Northanger Abbey

I'm definitely going to have to read this again; and physically

read it the next time. While I enjoyed it well enough, I wasn't paying it the attention it deserved. (I can say I'm a fan of Henry Tilney.)

Despite being a book published two hundred years ago. It seems to me an original approach to the protagonist and, above all, to a love story. A fresh take that still lasts until today if you rush me.

It is a smart book, I liked many of its descriptions and its irony. And it has interesting characters that stay in a fine line between being caricature and being realistic.

I have to admit that near the beginning there came a time when I got a little bored but it is a book that you do not expect its development, except for its synopsis that only represents a very small part of the book.

In conclusion, a good book.

This was a book I've been thinking of rereading for ages and I'm glad I finally did. Loved the slight messiness of the characters and the drama that went on. Was a nice story to relax to and I enjoyed the talk of other works of literature.

****4.0****

Review soon

Entertaining, but not as good as I expected it. The main character is nice enough, if a bit ignorant. The romance was a bit too predictable for my taste, but Mr. Tilney was a good love interest. Not the greatest Jane Austen book I've read, but a pleasant way to spend a few hours.

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

2023 reread: Somehow I love

Northanger Abbey even more this time around. It’s so pacey and fun, with plenty of humor and characters who are an unmitigated delight, and I adore the metatextual commentary. My appreciation for Austen’s mastery of her craft has also grown: knowing what was actually going on this time, I was able to pick up on everything that Catherine missed or misunderstood (which seems so obvious now!). I’ve also learned quite a bit more about the culture surrounding Bath and Regency customs in general, so I understood much more of the nuanced social elements that I didn’t really pick up on the first time around.

I will continue to defend Catherine from people who think she’s silly, dull, and slow—but maybe that’s just because I, too, love novels, am a bit “boring,” and am not very good at reading people or social cues. I will also defend Austen’s satire here, which I think is misunderstood—a position that risks being doubly wrong, both about the novel itself and the public perception—as I don’t think she means to condemn the gothic genre or blame Catherine’s silliness on her love of novel reading;

Northanger Abbey reads to me like a novel written by someone who enjoys gothic fiction but wants to poke fun at some of the tropes by seeing how they fare in the real world.

And with that,

Northanger Abbey moves up on my favorites list!

---

…but why he should say one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was most unaccountable! How were people, at that rate, to be understood?

Initial 2022 review: At last, a Jane Austen novel I can unabashedly love! In fact, I can think of nothing that I didn’t like about

Northanger Abbey. Not only was I completely engrossed from start to finish, but I now have to fight off the impulse to immediately read it again—I’m sure there’s so, so,

so much I missed. Such is the joy of discovering a classic whose plot I’m completely unfamiliar with! For now, I’ll instead settle for listening to lectures and podcasts that flesh out the literary and social context a bit more because, as always with Austen, there’s a lot that goes over my head.

Tonally,

Northanger Abbey seems to be Austen’s most playful and lighthearted. (Interestingly, Northanger Abbey itself is not mentioned until about halfway through the novel, which ends up neatly split between the first half set primarily in Bath and the second in Northanger.) The plot moves along fairly quickly, and Austen mainly focuses on Catherine without spending much time on minor characters. In fact, at one point she writes, “

This brief account of the family is intended to supersede the necessity of a long and minute detail from Mrs. Thorpe herself, of her past adventures and sufferings, which might otherwise be expected to occupy the three or four following chapters; in which the worthlessness of lords and attorneys might be set forth, and conversations, which had passed twenty years before, be minutely repeated.” Were this one of her later novels, Austen would have indeed recounted “a long and minute detail from Mrs. Thorpe herself; I like

Northanger Abbey all the better for her economy. Unlike in some of her other work, Austen keeps “her heroine” Catherine Moorland constantly present on the page, and I felt much more invested as a result.

Speaking of Catherine: she’s delightful and I love her. She may be the most ordinary of Austen’s heroines, and I feel like I got a better sense of her personality than of Anne Elliot or Fanny Price: a bit of a tomboy, not especially bright or studious or beautiful, young, naive, slightly awkward, adores gothic novels, very proper but not always the most discerning. (Fair to say I identify with her fairly strongly.) Over the course of

Northanger Abbey, she undergoes great personal growth that is quite satisfying to watch.

