35: Polo: Jilly Cooper: ISBN 0552150576

[lnr]

I feel like it's a bit of a dirty secret to admit to having enjoyed reading this stuff as a teenager. What could be worse then than admitting that I've actually bought some of it. It was in the cheapo bookshop at 3 for a tenner though, and that will have to be justification enough. It's a horsey boozy blockbuster full of sex and tantrums, which sounds terrible in a lot of ways but in fact is somewhat endearing. The loveliest characters all end up settled happily at the end, and the underdogs win the important match at the end of the book and all is well with the world.

Comments

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

The loveliest characters all end up settled happily at the end, and the underdogs win the important match at the end of the book and all is well with the world.

Sounds good to me - sometimes that's what we need. Personally, I'm taking some Enid Blyton to read on holiday!

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

Grief. I love this book. We put too much importance on reading stuff that other people think is 'good'. What we enjoy, we enjoy.

Where does the yardstick that deems what is culturally good or bad reside? It's not measurable, it arises out of a consensus. What is wrong, or at the very least, questionable, is that a few people have the more sway in deeming cultural goodness or badness than other people.

In my defense, I point out that Shakespear was the Jackie Collins of his day.

Anyway, there's lots about Jilly Cooper that even the self defined Great and Good could applaud, if they so wished. She doesn't promote style over plot, and her writing style jars on me far less than, for example, JK Rowling. She has a fantastic imagination, and a real empathy for the people she is writing about. OK, this leads to less than consistent characterization, but people change, y'know?

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

And also, how do you get to go back and edit a comment once posted? I can do it with my diary entries, but have not yet found out how to do it with comments in other people's journals.

[karen2205]

You can't. You have to delete your first comment and write a new one.

[lnr]

I tend to do it the other way round, so I can copy and paste bits from the first attempt :-)

[lnr]

Actually I try to read a mix of things I enjoy despite them not being considered terribly good and things which are recommended to me as being good. And I usually enjoy the latter type just as much. I like this stuff, but it *is* pretty trashy, and unashamedly so. Me mocking myself for reading it isn't at all serious though.

[juliet]

I always really liked them as well. I freely admit it's trash, but it's reasonably well-written trash, the characters are kind of believable despite being a bit larger-than-life (that's not quite what I mean but it'll do well enough), & I'm a sucker for a happy ending :-)

And she does write some very endearing sorts of people - e.g. Luke, in Polo, who is lovely :-) And even though Perdita behaves like a bitch throughout you still *want* her to work things out. I'm always rather fond of her horrendously-behaved teenagers, as well.

[lnr]

You're right about Luke. And Daisy is wonderfully sweet too. And Taggie from Rivals is an angel. And the dogs and horses are often complete sweethearts too. I rather like the badly behaved teenagers too, but like schoolgirls they all seem to turn out nice in the end.

If I were really ashamed to admit to it I wouldn't be posting to LJ. I like reading well-written trash though from time to time. Mind I'm pondering between Du Maurier's Rebecca or Anne of Green Gables to take to bed tonight.

[sparrowsion]

I don't know whether it's worse to admit that the only Jilly Cooper I've read was a volume of autobiography under the mistaken impression that it would be a travelogue-with-animals in Australia.

[oldbloke.livejournal.com]

AwfulAuthorsAnonymous:
I used to read Mickey Spillane