strange and random happenstance

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
Published by: Custom House
Publication Date: May 27th, 2016
Format: Paperback, 416 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
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The death of Cora Seaborne's abusive husband means she can finally cast aside the shackles of the life she was forced into. She can indulge her desire to be the next Mary Anning. Taking her household, which consists of her companion Martha and her disturbed son Francis, to Colchester, she spends her days mucking about the countryside wearing men's boots and unflattering clothing looking for ammonites. Once she even tangled with a man trying to rescue a sheep from the muck. But soon Colchester is abuzz with rumors of the Essex Serpent. It's hunting the estuaries and killing children and pets. Cora doesn't believe in something so fanciful, but she does wonder, could a creature from long ago have survived in an out of the way place to be discovered in the present day? Might she find a living fossil? Science doesn't deny it is possible and her hero, Mary Anning, often hoped to make such a discovery. Cora longs to have her name next to such a find in a museum and therefore jumps at the opportunity that fate hands her. Through mutual friends she is introduced to the Ransomes who live in Aldwinter. As fate would have it the Reverend Will Ransome is the man she helped to rescue the sheep. Despite such an inauspicious beginning the two become fast friends. Cora is fascinated by a pew in his church which is carved to represent the serpent, while Will is incensed by his parishioners obsession with folk tales and threatens to destroy the pew. Will and Cora argue over everything, from religion to science, it is a meeting of true minds. Everyone comments on their closeness, Cora even moves to Aldwinter. Yet Will's wife Stella doesn't seem to mind, and Martha, well Martha has more important things to worry about. But then there's an incident at the school. Cora begs her friend, Doctor Luke Garrett, to come down and investigate the medical reason behind the hysteria. This causes a breach between Cora and Will. A breach that will be healed and ruptured on one fateful night. So while they might not survive, the question remains, does the serpent?

Yes, I fully admit to picking up The Essex Serpent due to Tom Hiddleston. Will Ransome is a role Hiddles was born to play in my mind. But I picked up the book a second time mainly because of that adaptation. Yes, The Essex Serpent was also picked for my book club, but I wanted to wade back into the world of Cora and Will, a world that the adaptation made seem so shallow and hostile. To have wasted such talent on taking a multidimensional book and making it so one-dimensional just infuriates me. Yes, the book is rather light on plot but The Essex Serpent is beautifully and lushly written and has so much substance. It fits more into the style of Gothic literature and romance from the 19th century than what we necessarily think of as Gothic now. The book is all about duality as epitomized by the word "cleave," to cling and to separate all at once. The serpent is both a supernatural entity and a rather large fish. Stella is both dying and luminous. The world runs on both religion and science. Cora and Will's romance is both everything and nothing. Two states of being happening simultaneously. This recurs over and over again, reality versus fallacy. And at one point, the hysteria of Aldwinter with regards to the serpent reaches such a fever pitch that the young schoolgirls act out in a way that would best be described as Salem in 1692. And the fact that the doctor swings in and brings up ergot poisoning made my dorky history heart soar! Because it could very well be hysteria OR ergot OR none of the above. The Essex Serpent is about the mysteries that science hasn't yet explained but even when they eventually are they are still magnificent. Look to the Fata Morgana that Will and Cora saw. They literally saw a ship with red sails sailing across the sky but it is just an optical illusion. Did knowing what it was make it any less amazing? No it didn't. But we go back to the duality of superstition and science, there are those that will meet wonder and invention with hostility and those who will welcome it with open arms. That is why Will is such an interesting character, while he will embrace an illusion in the sky and turn his flock from superstition he still won't embrace medical science. He is the essence of duality. A mystery that resides in us all and will keep me coming back to this book time and time again.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Aldwinter, Cora Seaborne, Fata Morgana, Going Gothic, Gothic Literature, Living Fossil, Mary Anning, Reverend Will Ransome, Sarah Perry, Science, Superstition, The Essex Serpent, Tom Hiddleston