And of course our hero,

Henry Tilney

, who I believe is my favorite of all Austen’s leading men. Like Catherine, he’s relatively ordinary: good-looking but not particularly handsome, generally likable with a bit of good-natured teasing and sarcasm, quietly confident, very proper yet flirtatious, unafraid to admit to a love of books. I also quite like that

he wasn’t interested in Catherine until he realized she had a crush on him. Not only do I find his honesty endearing, but it’s refreshing to see Austen portray a romance that grows quietly rather than one that immediately ignites flames of passion. It’s a bit uncommon in romance novels, but I don’t think it’s at all unrealistic. It’s also interesting that, in a way,

she is the one to take initiative—were it the other way around, I think it may have felt a bit predatory. All told, I think they’re a lovely match for one another.

Then the villains, the villains! Once again, Austen’s characters aren’t especially unusual archetypes. Everyone has known people like

the Thorpes

, and Austen does a marvelous job at capturing the little quirks that make them so unbearable—particularly with the benefit of hindsight, which is why I’m so anxious to reread this.

John Thorpe, the Regency version of a narcissist who only cares about himself and only talks about cars and sports, is positively odious from the start and just gets worse as the novel goes along. Isabella is much more clever: like Catherine, I was convinced that they were truly going to become the most intimate friends, and that

Northanger Abbey was going to be a tale of friendship as well as romance. (In a way, of course, it is.)

.

Of course,

Northanger Abbey is famously a satire of gothic romances, and it certainly lived up to its reputation: our heroine is a virtuous, naive young girl pursued by a rake only after her money. She’s even (effectively) kidnapped in a carriage! But what surprised me the most, and perhaps why this is now a favorite of mine, is that

Northanger Abbey is also a metacommentary on novels. At the same time that Austen lightly mocks gothic tropes, she also defends and comments on the form through speeches made by her characters as well as delightful fourth-wall-breaking addresses to the reader. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but I also see a distinctly feminist bent to many of her comments, particularly when she’s talking about how history books and poetry/prose collections written by men are much praised while novels (mainly written by women) are unjustly dismissed. (I also loved the section where she points out, through Catherine, that history books contain a good deal of fiction, too—it brings to mind CS Lewis’s similar discussion in

An Experiment in Criticism).

All told, this is going on my list of all-time favorites. I’m excited to read more Austen!

Some favorite passages:

But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.

Mrs. Allen was one of that numerous class of females, whose society can raise no other emotion than surprise at there being any men in the world who could like them well enough to marry them.

She was now seen by many young men who had not been near her before. Not one, however, started with rapturous wonder on beholding her, no whisper of eager inquiry ran round the room, nor was she once called a divinity by any body. Yet Catherine was in very good looks, and had the company only seen her three years before, they would now have thought her exceedingly handsome.

“Yes, I know exactly what you will say: Friday, went to the Lower Rooms; wore my spriggedy muslin robe with blue trimmings—plain black shoes—appeared to much advantage; but was strangely harassed by a queer, half-witted man, who would make me dance with him, and distressed me by his nonsense.”

Whether she thought of him so much, while she drank her warm wine and water, and prepared herself for bed, as to dream of him when there, cannot be ascertained; but I hope it was no more than in a slight slumber, or a morning doze at most; for if it be true, as a celebrated writer has maintained, that no young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman’s love is declared,1 it must be very improper that a young lady should dream of a gentleman before the gentleman is first known to have dreamt of her.

Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.

They called each other by their Christian name, were always arm in arm when they walked, pinned up each other’s train for the dance, and were not to be divided in the set; and if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up, to read novels together.

“Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.

How much I am obliged to you; and when you have finished Udolpho, we will read the Italian together; and I have made out a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you.” “Have you, indeed! How glad I am! What are they all?” “I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my pocketbook. Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries. Those will last us some time.” “Yes, pretty well; but are they all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid?”

I do not pretend to say that I was not very much pleased with him; but while I have Udolpho to read, I feel as if nobody could make me miserable.

Catherine was then left to the luxury of a raised, restless, and frightened imagination over the pages of Udolpho, lost from all worldly concerns of dressing and dinner,

This civility was duly returned; and they parted—on Miss Tilney’s side with some knowledge of her new acquaintance’s feelings, and on Catherine’s, without the smallest consciousness of having explained them.

