Bound in Arbelave Library Buckram and printed paper sides, 222 pages
English language
Published Jan. 1, 1975 by Folio Society.
ISBN:
978-0-85067-083-7
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4 stars
(2 reviews)
Northanger Abbey is a coming-of-age novel and a satire of Gothic novels written by Jane Austen. Austen was also influenced by Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote (1752). Northanger Abbey was completed in 1803, the first of Austen's novels completed in full, but was published posthumously in 1817 with Persuasion. The story concerns Catherine Morland, the naïve young protagonist, and her journey to a better understanding of herself and of the world around her. How Catherine views the world has been distorted by her fondness for Gothic novels and an active imagination.
I think modern readers will be tempted to say the style feels incomplete, but to me the stark elegance of the prose is really refreshing. Austen novels happen after you close the book because they ask a great deal of the imagination and reward you for it. It is no small feat to set up the expectation of subverting the expectations of a "gothic" novel, and yet somehow creating a mystery that keeps you turning the pages.
I loved it. Put in the time. Take a few minutes on hard sentences or paragraphs (english has changed), and it will really reward you.
Maybe 3.5 stars. While Austen has a facility with the language, and an excellent ability to convey a convincing character, there are too many authorial issues which intrude for my tastes. I am not a fan of the author's frequent breaches of the fourth wall, though I recognize that authorial interjection was much more prevalent in previous times. I also feel that the overall novel is a bit of a mash-up, combining merely another of Austen's tales of romance and socio-economic standing with her supposed satirical take on the atmosphere-heavy Gothic novels of the period. The latter seems a bit too wedged into the former, with the titular Abbey itself not even appearing until two-thirds into the novel. Catherine's melodramatic predictions and fears may be overturned one by one by the banalities of reality in a fairly amusing manner, but it has little to do with the rest of the …
Maybe 3.5 stars. While Austen has a facility with the language, and an excellent ability to convey a convincing character, there are too many authorial issues which intrude for my tastes. I am not a fan of the author's frequent breaches of the fourth wall, though I recognize that authorial interjection was much more prevalent in previous times. I also feel that the overall novel is a bit of a mash-up, combining merely another of Austen's tales of romance and socio-economic standing with her supposed satirical take on the atmosphere-heavy Gothic novels of the period. The latter seems a bit too wedged into the former, with the titular Abbey itself not even appearing until two-thirds into the novel. Catherine's melodramatic predictions and fears may be overturned one by one by the banalities of reality in a fairly amusing manner, but it has little to do with the rest of the story, and when it runs its course it is immediately dropped. For that matter, it seems almost antithetical to Austen's earlier tangent upon novels of the day, including the famous quote “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” Catherine seems nothing but silly ... perhaps even stupid ... in her novel-infused anticipations of the Abbey, which Austen goes to great lengths to pick apart. I also do not find Henry entirely convincing as Catherine's partner (I don't feel a spoiler warner is really necessary here, since Austen novels are hardly in doubt as to their inevitable outcomes), in that he seems far too pleased to mock her at times. And of course, ultimately, I continue to be unsatisfied with Austen's perpetual focus on such a limited slice of the population, and its dances, meals, country homes, and love affairs.
