Northanger Abbey

Title: Northanger Abbey
Author: Jane Austen

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid --Henry Tilney of Northanger Abbey.

I have recently gotten involved with a book club and volunteered to lead the discussion this month.  I choose Northanger Abbey (NA) because it is one of my favorite books in all of literature and because we had spent the last several months reading books in the same genre.  I've gotta make the girls work ....

Anyway, I had forgotten how much I loved this novel, it has been about five years since I last read it and was reminded that probably my favorite passage in literature is occurs between Henry and Catherine during one of their dances.  But the quote at the start of this post has to be a rival for it.

There are so many things to contrast:

Sibling pairs: Catherine and James Morland, Isabella and John Thorpe, Henry and Eleanor Tilney
Guardians: Mr Allen and General Tilney
Villians: John Thorpe, General Tilney and maybe even Captain Tilney
Places: Bath and Northanger Abbey
Couples: James Morland and Isabella Thorpe, John Thorpe and Catherine Morland, Henry Tilney and Catherine Morland, and even Eleanor Tilney and the unnamed Viscount
Fathers: Mr. Morland and General Tilney

There are more things to compare but these are some of the big ones.  There are so many reasons and opportunities for misunderstanding and a very atypcial hero and heroine to enjoy but these are the reasons why it makes this book one of my favorites.  This is a book about books and about growing up--Catherine comes to realize real life is different from novels and to appreciate the happenstances of life are enough without adding unneeded drama because of an over active imagination.  Henry is a reader, just like Catherine but either because of a more stable personality or just greater maturity he can separate the two.  And yet it is novels that help to draw them together. 

Jane Austen wrote this book to mock what was the current in late 18th century: gothic literature.  And throughout the novel you hear her voice speaking as the narrator, telling us what she thinks about the state of things in Catherine's world.  It is fun to hear the young Jane speaking to us, so many years after her death, but I think that she can be heard in this book in ways that her later writings don't reflect.  She's always there as the narrator but she is more sarcastic and humorous in NA, I think.  And as always, the heroine gets her hero and goes on to live a rather ordinary life.  Catherine is no Lizzy Bennet in the end and that is the charm of the novel.  This could happen in real life for many of us mere mortals.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this book as much as I do.  It is worth the effort to read such a well written story which has withstood the test of time.