It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire; how little it is biased by the texture of their muslin, and how unsusceptible of peculiar tenderness towards the spotted, the sprigged, the mull, or the jackonet. Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter.

she would willingly have given up all the happiness which its walls could supply—the happiness of a progress through a long suite of lofty rooms, exhibiting the remains of magnificent furniture, though now for many years deserted—the happiness of being stopped in their way along narrow, winding vaults, by a low, grated door; or even of having their lamp, their only lamp, extinguished by a sudden gust of wind, and of being left in total darkness.

And now I may dismiss my heroine to the sleepless couch, which is the true heroine’s portion; to a pillow strewed with thorns and wet with tears. And lucky may she think herself, if she get another good night’s rest in the course of the next three months.

If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I never will be tricked into it.” And with these words she broke away and hurried off.

“Historians, you think,” said Miss Tilney, “are not happy in their flights of fancy. They display imagination without raising interest.

She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance. A misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can. The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance.

Her passion for ancient edifices was next in degree to her passion for Henry Tilney—and castles and abbeys made usually the charm of those reveries which his image did not fill. To see and explore either the ramparts and keep of the one, or the cloisters of the other, had been for many weeks a darling wish, though to be more than the visitor of an hour had seemed too nearly impossible for desire. And yet, this was to happen. With all the chances against her of house, hall, place, park, court, and cottage, Northanger turned up an abbey, and she was to be its inhabitant. Its long, damp passages, its narrow cells and ruined chapel, were to be within her daily reach, and she could not entirely subdue the hope of some traditional legends, some awful memorials of an injured and ill-fated nun.

The breeze had not seemed to waft the sighs of the murdered to her; it had wafted nothing worse than a thick mizzling rain;

Charming as were all Mrs. Radcliffe’s works, and charming even as were the works of all her imitators, it was not in them perhaps that human nature, at least in the Midland counties of England, was to be looked for. Of the Alps and Pyrenees, with their pine forests and their vices, they might give a faithful delineation; and Italy, Switzerland, and the south of France might be as fruitful in horrors as they were there represented.

A heroine returning, at the close of her career, to her native village, in all the triumph of recovered reputation, and all the dignity of a countess, with a long train of noble relations in their several phaetons, and three waiting maids in a travelling chaise and four, behind her, is an event on which the pen of the contriver may well delight to dwell; it gives credit to every conclusion, and the author must share in the glory she so liberally bestows. But my affair is widely different; I bring back my heroine to her home in solitude and disgrace; and no sweet elation of spirits can lead me into minuteness.

She was assured of his affection; and that heart in return was solicited, which, perhaps, they pretty equally knew was already entirely his own; for, though Henry was now sincerely attached to her, though he felt and delighted in all the excellencies of her character and truly loved her society, 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. It is a new circumstance in romance, I acknowledge, and dreadfully derogatory of an heroine’s dignity; but if it be as new in common life, the credit of a wild imagination will at least be all my own.

The anxiety, which in this state of their attachment must be the portion of Henry and Catherine, and of all who loved either, as to its final event, can hardly extend, I fear, to the bosom of my readers, who will see in the telltale compression of the pages before them, that we are all hastening together to perfect felicity.

Concerning the one in question, therefore, I have only to add—aware that the rules of composition forbid the introduction of a character not connected with my fable—that this was the very gentleman whose negligent servant left behind him that collection of washing-bills, resulting from a long visit at Northanger, by which my heroine was involved in one of her most alarming adventures.

To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen is to do pretty well; and professing myself moreover convinced that the general’s unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge of each other, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.

best gothic romance satire

I hadn't read Jane Austen books for many years and thought they weren't for me, but I've read a few this year and I can't get over how much I actually like them.

Northanger Abbey is a different story from any of Austen's books I've read so far. This is a parody of typical gothic novels from that era. I like parodies when they're smart and well done, and it's not that easy to find those. But Austen shows how to do it right. It was really hilarious.

It is also a really good story. I was in it from the very beginning. The main character is easy to like despite her obvious flaws, which makes us really support her in her marriage plans. Her naiveté may be a bit tiring at times, but overall it did not bother and it certainly matched perfectly with how the main heroins in gothic novels of that period were written.

Although it won't be my favorite Jane Austen book, I enjoyed it a lot and had a lot of fun. I definitely recommend it, especially to those who have already read other books by this author and know her sense of humor.

Just my kind of book. A regency with a mysterious castle. Lots of intrigue and classic Jane Austen. A must read for fans of period drama.