Northanger Abbey
Based on the book by Jane Austen
Release Date: March 25th, 2007
Starring: Geraldine James, Julia Dearden, Gerry O'Brien, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Desmond Barrit, Felicity Jones, J.J. Feild, Bernadette McKenna, William Beck, Shauna Taylor, Sophie Vavasseur, Carey Mulligan, Hugh O'Conor, Mark Dymond, Catherine Walker, and Liam Cunningham
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Catherine Moreland didn't have the upbringing or character to be a heroine. Despite how many horrid Gothic novels she's read none of her daydreams of masked bandits and vampires was ever going to come true. But just because she wasn't destined to be a heroine didn't mean her life would be without adventure. To that end the Allens, dear family friends, invite her to go to Bath with them. Balls! Gowns! Shopping! Society! And who knows, maybe a dashing stranger would ask her to dance? Henry Tilney is more goofy than dashing, but in one dance he makes a deep impression on Catherine. Her later friendship with Isabella Thorpe and the attentions of Isabella's brother John Thrope can not sway her affections for Henry Tilney. When she is invited by Henry's father under a purposeful misunderstanding to return with them to their home of Northanger Abbey nothing could make Catherine happier than perhaps if Isabella would stop flirting with Henry's older brother while engaged to her own brother James Moreland! Yet Catherine's daydreams of what an Abbey means in Gothic literature might get her into trouble. Yes, there might be dark secrets and vampirism at the Abbey, but not of the kind Mrs. Radcliffe writes about. Could Catherine's imagination get in the way of finding true love? Or is her desire to be a heroine going to pay off with a happily ever after?

In the spring of 2007 I was beyond thrilled at the prospect of ITV's Austen season. New adaptations of Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and Northanger Abbey? I could not wait! Each one had something to recommend it. Persuasion had Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer playing Sir Walter Elliot, Mansfield Park starred Billie Piper in her first post-Doctor Who role, and Northanger Abbey was adapted by Andrew Davies. Andrew Davies! Who understands what adapting a book is about, spirit versus direct transcription! Though he has said you can basically cut and paste Austen's books from prose to screenplay. I viewed this televisual event as a chance to reacquaint myself with the lesser read of Austen's novels, as I viewed these three at the time. What I found interesting is that my opinion and these three books radically changed on that reading. Though what surprised me the most was how much I adored Northanger Abbey. I had actually never re-read Northanger Abbey after that first read ten years previously because I was too naive to get the parody aspect at the time and therefore ranked it as Austen's worst novel. Older, and hopefully wiser, I thought Austen had never been funnier. And as for Henry Tilney? He instantly became my favorite Austen hero. Why? Because he is a fully rounded character, not some ideal. He has a sense of humor, he loves to read, and well, he's not perfect and somehow that makes him perfect.

When it came to the adaptation of Northanger Abbey my ever increasing love of Henry Tilney wasn't in the least hurt by the masterful portrayal of the role by J.J. Feild. In fact, I'm sure that my reconsideration was in no small part helped by J.J. There's only so much a book can do until you can affix a visual to a character, which is why I often dream cast books as I read them. I couldn't have done better than J.J. for Henry Tilney. Prior to his becoming Henry Tilney he'd made a minor impression on me. As Frederick Garland in the Sally Lockhart mysteries he made the most of a role that PBS almost obliterated with their editing. And when he starred in The Secret Life of Mrs. Beeton he'd made enough of a favorable impression that I just couldn't believe he'd give his wife a venereal disease! And I would have totally taken him back with that hangdog expression almost more sheepish than Hugh Grant's patented look. But it was Northanger Abbey that made him forever one of my favorite male actors. The humor? The arch looks? He's perfection. He nails the comedy but he can combine it with pathos and stern censor yet all coming from the heart. He became my heartthrob. I've watched everything he's been in since, yes, even Captain America. I even tried my hardest to like TURN with his little rat tail, but even he couldn't elevate that show. But while I'll always point to Northanger Abbey as the true beginning of my crush, the zenith is Austenland.

