Mount by Jilly Cooper - SPOILERS!

[MrsCampbellBlack]

So do not read this thread if you have not read the whole book.

[StStrattersOfMN]

I enjoyed it, I confess.

I did skip over the sex scenes, one 'buttercunt' and I was out, BUT I do think it made it more realistic that Rupert eventually cheated. Jan was too obviously the baddie, too. She's not subtle, is she, our Jilly.

[Puffykins]

It's dreadful. Disappointingly so. Growing up, I wanted to be Fenella/ Perdita/ Caitlin. Re-reading them, I still slightly want to be them. In this one? No one. And the characters are so one dimensional that one feels nothing for them. I must have read Polo about twenty times, and I still cry every time Tero dies. Furious's death made me cry in Jump. Was anyone at all devastated when Love Rat died? Even Rupert seemed weirdly not that moved (granted, he had other stuff going on.) And seriously, who edited this? It's so badly done. She's nane character - but they wouldn't actually be introduced for another couple of pages. And oh my God the repetition....

[MunchCrunch01]

i'm not that far in but so far it seems better than the last 2, the countryside descriptions and horsey stuff - jc's never been one for a lot of happily ever afters, i thought what happened to Billy made sense, all of her characters eventually seem to revert to what she sees as their essential type. I enjoy the drinking vicariously, if I drink more than a couple of glasses these days I can't function the next day.

[LanaorAna1]

I've finished now and reread at leisure. The only nice people are the horses, really.

Exceptions - extremely fond of Purrpuss who should have featured more in the dialogue - he never spoke once. Cats do talk, especially bossy ones. Bao was very, very funny and authentic he was too.

Humans were mostly neither nice or funny. Did not identify with Gala at all - no idea she was meant to be 'the main heroine' until Jilly said so in the acks. I approve madly of her being a carer though.

The Rupert & Gala sex thing - actually, you know, I'm sort of ok with that. It was just sex. Funnily enough, it seems more just-about-ok because it was really good sex. And they did a dignified farewell.

But the biggest farewell in the book is to love - great, crashing, lifelong romantic love. It's not there. Through her observation Jilly articulated the great dream of love for all of us in the early books - and through her observation, she couldn't help but kill it off in the last one. How sad.

[Solasum]

I liked Bao and agree his sister should have come into the plot
Somewhere. I quite liked the Jan storyline, but him just quietly leaving before the final showdown was a bit odd. Sad for Taggie - I agree Rupert was bound to stray at some point, but she seems to have morphed into Tory and/or never grown beyond her angst ridden teen self.
Sad that Janey was so bitter towards them all, I had imagined it was a perma truce between her and Rupert.

Paris should have come into it more.

[MrsCampbellBlack]

Not sure which interview with Jilly it was in - but she said her husband's death was easier to deal with because he had hurt so much with his affair. She seemed to be saying that he had killed the love a bit - which I guess ties in with what you are saying Lanaor about the end of the great romantic love.

I still think she could have got Taggie to have been more dynamic and Rupert then really struggling with the fact that he has a younger/gorgeous wife whilst he is a lot older.

[AntheaBelvedon]

Finished the book, going to RTFT now!

[CalmItKermitt]

I'm so upset to read this and find out Rupert cheated 😟

I mean ridiculously upset given they're just characters in a book 🙄😟

I don't think I'll bother with it. Gutted as I lived Jilly 😟

[CalmItKermitt]

Loved.

[AntheaBelvedon]

I mostly agree with the sentiment of the thread.

The casual racism and complete whitewashing of sexual assault doesn't really hold up in 2016. Referring to black people as ' the blacks' makes me really uncomfortable.

I agree that the characters are no way as brilliant as they used to be (Fenella, Caitlin, Flora etc) Taggie is now wetter than a British bank holiday and Rupert seems to have lost any of his redeeming features.

Gala was a pain in the arse and Gav was woefully two dimensional.

