Dear Abbey

Northanger Abbey shares a lot with other Jane Austen novels: It is partly set in Bath. Women are chasing men; men are chasing women. There is a scoundrel in the character of John Thorpe. The story ends in a wedding. What this early novels lacks, though, is a mature and perceptive heroine, one along the lines of an Anne Elliot, Eleanor Dashwood, or Elizabeth Bennett. These young women were grown up. They knew their own minds, knew the right path (and took it), and could discern dishonesty and lack of scruples in others. 

Catherine Morland stands out because she is so unlike Austen's other heroines. She looks to others for what's right or wrong. She fancies a respectable man to be a murderer. Obviously, Austen was younger when she wrote Catherine. This was one of her early attempts, so some tolerance can be granted. At least Catherine is still likable. She's fun, honest, open-minded. But reading her story is like reading a young woman's romance novel or a teenager's journal. That's not the worst thing in the world. But Jane Austen has fed us readers on filet mignon with her other novels. This one is like eating cotton candy. It's sweet as it goes down, but it soon disappears and is forgotten.

Of course, Austen may have been playing a joke on her readers. The whole novel may have been one big tongue-in-cheek joke on the Gothic romance genre: dark secrets, old houses (abbeys), dashing men. She just wrapped the joke up in a saccharin love story to make it more interesting. No doubt Austen herself was a perceptive woman with her own sense of humor. She makes fun of social classes in all her novels. Why not make fun of an entire genre in this one? In any case, readers are lucky Austen herself matured enough to write more solid female leads. Without them, Catherine would stand as Austen's lone heroine, and frankly, she couldn't take the heat.

Northanger Abbey

Sorry I haven't written about this. I actually finished the book a day or two before the reviews were "due," and I wrote about it on my personal blog and then promptly forgot to put anything on the actual book club blook (I have no idea where that word came from, and I thought it too funny to change it. It totally should be "blog". This is, without a doubt, a sign of sleep deprivation...this actually might explain why I haven't blogged about Northanger Abbey yet! lol).

ANYWAY!!!! Finished the book while rocking my new baby and I have to say, you can tell this was written early in Austen's career. It was very very wordy. She sooooo needed a good editor! And I should know, because that's how I write and think. Many college term papers came back with pretty much that same complaint.

That being said, what a fun book. I love that Catherine and Henry seemed to like each other from the start and, yes, had some bumps in their relationship, but for the most part, remained on good terms through the entire book. I have to say, though, that the ending reminded me of a Louis L'Amour book...you have drama, story, romance and conflict, only to be resolved in the last few pages of the last chapter. I mean, seriously, Catherine and Henry were able to find happiness and get permission to marry even though Henry's father was a complete JERK (how scandalous that he turned Catherine out of his house like that, really!)! Thankfully, Henry's sister was able to marry well (!) to some guy we had never even heard about until the paragraph where it was revealed they had married (again, !!!!). But I'm a sucker for a happy ending, so I was actually fine with it. I'm just saying.

I did learn some interesting things. One, that gratuitous swearing/gossip by a suitor is a turnoff, regardless of the century. I'm glad Catherine agreed. Secondly, when the people went to Bath, England, known for it's restorative waters, they literally went to the Pump Rooms to DRINK THE WATER. Ohhhhhhh. I was wondering what the heck they were doing walking around in circles in the recent BBC/PBS version of Northanger Abbey, while periodically stopping to take a beverage break. Now I know.

I love Jane Austen, but I had yet to read this particular novel. Now I have and I'm glad for it. Wonderful choice. :)

Northanger Abbey

Satire: A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.

My oldest nephew hates Jane Austen novels, reasoning that all Jane Austen writes about is the frivolous behaviors of pre-Victorian England. What I can’t make him understand (I don’t know where he gets his stubbornness from – probably his mom☺) is that Jane Austen uses her novels to attack such behaviors. Jane Austen’s heroines are usually stronger than such behaviors, Elizabeth Bennet, Anne Elliot, Elinor Dashwood, to name a few.

Northanger Abbey is not one of my favorite Jane Austen’s books, but I think it is her most satirical work – and one of her earliest. Northanger Abbey was written by Austen in 1798, revised for the press in 1803, and sold in the same year for £10 to a London bookseller, Crosby & Co., who after allowing it to remain for many years on his shelves, was content to sell it back to the novelist's brother, Henry Austen, for the exact sum that he had paid for it at the beginning, not knowing that the writer was already the author of four popular novels. The novel was further revised before being brought out posthumously in late December 1817 (1818 given on the title-page). I find it an interesting satire. (from Wikipedia)

Jane Austen herself was only in her early 20’s, and Catherine Morland is 17 (Austen’s youngest heroine). Although Catherine is the heroine, I think the character that best “attacks” feminine foibles is Isabella Thorpe – she really annoyed me to no end. Isabella always spoke in hyperbole (pun intended), and would then do the opposite of what she had previously said:
“…she was so far from seeking to attract [two young gentlemen’s] notice, that she looked back at them only three times.”
Speaking to James Morland: “I would not stand up without your dear sister for all the world,” and then not “three minutes longer” she said to Catherine: “My dear creature, I am afraid I must leave you, your brother is so amazingly impatient…”
To James: “Mr. Morland… I shall not speak another word to you the rest of the evening.” Then, “Isabella smiled incredulously and talked the rest of the evening to James.”

I really like the Masterpiece Theater production of Northanger Abbey. Less of Isabella and more of a Love story between Henry Tilney and Catherine Moreland, as opposed to the less romantic reasoning in the book: “I must confess that his affection originated in nothing better than gratitude, or, in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought.” How romantic.

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”