Though I do wonder if the little Gothic fantasies of Catherine might supersede the perfection of Austenland. These are not only hilarious, I think they are the key to the dramatization of Northanger Abbey. It's not just that seeing Catherine actually dressed up as the heroine she wishes herself to be pursued by villains is perfection, it's that these overacted vignettes show perfectly her overactive imagination and how she is later able to suspect Henry's father of murder. What's more they perfectly capture the tone Austen was aiming for in her parodying of Gothic literature. Northanger Abbey was written from a place of mocking love, you can see Austen herself has read and devoured these novels from Mrs. Radcliffe and Lewis, how else could she know them so well to then poke fun of them? Yet as I myself proved on my first reading, I was naive to what she was parodying and therefore was unable to understand the brilliance of the book. There dramatization of Catherine's daydreams coupled with excerpts from the actual books referenced by Austen gives the viewer a quick grounding in the genre and then moves onward to parodying that genre. Therefore Davies has made Northanger Abbey able to stand on it's own. Context while nice isn't necessary if this is your first exposure to Austen. If only this adaptation had existed when I first read Northanger Abbey I would have come around to loving it so much soon!

The only thing I really question about this adaptation is did Isabella really have sex with Captain Fredrick Tilney, Henry's older brother, in order to secure an engagement to him? In the edition of Northanger Abbey I recently re-read the introduction was penned by Andrew Davies and he says that Isabella's seduction and therefore her fall from polite society is supported in the text. But is it? In his adaptation of Sense and Sensibility Andrew Davies had Colonel Brandon and Willoughby duel. I of course thought this was creative license along the lines of a certain wet shirt. But if you read Sense and Sensibility knowing that a duel occurs, sure enough, it's not an exaggeration, it is supported by the text. There is a line where Colonel Brandon tells Elinor that he dueled Willoughby when recounting his sad history with Eliza. So knowing that Andrew Davies was right on the duel I was expecting to find him right on the seduction... but I at least didn't see that in the book. Catherine is away from Bath so we as readers are away from the action. So we see Isabella flirting with Captain Tilney and then Catherine gets a letter from Isabella asking for Catherine to help repair the breach with her brother and former fiance James Moreland. While Isabella's desire to return to James might seem out of character I don't think we can infer that she was trying to get back her old beau in a hurry because she was despoiled and possibly pregnant. After all the conditions under which their marriage was to take place figured in a two year engagement. So if I'm missing some key in the text I want to know! Otherwise I think it's all Davies and his desire to add a little more explicit sex to Austen.

But I will allow this license with regard to Isabella because seriously, I hate the whole Thorpe family. A bunch of low class no accounts who weasel their way in and manipulate. What I won't forgive is the clunky narration. At the beginning and the end of the movie Geraldine James has a little voice over. The beginning is actually the first lines of the book and the conclusion is a little of the end of the book and a little artistic license on Andrew Davies part. What I take issue with is that it just doesn't work. It sticks out and makes the whole movie not a cohesive whole. Look to the Gwyneth Paltrow version of Emma where at the end the narrator was revealed to be Mrs. Elton in a wonderfully fun turn of events and as also a way to incorporate the narrative device into the overall story. Here it just falls flat. Yes, I do agree that there needs to be some framing device but it needed grounding. According to IMDb Geraldine James is actually Jane Austen. Um, I didn't get this at all and I'm pretty sure it didn't say that in the credits. Also, if she was supposed to be Austen, she was 57 when this film was made... more than a tad too old to be Jane. They could have gone the root of Emma and had another character narrating it, but on further reflection wouldn't it have been wonderful for Mrs. Tilney to be the narrator? Looking down on the girl who was going to grow up and make her son happy. In order to get the point across the portrait of Mrs. Tilney could have been of Geraldine James and if you caught it you caught it and if you didn't, no matter. It would have been a cute little nod and a wink and would have made me very happy indeed. 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Andrew Davies, Austenland, Bicentenary Ball, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Emma, Felicity Jones, Geraldine James, Gothic Literature, Gwyneth Paltrow, J.J. Feild, Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Sex

