Jilly Cooper Interview
| Jilly Cooper is the author is a number of extremely popular and enjoyable romantic books such as Polo,
Riders, Rivals, Appassionata, and Score many of which have been filmed very successfully for
British television. She is often unduly ignored due to the popularity of her works, but at Bibliomania
we feel that this snobbish attitude is unjust and unworthy of an author of her ability. In this interview
Bibliomania attempts to set the record straight with a discussion of her views about her critical reception
and the inspiration for her novels and characters. Bibliomania: There is a cult of intellectual snobbery at the moment which dictates that if you sell books, you sell out. This was not the case in the last century, when the most popular authors - Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens - were also critically revered. Do you think the twenty-first century will see a revaluation of Jilly Cooper as a popular, but marvellously accomplished writer? Jilly Cooper: One of the loveliest quotes I heard about authors was: they're too good to be popular, or too popular to be good. You see the problem is that I used to be quite upmarket when I worked at The Times and I got rather nervous about my books, with everybody thinking that I had gone terribly downmarket. There is a great trend at the moment for having a dig at popular writers, which is sad, but doesn't matter too much to me. It's best to be read rather than not, don't you think? Bib: Do you see yourself as the Scott of our generation - popular, but also making a genuine contribution to British literature? Jilly: Hummm... It would be wonderful to be Scott - isn't he your hero? He was a wonderful writer and adored his dogs, and he also got involved in a publishing firm which went spectacularly broke, through no fault of his, and insisted on paying off all the debts by writing books. Bib: Let's talk about the huge amount of research you do on your books - you seem to know the worlds of the polo set, the orchestra, show-jumping and the film business intimately. Did your work as a journalist help you to gain such insight into what are relatively closed worlds? Jilly: I knew nothing about polo. I tossed a coin between writing about eventing or polo, and thank God it came up polo. I think eventing's terribly dull: I try to like it but I can't. I hate those big cruel fixed fences. I went straight from a girl's boarding school to a paper in the docks and that was very scary. I was very lucky, because I love research. I think it was E M Forster who said that research is the traffic policeman that holds up the novel. He's right. There is a terrible temptation when you find something interesting to just stick it into the novel. Bib: Do you think that you can over-research a novel? Jilly: Well Riders took me fifteen years. In each novel, only the tip of the iceberg of one's research goes into the novel. But it's so much fun. Bib: The gypsies: Jake Lovell, for instance, how did you research him? Jilly: I was in Putney, and I went out to lunch with someone - I can't remember who because it was so traumatic. Afterwards I went to Selfridge's and tried on some free scent, and took the bus home. When I got back the manuscript had vanished: It was so traumatic I didn't finish the book for another fourteen years. The gypsy evolved as a character, I talked to lots of people with gypsy blood, I read a lot. He was also based on my very glamorous riding master when I was six. He had gypsy blood and he fell madly in love with a Miss Coombes, the daughter of the Manor, and he used to take me riding and I remember one day my pony bucked me off and I was left sitting in the middle of a wood. My riding master and Miss Coombes disappeared into the bushes and I was left crying. That was a formative moment for me. Bib: We notice that many of your most attractive characters - Taggy and Lysander Hawkley - are dyslexic. Why do you show such sympathy to characters with learning difficulties? Jilly: Felix (her adopted son - ed.) was terribly slow to read. The first book he read was The Rats by James Herbert, he suddenly picked it up on holiday when he was about eleven and said "Goodness, I didn't realise that they had things like this". So, having a slightly dyslexic child, I think one naturally feels sympathy for them. Bib: Could we now talk about the archetypal shits in your books who seem to be utterly without saving graces - Rannaldini for instance? Jilly: Rannaldini is nice to cats. Bib: But to the detriment of his relationships with humans. Would you advise our male readers to follow your cads' "treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen" tactics in their relationships with women? Jilly: I think it works for both sexes. I think women have all torn their hair out over the bitch who gets everybody. People, I'm afraid, always want what they can't have. I know men are supposed to be all caring and sharing these days, but it just doesn't work. Bib: Girls of several generations have grown up fancying Rupert Campbell Black. Do you think you have created the ultimate cad? Jilly: Well the thing about Rupert is that he finally turns good. Also, the people you fancy in romantic fiction are like the people you fancy in dreams. It's not based in reality. Bib: You present a fairly bleak vision of modern marriage, even when people seem to be in love... Jilly: I don't think I do. Rupert is happily married... Bib: Not in Appassionata. Jilly: No, he has a lapse there, but he doesn't take anyone to bed, and the lapse comes back to haunt him. Most of |
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