Jilly Cooper RIP - come and reminisce about your favourite books

[MargoLivebetter]

I feel in love with Jilly Cooper books in the mid 1980s. Devoured them all and must have read Riders about 100 times, if not more. Absolutely loved Rivals too and then my interest drifted slightly. I've loved watching the recent adaptation of Rivals on TV . It took me back to the 80s again!

I wrote to her in the early 1990s and to my great delight, she wrote back. It was such a lovely letter (which sadly I have since lost).

What are your favourite books of hers?

How long will it be before Jilly’s books come with a trigger warning, I wonder. To be clear, I think trigger warnings are far too overused, and don’t give the audiences credit for understanding that a book written at a certain time is bound to bring with it views of that time which may or may not be the same as today’s views.

I also agree with pp about them being 'of the time', thankfully we have moved on but dodgy parts aside they are still a great read .

Quite. As a 12 year old in the 80s, I was perfectly capable of understanding that the views expressed in books written 40 odd years earlier may have “wrong” views (eg about women shouldn’t have been given the vote as a random example) which were now out of date. But in many ways it is really important to see these things, to have an appreciation as to how much things have changed since. Whitewashing over it simply fails to enable that perspective.

It was a misogynistic, classist, homophobic, racist era. The writing reflects that. I don’t think anyone pretends otherwise.
But she also managed to craft cracking storylines, create characters readers loved or loved to hate and a longer, satisfying redemption arcs. And some genuinely lovely descriptions of the English countryside.
And didn’t take herself too seriously.

Must say I loathe the fashion for unpicking much loved older films/books etc without acknowledging how much society has changed.

I liked all her books but my favourites are Imogen, Prudence, Octavia and Harriet. Hilarious!

Same, but brilliant as she was, I must confess I never warmed to the character of Rupert, and was irritated by JC’s frequent assumptions that he was “still nirvana for most women.” Arrogant, often violent, morally bankrupt and a dyed-in-the-wool snob? No thanks.

These! I was obsessed with a character called Ace Mulholland.

The thing is they do pretend otherwise because it is literally never mentioned in the context of her books. As I said I've listened recently to various podcasts with her and seen various "feminist" journalists (Elizabeth Day and Pandora Sykes to name two) fawning over her books and her in podcasts and on social media and I've been very surprised the offensiveness of her material is never mentioned. To me a lot of her writing is far worse and more problematic than Roald Dahl et al because the slurs are so aggressive and numerous but she has never been challenged on it to my knowledge. I would actually be really interested to hear what her response was if she was challenged on it so if anyone knows of an interview like that I would love to hear it. I actually suspect that if you scratched the surface with her views she would have been exposed to be a very old fashioned bigot even in her old age and even below all the charming, flirty posh old lady stuff. For example on Elizabeth Days podcasts, ED tried to get Jilly to reflect on why Jilly feels she must always be thin and needs to lose weight. She tried to get Jilly to self reflect on the cultural and social reasons for it. Jilly absolutely refused. She just kept saying she had massive thighs and that she didn't ever want to be over 9 stone etc. Just totally uninterested in self reflection.

See Jillys writing in contrast to other "of their time" writers. For example, I recently read a Town Like Alice. In that there are plenty of lazy racist stereotypes. But it feels very much in keeping with the language of the day. Whereas so much of Jilly's writing just sounds like it's her voice- her own views. And they were very extreme. Lots of other female writers of the time such as Anne Tyler didn't feel the need to pepper their books with sexism, misogyny and violence in the same way.

As I've said I still think she was a great writer. She had a talent for descriptive prose and a brilliant storyline.

But Jilly's voice was absolutely in keeping with a particular strain of the language of the day. That's the whole point of what I have said. You didn't grow up in that time and have no personal experience of being in it. And her writing was informed by her experience of living in and socialising with the English upper middle class and aristocracy. She's not trying to be Doris Lessing or Ursula Le Guin. I don't understand why you would compare her to Anne Tyler who was writing in a different country for a different audience about a different demographic.

@CarterBeatsTheDevilthe point i was making about Anne Tyler is that it was possible to write in the early 80s about women and their lives without writing with vitriolic hatred for every minority and without writing misogynistic and sexist stuff on every page. Both writers wrote for women about women. And whilst I do totally understand and agree that it was very of it's time and absolutely allowances should be made for that, what i don't understand is why it is never referred to or challenged. Her writing seems to have been whitewashed in a way her contemporaries don't get away with. I'm confused about why that's the case.

I would just love to have heard her being asked about it. I would have thought any of the brilliant journalists she was interviewed by could have challenged her in a sensitive way without causing offence. But I think a lot of people were dazzled by her obvious charm and didn't bother.