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Published by: Little Books Ltd
Publication Date: 1817
Format: Hardcover, 240 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Catherine Morland isn't like the Gothic heroines she loves to read about; her name is prosaic, she's a content and happy girl who could never think badly of anyone and is surrounded by a big family who love her. But more importantly, alas, she's never even been to a crumbling castle or monastery let alone to the South of France where she could be held hostage. Her first real adventure is when her kindly and wealthy neighbors, the Allens, invite Catherine to accompany them to Bath. Mrs. Allen views Bath in the first few days of their residence as rather boring as they have no acquaintances, but that is soon about to change. Catherine's first acquaintance is a Mr. Henry Tilney, a lovely young man who dances with her and disappears. Her second acquaintance appears as if she'll be around longer. Isabella Thorpe is the daughter of an old classmate of Mrs. Allen and they soon become fast friends. It transpires that Isabella's brother John is friends with Catherine's brother James, and soon Isabella is confiding her feelings for James to Catherine all while trying to get Catherine and John together. But despite just one night Catherine's heart already belongs to Henry Tilney. Luckily for her he soon returns to Bath, bringing along his sister Eleanor and his rather forbidding father. As is often the case with young girls battle lines are drawn, Isabella wants Catherine to be hers alone now that she has become engaged to James, yet Catherine is defiant and sticks to the Tilneys. In fact Catherine shortly leaves Bath with the Tilneys for their ancestral home, Northanger Abbey. All the complications of Bath are behind Catherine, but will she create her own obstacles in the Gothic surroundings of an old abbey that might thwart her and Henry's happily ever after? Or did the Thorpes already plan for her disappointment?

Northanger Abbey in my mind is unfairly the most maligned of Austen's novels. The reason is because it's not what people expect. It's not like her other books and I think that is precisely the reason it holds such a special place in my heart. Admittedly the first time I read it I was thrown, because being released after her death you think it will adhere more to her later works, whereas in truth because of when it was written it's more a transitional novel bridging the style of her juvenilia and her later work. Therefore it's only on subsequent re-reads that you can fully appreciate Northanger Abbey for what it is. This book is unbalanced, it's not perfect, but it so clearly shows what Austen will be capable of with her wry observational style in the first section of the book. Which is why so many people say the book gives them such hope only to fall apart. While the second half is weaker, it shows that she is capable of seeing her concept through to the end. Because Northanger Abbey was written as a parody of Gothic literature, so therefore she had to take it to it's logical conclusion of Catherine thinking laundry lists are secrets of the dead. As a parody it is a wonderful send-up of the popular literature of the time, but as proto-Austen the first half is a glimpse into the writer she will become. That this is what she will be known for. For her humor, for what she will become, for the feelings, all the feelings I have each time I re-read this book it is easily in my top three of Austen's six novels.

As for those feels? Oh. My. God. It's not like this is the first or second time I've read this book but once again I am sucked in and it's like I'm reading it for the first time. I know what happens and yet my anxiety was at such a level you can not imagine it. I was seriously convinced that Catherine wasn't going to get her "happily ever after" that has been happening now for TWO HUNDRED YEARS! Seriously, two hundred years and I felt like it was happening for the first time. My main source of anxiety isn't that her and Henry get together, it's that they get the chance to get together despite everything those detestable Thorpes throw in their way. Oh, how I hate those Thorpes. Yes, John Thorpe is horrid with all his monetary delusions with regard to the Morlands, and with his assumptions. Also, let's take a moment here to point out how little men have changed in two hundred years. The way he's talking about his horses, it's like listening to a guy at a bar five minutes ago detailing everything there is to know about his car that you never cared to know! But I forgive John, to an extent, because there is no doubt in my mind that everything he believes and does is controlled by his puppet master and sister, Isabella. Such a faux friend! She only befriends Catherine to get to closer to her brother James, and when that falls apart, gaw, she's just scheming and double crossing, and just a lying little bitch. She deserves all the ill that befalls her. In fact, I think she might just be my most hated character in all of Austen... huh, that's a revelation that Caroline Bingley isn't going to like.

