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Title: Northanger Abbey (Penguin Classics) by Jane Austen, Marilyn Butler ISBN: 0-14-043413-5 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: January, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.98 (54 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: I Quite Doat on Northanger Abbey!
Comment: Every time I read another Jane Austen novel, I get the insanely anachronistic urge to write her a letter, and tell her how I adore her work. I quite doat on Jane Austen!
On a winter holiday in the fashionable resort town of Bath, 17-year old Catherine Morland welcomes everyone she meets into her impressionable, if somewhat dense heart. The refreshingly honest Tilneys (Henry and Eleanor) and the unapologetically vain Thorpes (John and Isabella) form her central acquaintances. "Northanger Abbey" is a charming metafiction in which Catherine, living in a prototypical small village, goes innocently into the world, and cannot help but have her perceptions altered.
Catherine's obsession with gothic fiction and Austen's 'cliff notes' narrative technique work together to achieve a briskly-paced, and highly amusing story, unlike anything else of hers that I am familiar with. She does indeed satirize gothic fiction, but also uses this forum to poke gentle fun at the very people who read her own novels, and others like them.
To that end, the novel is split between two different ways of reading and understanding - that of Catherine and that of her accidental lover, Henry Tilney. Catherine is the all-believing, undiscerning method, willing to equate the superficial with the real. Henry is the more sophisticated intellect, with a view to the underlying realities of situation and personality. One notable result of these competing epistemologies, is Austen's insistence on acknowledging and legitimizing the literary merit of female authors, and the earnest call for female scholastic and social education beyond knitting, dancing, and romance.
To have the fullest understanding of "Northanger Abbey," it is advisable to take some time to first read Radcliffe's "The Mysteries of Udolpho," then compare Catherine to Radcliffe's Emily St. Aubert. Those who dislike "Northanger Abbey" because it is not like "Pride and Prejudice" or "Emma" would place too severe of a limit on the range and depth of Austen's authorial skill. This novel purposely stands on its own as a challenge to the comfort of traditional romance, and is a welcome change of pace.
Rating: 5
Summary: My least favorite of Austen's novels, hence the 5 stars!
Comment: I now want to explain myself: Jane Austen is the world's greatest author and everything she writes is wonderful. I just think her other books deserve 10 or more stars. NORTHANGER ABBEY compared to most books is just fabulous. I read this book every few years and am amazed at how much more I dislike General Tilney. Maybe I am imagining how angry I would be if he did to my daughter what he does to Catherine. But I did enjoy reading about the terrible Thorpe siblings. They are deliciously atrocious! Catherine Moreland, the heroine of this delightful novel is a seventeen year old who has the marvelous good luck of accompanying a wealthy couple to Bath. The people she meets in Bath all shape the next year of her life. And, as in all of Austen's books, there are villains; but, as usual, the girl always gets her guy (or visa-versa) in the end! This is why I love Austen!
Rating: 2
Summary: just not good
Comment: Many of the references Austen made in Northanger Abbey were meant to be satirical towards the gothic writing style prevalent in her time. Certain elements of wordplay in her characters' dialogue will also sound dated to a modern reader. For example, Catherine describes a popular gothic novel as being "Horrible", which can be taken as "Awful" or that the book was scary, which is a way the word was used in the author's time.
Having said this, the book is slow, and is not as easy and interesting to read as her other novels, which can be explained by saying that this is her first attempt, and improvement was inevitable. The characters were not well-developed; I didn't understand the love-interest and I didn't believe that these two people were suited for each other. Again, she improved later.
If you choose to read this book, try to get an edition with notes on the text.It will help a great deal in clarifying that which is now a centuries-old inside joke.
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Title: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, Margaret Drabble ISBN: 0451526295 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: August, 1996 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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Title: Persuasion by Jane Austen, Margaret Drabble ISBN: 0451526384 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: August, 1996 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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Title: Emma by Jane Austen ISBN: 0553212737 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 January, 1984 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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Title: Sense and Sensibility (Oxford World's Classics) by Jane Austen, James Kinsley ISBN: 0192833588 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: April, 1998 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen ISBN: 0553213105 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 December, 1983 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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