Well, she was absolutely derided at the time - there was a whole sex and shopping genre and she was rather lumped in with that. I think you would find a lot of feminist critique and challenge to her work and its content contemporaneously. I was very surprised to find that she was a talented writer when I picked up TMWMHJ because I had always dismissed her as facile and anti feminist and rubbish. But also, don't overlook how strong and talented the women she writes about are, even if they are also flawed and disorganised and appearance-obsessed and put up with a lot of stuff that they shouldn't.

That's fair enough. I think she was very charming and also in the last ten years very elderly, so there's that element of just not wanting to upset your granny even if she is totally reprehensible in some respects.

I have no idea why you’d compare Cooper to Tyler rather than her nearest comparators like Jackie Collins, Judith Krantz & Shirley Conran.

I think her writing reflected much of what was true of the era. Men were often very sexist and there were plenty quite comfortable with giving their wives, children and animals at the very least a slap, if not more. That didn't stop them being seen as desirable by women of the time. Things have changed a lot!

I think she captured people's imperfections well and we saw that despite all the things that were wrong with them, they were still attractive. In many ways she championed the cause of the non-domesticated woman, who wasn't a Stepford housewife, was disorganised, chaotic but juggled work and family life, albeit very imperfectly.

Me too! What an ugly bloke. I always saw him like Anthony Andrews in Brideshead, or Rupert Penry-Jones in Spooks.

Oh yes, Ace. Although I still can’t work out what “huddled in a basket” means when she’s been sick.

I was on the fence, but I actually really like him as Rupert so all is forgiven. Agree that Rupert Penry-Jones 20 years ago would have been the perfect Rupert.

Oh yes he was gorgeous! In my mind anyway 😄

I wanted to have Ace as a nickname for DS but I understand it’s now used as an abbreviation for asexual 😕

Ah but Rupert was also "the handsomest man in England" who was "as rich as Croesus" and was kind, sometimes, for example to Lizzy, to Declan when he bought the bluebell wood, to his dogs.

His looks were described as breath taking. Cerulean eyes, blond hair, muscular, incredibly fit (in the old fashioned sense of the word!) with breath that smelled of "animal health and good digestion." I mean, SWOON at all of the above!

He was also generous to people he loved like Billy, Taggie andTabitha and later, to Perdita. He was an outstanding sportsman, driven to win. He didn't give a shit, because he was rich and ultra posh and privileged but that meant he dented people's pomposity and egos. Whilst having an enormous one of his own. And the ego, to use a Jilly-esque pun! He often laughs when other people dare not. And sleeps when he's tired and isn't interested in social climbing (as he's already at the top) or anything that bores him.

He is also an "irredeemable shit" (the smooth private doctor, James Benson said this, IIRC) and yes, he was cruel to some of his horses. The Kenya scene is awful and I can't read it now but I read it at the time and it just wasn't that shocking back then. Sorry, but it wasn't - as a PP said rape in marriage wasn't illegal until some time in the 90s.

Completely agree.

Also, Jilly isn't in the same league as those old hacks Jackie Collins and Judith Kranz et al, she's acres above them IMO.

Her writing isn't chick lit at all, her work is peppered with literary and artistic allusions, some fairly obscure (they passed me by in my 20s but I've recently looked some of them up, which has been interesting!) her characters are brilliantly written and her descriptions of the Cotswold countryside are outstanding - it feels like you're there.

I saw her interviewed in person by India Knight years ago, who said similar about her and remarked (to Jilly) that "you wear your learning lightly"

I don't think Jilly was a snob actually, despite mixing in very posh circles, I think she liked people in general and was interested in them, which is what made her such a fantastic writer.

That's why she was loved, because she was a fantastic writer and observer of people. Maybe because she was a journalist before she wrote her novels and because she spent a lot of time in that upper middle class and posh world and it was one she knew well. It was full of crumbling piles and horses and dogs and lecherous men and beautiful women.

She also wrote about women who genuinely enjoyed sex (Chessie, Janey) which was unusual for the time. And women who worked! Janey, Lizzie Vereker, Cameron Cook. Again, in those days when a woman got married the question was sometimes (often?) asked "will you work once you're married?"

I remember the 80s well. It was sexist, racist, misogynistic and homophobic. But amongst all that Jilly gave us joy and escapism and laughter. I love love love her.

@TheSecondMrsCampbellBlacki have to disagree on her not being a snob...i picked up her book about Class recently (I can't remember the name- it might actually be called "Class") and it's almost unreadable as its so painfully and nastily snobby. Again I would imagine very much of it's time as Jilly was. She had many wonderful attributes and I bet she was great fun but by her own admission she was horribly bitchy and I'm certain a terrible snob too.

@TheSecondMrsCampbellBlack
Well, it wouldn’t do if we all liked the same thing I suppose. Blonde, blue-eyed and uber posh doesn’t do it for me, but I can see why he appealed to some.
The rape thing though…? In the scene I’m thinking of, Rupert doesn’t just rape his own wife, he also allows his friend to have sex with her against her will too. It’s nauseating, legal or not. I thought so at the time, even though I’m from that era myself.