Northanger Abbey - Book group discussion thread
8 watchers
Aug 2019
1:00pm, 4 Aug 2019
39,049 posts
|
Diogenes
I think NA is very different from MP. MP is a lot longer for a start
|
Aug 2019
1:46pm, 4 Aug 2019
40,696 posts
|
McGoohan
Also Austen used a different quill
|
|
Aug 2019
2:00pm, 4 Aug 2019
39,052 posts
|
Diogenes
I was disappointed by how little mention of Nottinghamshire there was in Mansfield Park. Austen was clearly much more comfortable in her Hampshire settings.
|
Aug 2019
12:31pm, 10 Aug 2019
21 posts
|
Peregrinator
Enjoying the running tips in NA: "it is so far to go — eight miles is a long way" and "proceeded gaily to Pulteney Street …. with great elasticity". I shall try to put more elasticity into my plodding. JA - Fetchie - who knew? |
Aug 2019
10:19pm, 12 Aug 2019
181 posts
|
Love Lettuce
Went to the library today to get a copy of NA. The librarian had to climb up into the stacks for it. Apparently JA isn't that popular anymore 
|
|
Aug 2019
10:41pm, 12 Aug 2019
39 posts
|
Peregrinator
Reader, I have a confession to make: I have never read a Jane Austen. I mean, I am not a philistine - I have seen all the BBC dramatizations, with their heaving eyebrows and trembling decolletages. I know that JA used elegant and ironic language to undermine the pretentions of the people who bought her books. I can see that she exposed the contemporary cattle-market economics of marriage that drove Alison Steadman dotty. I get Mr. Darcy's character; having once been dark and taciturn, and with an income of over £10k pa. But starting JA's take on the Gothic Novel, when all I have is that I enjoyed The Woman in White? Hmmmm tricky..... S.O. is a JA-groupie, so we have visited all the places: Chawton - JA's cottage (small), her brother’s house (large), her uncle's house in Sevenoaks (large), Winchester (quite small) and the Cathedral (top tip: don't let your brother write your obit. He will recall when you went face-first into the cake at your third birthday party, but not your Nobel prize for Medicine). I "borrowed" SO's copy. First shock - its 1098 pages long! Oh, wait - that's the collected works. NA is 118 pages (yay!) in small type (boo!). What I am left wondering is if the whole Gothic Novel link isn't a problem. I realise that NA is a tick-list of the GN's literary devices. But to be a parody / pastiche / spoof or satire, it would have to caricature Horror and Threat; and not just their trappings. Now, even I know that JA isn't going to do that: vicious social cutting – yes; vicious actual cutting - less so. Real peril to heroine's life or virtue - not really; mild peril of being hatless in an open top carriage - probably. Isn't one effect that CM is made more pliant than she could be without the requirements of the GN? Also perhaps the Author's hand can been seen pushing the pieces around too much to meet the GN trajectory? But NA is JA's early novel, and maybe she only felt confident to publish it as "this isn't really a novel; this is an amusing critique of a current genre"? But inevitably, she does write an excellent story of society and manners, where we are pleased that CM finds her way to happiness, with a good quotes along the way. I could now stop with just NA, the wikipedia page on the Gothic Novel, and the BBC productions. If required to discuss JA in a social setting, I can steer the discussion to NA. I'll be fine - most people will assume I have read all the others. But actually? I'm off to catch up with Miss Elizabeth Bennet: now that could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.... Looking back through the previous comments: The Scribbler: do you reckon that CM is vanilla because its an early work, or because that's what is demanded by the GN? Serendippily: Ah - yes - the Tilneys do lift the story. Autumnleaves: Should I now read a GN? Will it enhance NA in hindsight, or is it like eating a meal in the wrong order? |
Aug 2019
5:17pm, 13 Aug 2019
18,353 posts
|
Columba
I loved this. Have read it before, probably more than once. I love the often long, complex, but perfectly constructed sentences. A single sentence can take up 6 lines or so, but works out as neatly as a theorm proof ending in QED. Characteristics are understated - or not stated at all by the author - but evident. For example, Isabella is never explicitly criticised (by the author, I mean; she is, to some extent, by Henry and Eleanor Tilney, but only towards the end of the book) but out of her own mouth she is condemned. I also love the way JA from time to time steps back and reminds us that this is after all a novel and we can therefore expect certain developments: "The anxiety... can hardly extend, I feel, to the bosom of my readers, who will see in the tell-tale compression of the pages before them, that we are all hastening together to perfect felicity". Or on the other hand, her apologies that her