But going into Catherine's mind and how she sees Isabella? That is truly painful. Because the truth is Catherine is a heroine more in the Disney sense, she's all goodness and light and can't imagine anyone being mean or duplicitous because she's never come across this before. Of course her eyes will be opened by the end of the book but what I find fascinating is that because she is so genuine if someone isn't the only conclusion she can reach is one straight off the pages of the Gothic novels she loves so much. The second half of Northanger Abbey deals with Catherine thinking that Henry's father killed his wife because Catherine doesn't have any foreknowledge about people who say one thing while meaning another. She gives General Tilney these dubious motives because its the only way she can understand how he makes her feel. General Tilney is all polite obsequiousness to Catherine, assuming she is a rich heiress due to the Allens. Yet while everything is so nice that comes out of his mouth she can't ignore that she doesn't like him. She has every reason to like him, logically, but she picks up on the fact that Henry and Eleanor are never happy around him and therefore he must be a murderer. She is naive but sweetly so, so you can see why Henry can forgive her for making someone who is two faced into a man capable of the worst horrors... but of course, he has nothing on the duplicity of Isabella! Scheming, money grubbing, false friend!

Thankfully Henry can forgive Catherine's overactive imagination. Because the truth is this, Henry Tilney is the perfect Austen man. Darcy, a bit haughty, Bingley, a bit naive, Brandon, a bit dour, Edward, a bit too secretive, Knightly, a bit too much of a pedo, Wentworth, a bit too stalwart, and Edmund, a bit too relative... whereas Henry? Henry in my humble opinion is the perfect man. Seriously, this isn't up for discussion. Just take this as fact. He is perfect. Perhaps it's because he's the most fleshed out of Austen's heroes, but there's just something about him that makes me think, yeah, he's the one for me. One reason is his sense of humor. Can you imagine say Darcy, Brandon, and Wentworth in a room together? Not a smile among them. Whereas Henry is self-deprecating, willing to see the humor in tense situations, and seriously, think about it, who wants to marry someone who they can't have a good laugh with. Though the part that truly melts my heart is when he tells Catherine that of course he reads! Due to that odious John Thorpe Catherine has come to the wrong conclusion that not only do men not read but that reading is silly. I'm sorry, but reading is not just the best way to live a richer life full of adventure, but it's been proven that it makes people more empathetic because they can put themselves in other people's shoes. The fact that Henry proudly proclaims that he's a reader? Melting again. Not just that, he's read all the books Catherine loves and is a huge Mrs. Radcliffe fan. Be still my heart... or the lumpy wet mass it now is since it melted.

Though the sad truth is I don't think everyone has fully embraced Henry or Catherine... because as I said before, this is the troublesome book among Austen fans. I think the real reason is actually the parody of the Gothic. When Austen first wrote Northanger Abbey Gothic novels were all the rage. In fact, with age bracket and the rabidness of the following, the Twilight franchise is comparable. So Gothic novels were the Twilight of the early 1800s. Now here comes a girl who's never written a book before and she decides to parody the books she loves and also loves to mock. While Gothic literature comes and goes, having a resurgence every now and then, there's never been that stranglehold on the public imagination that it had during Austen's life, especially with the works of Mrs. Radcliffe. So modern readers aren't tuned into what the book is parodying. I remember reading Vanity Fair years ago, which is a bit of a slog, because there are so many topical jokes. I distinctly remember getting one of the jokes, which was in reference to She Stoops to Conquer and I thought, think how much I'm not getting. This book might be uproarious to someone of the time or a historian of the time... Therefore the first time I read Northanger Abbey I, like most everyone else, just didn't get it. It's just a sub par Austen I incorrectly thought. Thankfully, unlike most, I wasn't going to swear off the book. When I read it a second time knowing more I realized I was a fool the first time. The way Austen even parodies the origin stories of heroines is spot on. Plus, it's totally meta! So in other words, read something Gothic then come back and read how Austen tells her version... it's a little snarky, but in my mind nearly perfect.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Bath, Bicentenary Ball, Catherine Morland, Going Gothic, Gothic Literature, Henry Tilney, Heroes, Heroine, Jane Austen, Meta, Mrs. Radcliffe, Northanger Abbey, She Stoops to Conquer, The Twilight Saga, Vanity Fair

