Rivals - Time to have a hot bath, trim my hedge and get the MOET out

[RupertCampbellsBack]

Are there any other Jilly Cooper fans out there? I feel ridiculously excited about Rivals coming out.

[Title edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

That's another one that they did before too. Can't find it currently in any streaming but avaline from bread was in it.

I imagine Taggy as a young Liv Tyler

I remember - they need to exorcise it with a glorious remake

I am sure Rannaldini's flames shaved...but point taken. I think I was over excited when I started the thread.

@MNHQ Can the title be changed from "shave my pussy" to "trim my bush"

Yes please - I think that is my favourite. Although if they would make Flora a bit older. She was 16 in thr book.

Yes, I was coming on to say this. I listened to it, and though I’ve never read a word of JC, it made me thinking I should give it a go. But I imagine you probably need to have read the novels at the right age to not view them as a slightly odd period piece?

@RupertCampbellsBack "Well, spray my bush with Fracas..."🤣

I first read Jilly Coopers books a teen, lborrowing my mum's copies and skipping through the descriptions of nature to get to the sexy bits.

Then, I have read them again at various points of my life, the books have always cheered me up, even with the now unacceptable judgements, particularly about weight.

I have recently listened to some of Jilly Cooper's books on audible some of it has aged and belongs to another era. The joy that comes out of her best work is glorious. Some of her writing, her descriptions brings the story to life.

A bit like Marian Keyes, she is a truly great author, underestimated because she has written romance novels. Also like Keyes, her best work is probably her earlier books.

Oh God yes, definitely. Some of it can legitimately be updated!

Two of my favourite writers. Like Marian Keyes I find it immensely frustrating that these books are denigrated as chicklit essentially because they're relevant to women and not, I don't know, overly gritty for the sake of it. I discovered JC in my twenties, after my dad died, when I just could not handle anything that didn't have a happy ending, and it was so wonderful to be able to read something that was funny and sharp and observational and witty and in places tragic and yet where you could be reasonably confident that everyone would end up reasonably happy. Wonderful, wonderful books.

I admit that I don't enjoy MK's later books as much as her earlier ones but she's always a delight to listen to.

@FanDann this is how I imagined RCB too!! I hated the casting in the Riders thing they did and the MWMHJ was just appalling and needs consigning to some dark and never seen again bin!

However I am now cheered as my darling eldest son has Disney+ and has told me how to use it so I too can join with you all tomorrow, Fracas/Bluebell scented, wrapped in a towel and watch it!

Some of it is a bit jarring and you definitely have to view it as holding up a mirror to its time. The first one I read of hers was The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous, and then I think it went Rivals-Polo-Appassionata-Score. So I came to Riders late and there were a couple of scenes that I (as someone who came to adolescence in the late 80s) was quite shocked by: they haven't worn well. It's still a very good book but you've got to think of it as a very different time to now.

I hope everyone's going to wash the scurf out of their hair before settling down to this televisual feast

The Name books are definitely my favourites, along with Riders.

I cut my teeth on Polo as my first JC as an early teen in the mid 90’s. So I always have a soft spot for that one. You’ve certainly just got to not think too hard on some of the scenes!

I absolutely loved all Jillys books but particularly any with RCB. Silly I know but when I first started reading I would imagine a lot of the mumsnetters living like Taggie or Monica Baddingham, lovely big houses with crunchy drives, stone floors and lots of dogs. 🤣

I definitely think there are at least some of those knocking around!

I’ve always maintained that JC is one of our greatest writers on the English Countryside. Or Cuntricide. Gardens too.
Some of her descriptive writing is superlative.

Her diaries from the late 70s and 80s, The Common Years is probably my favourite of hers. I do hope she’s written more diaries to be published one day.

Good lord I had no idea he used to be so attractive!

I came to them as a teen too, first reading Bella when I was 14 in 1977 then devouring all the Names books. Soft spot for Imogen.
I read Riders when it first came out in 85. I remember being on a train and thinking ‘well, this is quite a departure’.

Just joining the thread, so excited to watch this, when I was in my late teens I loved Jilly Cooper books they certainly gave me a bit of an education! lol!

So so so excited. Read my first JC at uni in the late 90s. If my husband is lucky I might love it enough to watch the first episode twice in row 😂

@BestisWest, Octavia is my very favourite JC book, her descriptions of the surrounding countryside whilst on the barge trip are sublime , takes me back to the fantastic heatwave of 1976. I was 22 then and having the time of my life!
Octavia was first published in the 'teen' magazine Honey, and it was then called October Brennan, and if I remember it was serialized, and I kept every copy so I could re read it. I was over the moon when it was published as a book, and I still have the original copy I bought in 1977 with JC all slammed up on the cover photo.

@Tooty78 yes, the descriptions of the heatwave are amazing. She really captures that still haziness and the parched lawns. And the clothes,
I’ve always longed to wear dungarees with nothing underneath!

I'm wildly excited about this utterly ravishing adaptation and long to fling myself on the sofa with the imaginary dogs wearing a short tight yellow dress the colour of the telephone directory whilst snarling and drenched in Fracas- but I don't have Disney +. Do we think it's going to be available elsewhere, eventually?