To wonder WTF is wrong with Catherine Cookson

[JandamiHash]

I used to love Catherine Cookson adaptations when I was a teenager. LOVED them. Had loads of box sets and books. I recently discovered them on U and i’ve been watching a few and OMG they’re either all hysterically ridiculous, depressing or brutally violent. Or full of pedophiles

In The Girl the male love interest tells the female lead that she’s been “teasing him with that look ever since you first entered my yard”. Referring to when she was 10 and he was an adult! After losing several body parts in his pursuit for her love, the male love interest and the now grown up “tease” get together after her husband conveniently dies of cholera.

The Glass Virgin has a frizzy haired Emily Mortimer simpering around the North East, opting to be a peasant because she heard a second hand rumour that she isn’t part of her aristocratic family any more. She falls in love with a younger (and not terrible looking) Mr Bates from Downton Abbey, who has a (terrible) Irish accent but is called Manuel Mendoza?! Despite not being Spanish. Cue Emily Mortimer spending about an hour in total running through fields with a lamp shouting “Manuel! Manuel”. BTW Manuel first met her when she was 9 or 10, as her riding instructor, and she falls in love with him because he basically groomed her.

Tonight I’ve been utterly traumatised by the Dwelling Place - where a 16yo orphan, who lives in a cave with her siblings, is brutally raped in front of her little brother, is impregnated by her rapist, and then a couple of years later falls in love with him!! All whilst being perused by a bloke who was all “Im sexy and I love you, but I’m off to marry Hayley Cropper because her dad runs a mill and I’ll be in charge if I marry her, even though I hate her. I’ll pop in now and again to stroke your hand and sniff your hair”.

WTF is wrong with Catherine Cookson?! And also - what was wrong with teenage me that I found these romantic?

Yes I know these books are old as dirt but still, most were written in the 60’s, and I don’t think that even then it was acceptable to fall in love with your rapist or be attracted to 10yo girls.

I want to watch more but I think they’re too insane and unhinged for my liking.

The stories were very formulaic, read one and you've read them all! Poor girl = good, rich man = bad, she works her way through life' perils and she prevails, he gets his comeuppance, The End.
I've always thought that Jilly Cooper's Rutshire chronicles were the richer, prettier equivalents, geographically further south, the stories are very predictable.

Danielle Steel was another one with very formulaic type of books. Read one, read them all.

Books aren't moral guidelines. Art doesn't work like this. Not everything is the author's manifesto for how you should live your life.

My grandmother ( born 1915) was the result of great grandmother being pressured into sex with the son of the house where she worked in service at the time.

It wasn't unusual.

Just read Catherine Cookson’s Wikipedia- no wonder she wrote the things she wrote

The Dwelling Place with the horrible rape scene is a PG!!

Does anyone remember the Lace mini-series and Phoebe Cates (from Gremlins) asking "Which one of you bitches is my mother?" I read the books - Phoebe's character Lily is the illegitimate product of a rape at a ski resort and ends up having an affair (unknowingly) with her father...

The Irish Spaniard is a thing. Haven't read the thread but read the OP posts so apologies if this has been said.

During the war with the Spanish Armada the ships sailed up the east coast of the UK and round Scotland to sail back via the west coast. Some were shipwrecked or just decided to jump ship off the Irish coast then settled there. Thus many Spanish surnames are prevalent in Ireland.

@Baninarama yes I mentioned Lace upthread.
I found a copy of the book in a charity shop the other day - it was a copy of the TV tie in version. It was a bit dusty and shabby so I didn't buy it 🙁

I've noticed many Irish (from the republic area) with dark hair, blue green or dark eyes, creamy complexion that can be stunningly pale in winter but when they tan in summer, there is an olive tint.

I wasn't surprised to learn that actor Rob James -Collier (sexiest man alive surely) had a mother from Ireland. Of course his growing up in Salford and attending a catholic school also might have been a clue.

My uncle, born 1924, was similarly the result of my grandmother being pressured into sex with the son of the house she was a maid in. She was 18. The family she worked for shipped her off to North Wales when they discovered she was pregnant. My dad was born 4 years later to my granddad that she met in Wales.

Yes it was! My mother had the series running in the background while I played with Lego and so on 😬😅

Yes, I remember devouring these, The Thornbirds, Penmarric, Lace, The Far Pavillions etc.

The most disturbing one I ever read was called Tanamera, which was written by a man. I remember this gruesome scene where the narrator watched in horror as his wife and sister were bundled into a sack and tied up and one of them was raped and he could only tell which one it was by the colour of her pubic hair. And him feeling relief that it was his sister who was raped rather than his wife.

It's stunning to look back and realise how bad it all was...

What book is this please? I want to read about people being crushed and suffocated by a hog! Is it a CC? <rubspaperyhandstogetherinanticipation>

@SepticCess The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough (spelling??).

Ahh, thanks. I might give that a swerve. I remember when it was on telly in 1983 (?) with Richard Chamberlain and couldn't make head nor tale of it.

I'll probably have a hog squashing dream now too :(

Stuff like this was standard fodder for teens growing up in the 70's or 80's.

That's a very good explanation of "wtf is wrong with Catherine Cookson".
She started writing as therapy to deal with issues from her childhood.
I think her father was a bigamist too.
She constructed the fantasy of her father being lord of the manor and that theme runs through a lot of her books.

I like re-reading Victoria Holt when I'm ill. The Shivering Sands...

I wouldn’t put Susan Howatch (Penmarric) and M M Kaye ( The Far Pavilions) in the same category as Shirley Conrad and Colleen McCullough tbh.

Me too! I like Bride of Pendorric. The strange thing is that I have a distinct memory of it being made into a mini series, with Anthony Andrews, and watching it with my mum. But I’ve never been able to find any mention of it online! Bit of Nelson Mandela effect.

😮😮😮

I think it's a bit unfair to blame Catherine Cookson for this!
More likely, there was the tension you commonly get between mother and daughter in law and so your DM had no sympathy for a MiL she disliked. As grand-daughter, you don't necessarily see all that.

Rape in a Mills & Boon?

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

and anyone who has grown up in the modern age will never understand it. Hell I work with people who can’t believe the shit I had to put up with from men in the 70s!

I love the CC adaptations just to see who I recognise from years ago. Recently watched one with Robson Green in it who married that actress who did the advert that was a reverse of Eliza Doolittle…