RiP Jilly Cooper

[Daphnedot]

So bloody sad 😢

I echo what everyone else has said. Jilly was fun but also very accurate about people. She was brilliant at poking fun at pretentious upper class twits. She also understood so much about human nature. I will always think of her on the first of May.
I have misquoted her often about old people ( elderly relatives in How to Survive Christmas),
'Most old people are hard work, except if they are your old people in which case they are absolute treasures'.

Absolutely the end of an era, TMWMHJ in particular saw me through many a long summer as I always dug it out to reread. Lovely tribute by the Queen as well. Mum and I will be raising a glass later!

Such joie de vivre, such a shame. RIP Jilly, you made us all smile.

It sounds as ends go, relatively quick. A blessing in a way.

I remember a few years ago our book club read one of her books and someone who’d never read any Jilly Coopers before commented about the family trees at the front, that they contained not just family trees of the people, but of the horses and then the dogs. The book club member had assumed the dogs being related was going to be a plot point as Cooper had gone to the bother of adding this dog lineage in, but no, got to the end and while dogs were mentioned as asleep or barking or taken for walks throughout the books, their parentage and inter-related backgrounds was not mentioned or important at all. The book club member couldn’t work out why this was in the front of the book, another lady explained that she just assumed Jilly Cooper herself would find the family trees of the various dogs interesting, so she added it.

I subsribed to Disney just to watch Rivals having loved the book and was so pleased that they did it justice. Very sad that she won't be here to enjoy and be lauded for the second series but I am sure they will do her proud.

At least she did get to see that first series - it could never get everything right but captured the spirit of it for me.

I think the previous poster is thinking of jilly goolden yes.

@VivaDixie I agree with @blobby10 , if you've not seen Rivals then start with Riders. It's the first book and introduces characters that appear repeatedly throughout the series.
There are a lot of characters in Jilly's books, she does a list of characters at the beginning of each book.

I’m honestly really sad. I may have to re read a lot. Loved rhw Queen’s comment.

What a warm. wonderful tribute from HM The Queen -
“May her hereafter be filled with impossibly handsome men and devoted dogs “.
I know they were friends for many years, but that touched me deeply.

Brilliant thank you. I have been meaning to read her books for years and am sad that her passing has been the catalyst. But I shall read, raise a glass and smile in her memory.

Oh I’m genuinely sad. I loved all Saint Jilly of Coopers books. They’ve been my comfort reading for so many years. Will raise a glass to her tonight

Loved Riders and Rivals which I read when on maternity leave with my eldest DD.

The Queen's statement was really lovely. RIP Jilly, you'll certainly liven things up in heaven.

Very sad news, but a quick passing at a great age. I adored "Class", but TMWMHJ was the 1st Rutshire book I read (after seeing the miniseries, which it left standing). That and Score were my favourites. I really enjoyed those (and Jackie Collins' Santangelo's series).Thank God for charity shops!

She was such a sharp, clever writer who is unfairly (imo) classed as a bonkbuster. I mean, yes, those books definitely awoke something in teenage me, but they were fabulous stories with well crafted characters. You genuinely felt for them. I think i shall have to reread

RIP

@MysticHalfWitch I completely agree! She wasn't in the same league as those writers - she was leagues and leagues above them. She was learned and quoted Shakespeare and poetry and artists as references. She could make the Gloucestershire countryside come alive like nobody else (OK, maybe Laurie Lee!) - talking of "cow parsley frothing in the hedgerows" and of valleys draped in early morning mist. She was a great writer. Some of her puns were a bit much, I'll give you that but still, she was fantastic and in a league of her own.

Start with Riders. It introduces the characters brilliantly.

Ooooh noooooo.

Her stories were tosh, but she centred women & women's lives in such a fun way. And she was so cheerful, and bracing, and thoroughly sensible. She advocated just getting on with things. Such a tonic in a Britain now lacking that sparky energy Ms Cooper always had.

I read a reviewer describing her characters as one-dimensional - they can’t have been reading the same books!

I went off Billy a bit when he dumped Fen and allowed Janey to worm her way back into his life once he started making money, though I did have tears in my eyes when he died.

They possibly didn't read them at all.
I regularly contribute to the Times crossword blog and the intellectual snobbery is ridiculous if something like a Jilly Cooper book comes up: "I've never heard of her and I'm glad I haven't" which is obviously idiotic.

Yes, you know how those commentators would’ve been dealt with in a JC novel!

Oh God yes . As RCB put it so succintly - “ Fucking intellectuals “ !

When Rivals came out I rediscovered Rutshire and have been making my way through the books over the past couple of years, and they have been a much needed and enjoyable diversion. The world she built was so much fun to delve into, she captured the essence of that country class so well. Feel so much for her family and friends, I'm sure they'll miss her dearly, the rest of us can just continue to delight in the legacy she left behind.

She'd have been described as a master commentator on class and character if she'd been a man. Someone upthread compared her to a modern day Jane Austen and I don't think they're far off the mark tbh

Yeah, true.

my mum has just been diagnosed with dementia 😢 (and she lives overseas, or I do, depending on how you look at it)