Had to laugh at the poster up thread who's spell check replaced Feral with Fergal!

[LanaorAna1]

Mrs CB I am entirely in agreement. You may recall the affair was grim beyond belief and went on and on. After some years DH got found out, promised to chuck his GF, said he had, everyone started to recover. He hadn't.

GF went to the papers to complain of the lot of the mistress (aided by her mate Margaret Drabble) with a lot of twisting the knife about their oh-so passionate lerve and voila, public humiliation for Jilly on top of two betrayals.

I remember the press 25 years on - even as a kid, I thought ow, nasty. It wasn't a fling, to put it mildly - from the sounds of things Jilly would have been far more ok about random shagging.

GF ended up in a clinic I think, at any rate she got the sack, and I don't think she ever worked again, certainly not in publishing. No one escaped intact.

[tribpot]

Ugh. Poor Jilly.

[KathyBeale]

I have just finished and I agree with everything here except I rather like Jump. I absolutely loathe Wicked though and I feel like this is similar to the feel of that.

I was also appalled by the casual racial stereotypes. Quickry? Seriously? And Eddie's assaults. I couldn't believe Rupert and Taggie laughed about him putting his dick in the old ladies' mouths. I found that quite upsetting! (Not real, I know!).

Some of the action was good - I thought it got better by the end actually and you could see that she had got back in her stride. I'm a writer and editor and I agree she needed a firm hand. A couple of years ago I was communicating with her and she told me she was really struggling with the book. I think that's very obvious at the beginning.

I also liked the party and YES Rupert is the same age as my parents (I'm the same age as Marcus) so should be late 60s or even 70. But the LA Olympics in Riders are four years too early in the book's timeline so she's got form.

[Motherwithflaws]

Just finished and I actually loved it. Obviously old senile man assaulting women should not be in it and I can't believe that nobody said 'er... we'd better cut that bit out'
Making a joke about falling over a curry eating person praying, not fucking funny Jilly.
Comparing a rain soaked scene at the races to blurred out abuse victims, not fucking funny.
Making jokes about a Chinese man's accent!?
And having a loved one with cancer is like sitting in a room with a suicide bomber. What a lovely image you've described Jilly, thanks ever so much...
Also I feel like she'd wrote the book and someone said 'shit, it's supposed to be set now... Quick, throw in a mention of a tweet, mobile phone, text and facebook a couple of times and that'll do!'

[DartmoorDoughnut]

I am SO gutted, I read all JC's books when I was younger and I've been looking forward to Mount for months and it was just awful, so blah and boring I actually had to make myself finish it.

[AntheaBelvedon]

The back story behind Jilly and Leo's marriage certainly explains how well she wrote Guy and Georgies relationship.

It always felt like it had a ring of truth to it, particularly how drawn out it was.

[MunchCrunch01]

boris johnson did the same sort of thing with petronella wyatt, they had a long affair, they split up, (don't know if his wife prompted this) but it started up again. Poor JC. I'm glad the book isn't too up to date, part of what I like about her writing is how anachronistic it is (not the stuff that's unacceptably off, just her style generally).

[drwitch]

Has anybody read Kiss and Tell by Fiona Walker - the premise of the plot (moody rider from the south hemisphere tries to break up marriage) is very similar. Really odd as all FW horsey books are basically homages to JC themselves.

So think the Rupert and Gala thing did not destroy her idea of romantic love but actually the idea that adultery could be ok and funny.

Also WTF is her view of weight - Eddie 6 foot plus being 8 and a half stone.

[MrsCampbellBlack]

I thought that Rupert did love Gala when he said something like 'men do stupid things when they're in love' - I thought he was also referring to himself and his adultery.

I hadn't realised Jilly's husband's affair was so long. Lordy - Guy and Georgie certainly makes sense now - just not sure how she ever got over that really.

[AntheaBelvedon]

I'm really resisting the urge to name change to ButtercuntBelvedon