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Published by: Little Books Ltd
Publication Date: 1817
Format: Hardcover, 240 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Catherine Morland isn't like the Gothic heroines she loves to read about; her name is prosaic, she's a content and happy girl who could never think badly of anyone and is surrounded by a big family who love her. But more importantly, alas, she's never even been to a crumbling castle or monastery let alone to the South of France where she could be held hostage. Her first real adventure is when her kindly and wealthy neighbors, the Allens, invite Catherine to accompany them to Bath. Mrs. Allen views Bath in the first few days of their residence as rather boring as they have no acquaintances, but that is soon about to change. Catherine's first acquaintance is a Mr. Henry Tilney, a lovely young man who dances with her and disappears. Her second acquaintance appears as if she'll be around longer. Isabella Thorpe is the daughter of an old classmate of Mrs. Allen and they soon become fast friends. It transpires that Isabella's brother John is friends with Catherine's brother James, and soon Isabella is confiding her feelings for James to Catherine all while trying to get Catherine and John together. But despite just one night Catherine's heart already belongs to Henry Tilney. Luckily for her he soon returns to Bath, bringing along his sister Eleanor and his rather forbidding father. As is often the case with young girls battle lines are drawn, Isabella wants Catherine to be hers alone now that she has become engaged to James, yet Catherine is defiant and sticks to the Tilneys. In fact Catherine shortly leaves Bath with the Tilneys for their ancestral home, Northanger Abbey. All the complications of Bath are behind Catherine, but will she create her own obstacles in the Gothic surroundings of an old abbey that might thwart her and Henry's happily ever after? Or did the Thorpes already plan for her disappointment?

Northanger Abbey in my mind is unfairly the most maligned of Austen's novels. The reason is because it's not what people expect. It's not like her other books and I think that is precisely the reason it holds such a special place in my heart. Admittedly the first time I read it I was thrown, because being released after her death you think it will adhere more to her later works, whereas in truth because of when it was written it's more a transitional novel bridging the style of her juvenilia and her later work. Therefore it's only on subsequent re-reads that you can fully appreciate Northanger Abbey for what it is. This book is unbalanced, it's not perfect, but it so clearly shows what Austen will be capable of with her wry observational style in the first section of the book. Which is why so many people say the book gives them such hope only to fall apart. While the second half is weaker, it shows that she is capable of seeing her concept through to the end. Because Northanger Abbey was written as a parody of Gothic literature, so therefore she had to take it to it's logical conclusion of Catherine thinking laundry lists are secrets of the dead. As a parody it is a wonderful send-up of the popular literature of the time, but as proto-Austen the first half is a glimpse into the writer she will become. That this is what she will be known for. For her humor, for what she will become, for the feelings, all the feelings I have each time I re-read this book it is easily in my top three of Austen's six novels.

As for those feels? Oh. My. God. It's not like this is the first or second time I've read this book but once again I am sucked in and it's like I'm reading it for the first time. I know what happens and yet my anxiety was at such a level you can not imagine it. I was seriously convinced that Catherine wasn't going to get her "happily ever after" that has been happening now for TWO HUNDRED YEARS! Seriously, two hundred years and I felt like it was happening for the first time. My main source of anxiety isn't that her and Henry get together, it's that they get the chance to get together despite everything those detestable Thorpes throw in their way. Oh, how I hate those Thorpes. Yes, John Thorpe is horrid with all his monetary delusions with regard to the Morlands, and with his assumptions. Also, let's take a moment here to point out how little men have changed in two hundred years. The way he's talking about his horses, it's like listening to a guy at a bar five minutes ago detailing everything there is to know about his car that you never cared to know! But I forgive John, to an extent, because there is no doubt in my mind that everything he believes and does is controlled by his puppet master and sister, Isabella. Such a faux friend! She only befriends Catherine to get to closer to her brother James, and when that falls apart, gaw, she's just scheming and double crossing, and just a lying little bitch. She deserves all the ill that befalls her. In fact, I think she might just be my most hated character in all of Austen... huh, that's a revelation that Caroline Bingley isn't going to like.

