Riders by Jilly Cooper - prequel to Rivals

[RedRobyn2021]

Decided to start listening to Riders by Jilly Cooper after watching Rivals

Quite shocked it's been written by a woman, the women are objectified, the men are rapey

Is it just me? Have you read it?

I looked it up and apparently Jilly Cooper wrote it in 1970, does this go some way to explaining why it's written like this?

I'm preserving with it, I'm on Chapter 13 but I think Rupert is a repulsive creep and can't understand why everyone is so obsessed with him

Tbf I should have known, I've not watched all of Rivals but it seems like they're trying to orchestrate a romance between a 20yo and a man in is late 30s which is gross in itself

The Rivals book is worse than the tv show, Taggie is 18 in the book. A lot of Jilly cooper books have sexual assault, rape written in them and pretty much minimised. Toxic, abusive relationships all round. Yes I do think the era they were written in explains it. Saying that her later books were pretty much all as bad iirc, one was very bad (school children (sixth former) and a music maestro?). Guess JC found her niche?

I was probably 18yo when I read Rivals and a lot of it went over my head. I thought that Rupert and Taggie was the greatest love story of all time 😁. Wanted to be swept off my feet in a similar way which probably explains why at 19yo I was working as a live in groom and shagging my boss’s 40yo son! 🙈

The books were a true representation of what the 80's were like. I was 17 when it came out and already knew what men were like (started working at 16 in a bank in London) so it was no surprise to me. I loved the books though! Weird isn't it. How accepting of things we were.

I'd guess that pretty much everyone who was a teenager in the 80s read it, her books were massive and very much of the time and not un representative of the reality

This is absolutely fascinating

I've just been telling my partner about the book and it honestly blows my mind that people read this and weren't disgusted

Wtf

It reads like a man wrote it though, that's what I can't get my head around

Also that she's so successful... people obviously resonate with her stories.

I don't understand why this has been turned into a tv show, are we all just going to pretend that her books aren't wildly inappropriate?

The books were very much of their time.
I remember working as a waitress in the early 80s - being groped was normal, if you tipped food on them or complained you were the one in trouble.
I read Jilly Cooper as a teen and wasn’t really that shocked by it - it’s far more shocking now when I reread it. Times have thankfully changed!

Riders was published in 1985, and is unfortunately a true representation of that time.
I totally get why you feel as you do OP. It is very dated, and thankfully we’ve moved on and a lot of acceptable stuff then wouldn’t be tolerated now.
if you can read it without cringing and see it as being of a different time, you might enjoy it. “Wicked “ which JC wrote years later was a step too far for me, set in a school and totally ridiculous, but I worked in a school when I attempted to read it, I was a safeguarding lead, so just couldn’t put up with so much trite.

As soon as I read your title I knew what this would be about. Yes. It’s shocking and when I read it in the 90s I was wtf. It makes you look at the Cotswold set a bit differently.

This exactly. I was about 14 when I sneakily read my mums copy. That was just the reality in the 80s and much of the 90s really.

Yes, I think a lot of us who started work in the 80s were exposed to so much stuff that would make a 2020s woman self combust

I currently work in a similar type of environment and it's been mentioned to me on several occasions how good a fit I am and by that I know they are referring to my general lack of wokeness

It certainly wouldn't suit everyone and to me it's pretty tame but I know the younger generation wouldn't have lasted the probation period

Wicked was absolutely dreadful. The worst of her books IMHO.

Totally agree Elderflower, bought it on my kindle, ploughed through about 100 pages, then gave up. Last JC book I read, had read them all up to that point.

It’s very of its time, it’s true. Rupert is meant to be bloody awful in Riders, that’s what makes his overall storyline so absorbing imo. I adore it, and the next couple, and always have, but I’m well aware of its issues!
Agree that Wicked was absolute rot!

Try reading Lace and Lace 2!

Honestly it was normal, just like rascism and misogyny was also normal in previous times.

Yes. Riders has the most awful rape scene it really bothered me.

How old are you OP? I am 50 but was quite late to Jilly books - possibly read them in my late 20s so they were already 'of their time'.

I remember feeling bemused by some bits, uncomfortable about other bits (the rapey bit with Billy was somehow 'worse' because Billy was the nice one). Riders is the one I rarely re-read because of this.

So even then it was dated but not unrecognisable. I was a waitress as a teen in the 90s and my rather generous backside was patted or my top looked down and the solution from my boss was just to angle your body a bit differently.

But also the thing with a lot of Jilly characters is that they are dreadful. Perdita in Polo is one of the very worst characters ever - no redeeming features other than an affection for horses. Rupert in Riders is a grade A shit. The man who made husbands jealous is about slimming women down and giving them a good shagging - it was silly even when it was written.

Like others though my tolerance ran out at Wicked. Whilst I accept that some 16/17 year olds shag around (although don't want to read about it) 13 year olds as normal made me really grossed out.

Riders was published nearly 40 years ago - that's like the difference between the end of WW2 and Live Aid. Or between the end of WW1 and Elvis Presley. Societal norms shift dramatically between one generation and the next - thankfully. Yes, a lot of the behaviour feels like a different world to the one we live in now, but I don't think it's fair to judge something written in a different moral/social climate as if the author was deliberately choosing to be 'wildly inappropriate'. The fact that certain aspects seem so jarring is an argument for NOT rewriting fiction to meet current thinking: it's a reflection - to an extent, sometimes exaggerated for dramatic effect - of what life was like in some circles, genital warts and all.

Also Jilly Cooper was born in 1937, so when she was writing her first books in the 1970s, she was probably drawing to some extent on her own experiences as a young woman in the 60s, when casual sexism/gropiness was even worse.

I haven't got to that yet. There's been some questionable bits but no actual rape yet

@myladyjane

I'm 33

A colleague slapped my arse once at a Christmas works party and he is lucky I didn't skin him alive in front of everyone, but I didn't want to make a scene. I settled with a filthy look instead. I regret that though, I should have done something more.

We are so conditioned to be "good girls" and not make a fuss

Yes I agree with you, I definitely shouldn't be rewritten because it's an accurate reflection of its time. I know people are saying it wasn't really like that, but this was a very successful books and therefore a reflection of its time and the people in it.

I do think it's a weird that they've adapted it for tv now though, well the sequel anyway because it's not appropriate nowadays. Well it never appropriate IMO but obviously opinions were different then.

The 80s was a very different time, so I felt with the tv version that it was very much like watching any other costume drama, you wouldn’t necessarily expect the values to align.

The bit I’m thinking of really, really upset me. I still think of it years later. Just to warn you!

Like you @RedRobyn2021 I read it very recently for the first time and was a bit shocked.