Northanger Abbey (Vintage Classics)
by Jane Austen
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jane AustenEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-09-04
ISBN: 030738683X
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Northanger Abbey (Vintage Classics)
Book Review: When a young lady is to be a heroine
Summary: 5 Stars
Gothic romances were all the rage in the late 1700s and early 1800s -- and rather than the usual straight comedies of manners, Jane Austen once wrote a mellow satire of the very mockable genre. "Northanger Abbey" is a clever and slightly tongue-in-cheek little novel about a girl who needs to learn the difference between fantasy and reality... and yes, there's some love tangles and deceptions too.
Catherine Morland is an innocent young country girl with a love of gothic romances, and has lives an unremarkably life in a country parish. But then the wealthy Allens invite her to Bath during their vacation there, and of course she accepts -- and through balls and old acquaintances, she becomes friends with two pairs of siblings. One is the Thorpes, the uncouth dandy John and his manipulative sister Isabella, and the more mysterious Tilneys, the charming Henry and sweet Eleanor.
When the Tilneys decide to leave Bath, Catherine is invited with them, to the vast stone manorhouse of Northanger Abbey -- which is as gloomy, eerie and remote as her gothic-loving heart could wish for. What's more, she believes that there are dangerous secrets in Northanger Abbey, related to the suspicious death of the late Mrs. Tilney. But Catherine has some lessons to learn about reality and fantasy: that everyday world is not nearly as melodramatic and twisted as her novels, and that it has its own dangers and deceptions.
Unlike all the other books Austen wrote, "Northanger Abbey" is a careful balance of two different styles -- a parody of all the lurid excesses of classic gothic novels (she even lists a bunch of real-life gothic novels!), and it's a subtle coming-of-age tale about a young girl who needs to figure out the difference between reality and fantasy. There's big spooky manors, sinister noblemen, mysterious deaths... you do the math.
And Austen clearly had a lot of fun with this book, enhancing her usual formal style with a bit of satirical melodrama ("A thousand alarming presentiments of evil to her beloved Catherine from this terrific separation must oppress her heart with sadness"). And while the plot is sprinkled with sinister pseudo-gothic hints, Austen also takes the time to sketch out some romantic deceptions and tangles, as well as some deliciously arch dialogue ("I was not thinking of anything." "That is artful and deep, to be sure...").
The only part that falls short is the climactic encounter between Henry and Catherine... which is completely skimmed over, and related only in a distant vague style. "I leave it to my reader's sagacity" is not a satisfying way to handle that sort of romantically-charged scene.
Austen also has fun with Catherine as the unlikely heroine of the piece, especially since she makes it clear that Catherine comes from a very mundane, undramatic background. She's sweet, naive, wide-eyed and essentially good-hearted, but she has a lot to learn about reality (especially about the golddigging family that befriends her). And Henry is an oddity among Austen's heroes, being a clever silver-tongued charmer with a heart of gold who likes to gently tease Catherine.
Quick, light and full of teasing humor, "Northanger Abbey" is an oddity in Jane Austen's string of brilliant novels -- but being a clever, well-plotted spoof doesn't make it any less charming. A delight.
Summary of Northanger Abbey (Vintage Classics)
Northanger Abbey is both a perfectly aimed literary parody and a withering satire of the commercial aspects of marriage among the English gentry at the turn of the nineteenth century. But most of all, it is the story of the initiation into life of its naļve but sweetly appealing heroine, Catherine Morland, a willing victim of the contemporary craze for Gothic literature who is determined to see herself as the heroine of a dark and thrilling romance.When Catherine is invited to Northanger Abbey, the grand though forbidding ancestral seat of her suitor, Henry Tilney, she finds herself embroiled in a real drama of misapprehension, mistreatment, and mortification, until common sense and humor?and a crucial clarification of Catherine?s financial status?puts all to right. Written in 1798 but not published until after Austen?s death in 1817, Northanger Abbey is characteristically clearheaded and strong, and infinitely subtle in its comedy.
Though Northanger Abbey is one of Jane Austen's earliest novels, it was not published until after her death--well after she'd established her reputation with works such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. Of all her novels, this one is the most explicitly literary in that it is primarily concerned with books and with readers. In it, Austen skewers the novelistic excesses of her day made popular in such 18th-century Gothic potboilers as Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers all figure into Northanger Abbey, but with a decidedly satirical twist. Consider Austen's introduction of her heroine: we are told on the very first page that "no one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine." The author goes on to explain that Miss Morland's father is a clergyman with "a considerable independence, besides two good livings--and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters." Furthermore, her mother does not die giving birth to her, and Catherine herself, far from engaging in "the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush" vastly prefers playing cricket with her brothers to any girlish pastimes.
Catherine grows up to be a passably pretty girl and is invited to spend a few weeks in Bath with a family friend. While there she meets Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor, who invite her to visit their family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Austen amuses herself and us as Catherine, a great reader of Gothic romances, allows her imagination to run wild, finding dreadful portents in the most wonderfully prosaic events. But Austen is after something more than mere parody; she uses her rapier wit to mock not only the essential silliness of "horrid" novels, but to expose the even more horrid workings of polite society, for nothing Catherine imagines could possibly rival the hypocrisy she experiences at the hands of her supposed friends. In many respects Northanger Abbey is the most lighthearted of Jane Austen's novels, yet at its core is a serious, unsentimental commentary on love and marriage, 19th-century British style. --Alix Wilber
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