heroine is not quite what a heroine perhaps should be: "She had no notion of drawing" - "she had reached the age of seventeen ... without having inspired one real passion..., But when a young lady is to be a heroine something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way." Henry's gently mocking comments on Gothic novels, and on the way language is used ("nice" being a much over-used word; and the oddity of a "faithful promise", a contradiction in terms) undoubtedly constitute JA's own voice. In fact, I found it hard to believe that he could fall so thoroughly in love with Catherine given his distance from her in many ways; JA does discourse somewhere on the appeal which an ignorant woman may have for a better-educated man, but a further and maybe more satisfying explanation is given towards the end of the book: "I must confess that his affection originated in gratitude, or, in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought". This I found quite convincing. I did not find convincing the rapid introduction of a love-interest and marriage for Eleanor, right at the end of the book. But JA would no doubt raise her eyebrows and exclaim "But you can't expect me to leave her unmarried, can you, with nothing to do but housekeep for that dreadful father?" And conversely, if the love-interest had appeared earlier in the book, it would have introduced a whole new sub-plot, making the book much longer and a different kind of novel. |
|
Aug 2019
5:35pm, 13 Aug 2019
18,354 posts
|
Columba
McG, I have indeed contrived to impute my genuine opinions above, without censure, mortification or indifference. I have never read a Gothic novel (unless The Woman in White counts?) Somewhere JA has commented that Fanny, in Mansfield Park, is a heroine that no-one will like. As a heroine, then, flawed, like Catherine and Emma. Also perhaps Marianne, 2nd heroine in Sense and Sensibility. |
|
Aug 2019
10:30pm, 13 Aug 2019
42 posts
|
Peregrinator
Columba: people have suggested that a random number of pages from some other book should be added to murder-mysteries, so that the reader can't anticipate the denouement. I'm with you about the sentence's - I counted 115 words in a random one. Hardly fair that SO complains if I write more that 8 words without a full stop, but allows JA free rein... But the Author's voice is part of the direction that I found a bit off-putting, particularly because I think the GN is a straight-jacket (corset?) for the story development. And as you say, there a feeling of wrapping up some of the lose ends at the end. TWIW was published later than NA (in 1859) but is at least part of the same tradition (I think. Based on extensive research of a page in Wikipedia). Anyone who knows more on the genre feel free to comment..... |
Aug 2019
6:23pm, 17 Aug 2019
9,540 posts
|
Little Nemo
This is my second reading and I enjoyed it so much more this time round. The humour was more obvious to me and I had a bit more sympathy for Catherine. When I was younger I just thought she was a bloody idiot but now that I'm older I can see how very young she is. And by the end of the book she is older and wiser. The bits in Bath were hysterical with her dreadful friend and her awful brother. Because I already knew the story the romance part became less important which was good because there isn't an awful lot of chemistry between them. This feels like a marriage that will be based more on friendship but maybe that's a good thing. The part where they go to NA is slightly less successful and I think this is due to the character of the General. His story and behaviour seems at odds with the rest of the book and I can't work out what Jane Austen was trying to do with him. His children seemed almost scared of him but I don't think this was properly explained. The ending is a bit clunky with lots of stuff happening "off-camera" but I suppose there was no easy way round this as the story was always from Catherine's POV. Someone should really make a modern day version of this for film or TV. It's crying out for Isabella to be a you-tube star obsessed with getting likes. I think that just leaves Mansfield Park as the one Jane Austen I haven't reread, maybe I won't think Fanny (sniggers) isn't a complete wet blanket this time. I gave this book an 8. |
Related Threads
-
The Leopard - Feb 2019 Book Group discussion thread
Mar 2019
-
Book Group - Jamaica Inn discussion thread
Oct 2017
-
Book Group
Apr 2024
-
Book Club Archive
Jan 2024
-
Down to the Sea in Ships - Book Group Oct 2022 discussion thread
Nov 2023
-
Olive Kitteridge - July 2021 Book Group discussion thread
Mar 2023
-
A Christmas Memory - Dec 2022 Book Group Discussion Thread
Mar 2023
-
Summerwater - Nov 2022 Book Group discussion thread
Dec 2022
-
The Dark Is Rising - Book Group discussion thread
Dec 2022
-
Elmet - Jan 2022 Book Group discussion thread
Feb 2022
