just so unnecessary. I really hope she doesn't write any more books.

Valerie and Fred’s bath

Yes! I knew someone would remember The Bed.

Oh dear though. Poor Fred-Fred's "lonely act" because Valerie wanted to "keep fresh" for the Baddinghams.

Poor Fred - she just lifts up her nightie doesn’t she, urgh!

She’s now writing one about football called Tackle 😂

I know - after Fred’s tried repeatedly pressing her clitoris with all the optimism of a door to door salesman hoping to gain access (or something like that). And I think Valerie is described as having the body of a young girl, which is quite disturbing in 2019...

Lizzie also says she (V) has the very white eyeballs of the non-reader and non-drinker. Which instantly made me LOVE Lizzie and hate Valerie

Definitely love Lizzie and not Valerie

She also talks about Rupert smelling of ? (Can’t remember what) and good digestion, I’ve always wondered what the hell that smell is!

OP, here’s a question for you:

You are ravenous and need a quick supper.
Do you have
a) clear soup - you’re dieting like mad to win back your husband
b) an omelette made by flinging half a dozen eggs into the pan with some wild garlic - it’s a lot of food but you’re planning to share with the cat
c) smoked salmon and earl grey tea with honey - it’s good for your voice after all

?

@BeautifulMaudOHara - I think Tackle sounds really interesting, as on the one hand football seems prefect for her sport/politics/money backgrounds, but on the other hand her writing was SO of its time, and as people have said upthread the attitudes to class/race, and tbh some of the sex stuff which is clearly grooming/coercion but told in a sexy way (Flora and Ranaldini?) does NOT sit well in a 2019 backdrop to me...

@HelloViroids

OP, here’s a question for you:

You are ravenous and need a quick supper.
Do you have
a) clear soup - you’re dieting like mad to win back your husband
b) an omelette made by flinging half a dozen eggs into the pan with some wild garlic - it’s a lot of food but you’re planning to share with the cat
c) smoked salmon and earl grey tea with honey - it’s good for your voice after all

? grin

Viroids, can you even ask?

a) I am a good egg and have no need to win back my husband (he may be cheating on me though). I am too shambolic to make clear soup.

b) Obvs! (slang I've learned from DD at Bagley Hall). I keep bantoms - hence the eggs - and adore wild garlic (it reminds me of boozy lunches in Soho) and of course I'd share with my angelic cat.

c) Gah! Do you even THINK I'm Hermione?!

(Okay, with that overemotional answer, I could be. But I'm not I tell you!)

PS
Bugger! Can't spell bantams!

I actually used to keep them.

Am I adorably dyslexic?

No. I'm just a rubbish speller.

OP - good answer! Follow up question - are you such a domestic slut that you will just throw the egg shells into the sink, leaving them for your husband/char/landlady to clear up?

I used to always think of lizzie cutting her hair with the bacon scissors whenever I used to lop a bit off my fringe... Also what's a beryl cook lady look like?

Op, you sound fun!
Like another poster I haven't read any of her books but I think i will now!
The stock phrases is something I'd pick up on and annoy me.

I would throw the egg shells into the sink for my daily to deal with. She’s a treasure and I hope nobody steals her because thats a far worse sin in Gloucestershire than sleeping with someone’s husband.

This is a Beryl Cook lady, she was an artist who did these kind of paintings

Which was the one where someone peered in a window to see a fat maestro lunging an opera singer On a circle Or was it the other way round?!

Same as OP - I’ve loved JC books, reread Riders and Polo many times.... but Jump! pissed me off - agree with everything already said, I can’t believe the no-veiled prejudice sitting in those books, but I love how almost everyone is truly horrible. Helen heading to the Dublin horse show, leaving Rupert but packing her curlers - or was it straighteners - when she’s meant to be distraught, the vanity I don’t know what that bit always stuck with me, or jake noticing it and just putting it on pause in his head... - the description of the Horse Show itself and the antics were absolutely classic! - but sorry back to Jump! - some 15yr old in a threesome and absolutely devastated after it, so many old men prowling after and often shagging well underage girls...

And yet, I actually laugh out load and feel quite emotional reading a lot of them!

I bought a Fracas fake but I've no idea what the real one smells like so I don't know if it's any good or not.

justresting The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous! Rannaldini was lunging Hermione

Vampire

Ahh yes that was it!

I thought we had a mnet rule that we didn’t put a celeb name...without a hasn’t died in the title 😂

@BeautifulMaudOHara... RCB smells of Animal Health and Good Digestion.

No idea what on earth that smells like!