But going into Catherine's mind and how she sees Isabella? That is truly painful. Because the truth is Catherine is a heroine more in the Disney sense, she's all goodness and light and can't imagine anyone being mean or duplicitous because she's never come across this before. Of course her eyes will be opened by the end of the book but what I find fascinating is that because she is so genuine if someone isn't the only conclusion she can reach is one straight off the pages of the Gothic novels she loves so much. The second half of Northanger Abbey deals with Catherine thinking that Henry's father killed his wife because Catherine doesn't have any foreknowledge about people who say one thing while meaning another. She gives General Tilney these dubious motives because its the only way she can understand how he makes her feel. General Tilney is all polite obsequiousness to Catherine, assuming she is a rich heiress due to the Allens. Yet while everything is so nice that comes out of his mouth she can't ignore that she doesn't like him. She has every reason to like him, logically, but she picks up on the fact that Henry and Eleanor are never happy around him and therefore he must be a murderer. She is naive but sweetly so, so you can see why Henry can forgive her for making someone who is two faced into a man capable of the worst horrors... but of course, he has nothing on the duplicity of Isabella! Scheming, money grubbing, false friend!

Thankfully Henry can forgive Catherine's overactive imagination. Because the truth is this, Henry Tilney is the perfect Austen man. Darcy, a bit haughty, Bingley, a bit naive, Brandon, a bit dour, Edward, a bit too secretive, Knightly, a bit too much of a pedo, Wentworth, a bit too stalwart, and Edmund, a bit too relative... whereas Henry? Henry in my humble opinion is the perfect man. Seriously, this isn't up for discussion. Just take this as fact. He is perfect. Perhaps it's because he's the most fleshed out of Austen's heroes, but there's just something about him that makes me think, yeah, he's the one for me. One reason is his sense of humor. Can you imagine say Darcy, Brandon, and Wentworth in a room together? Not a smile among them. Whereas Henry is self-deprecating, willing to see the humor in tense situations, and seriously, think about it, who wants to marry someone who they can't have a good laugh with. Though the part that truly melts my heart is when he tells Catherine that of course he reads! Due to that odious John Thorpe Catherine has come to the wrong conclusion that not only do men not read but that reading is silly. I'm sorry, but reading is not just the best way to live a richer life full of adventure, but it's been proven that it makes people more empathetic because they can put themselves in other people's shoes. The fact that Henry proudly proclaims that he's a reader? Melting again. Not just that, he's read all the books Catherine loves and is a huge Mrs. Radcliffe fan. Be still my heart... or the lumpy wet mass it now is since it melted.

Though the sad truth is I don't think everyone has fully embraced Henry or Catherine... because as I said before, this is the troublesome book among Austen fans. I think the real reason is actually the parody of the Gothic. When Austen first wrote Northanger Abbey Gothic novels were all the rage. In fact, with age bracket and the rabidness of the following, the Twilight franchise is comparable. So Gothic novels were the Twilight of the early 1800s. Now here comes a girl who's never written a book before and she decides to parody the books she loves and also loves to mock. While Gothic literature comes and goes, having a resurgence every now and then, there's never been that stranglehold on the public imagination that it had during Austen's life, especially with the works of Mrs. Radcliffe. So modern readers aren't tuned into what the book is parodying. I remember reading Vanity Fair years ago, which is a bit of a slog, because there are so many topical jokes. I distinctly remember getting one of the jokes, which was in reference to She Stoops to Conquer and I thought, think how much I'm not getting. This book might be uproarious to someone of the time or a historian of the time... Therefore the first time I read Northanger Abbey I, like most everyone else, just didn't get it. It's just a sub par Austen I incorrectly thought. Thankfully, unlike most, I wasn't going to swear off the book. When I read it a second time knowing more I realized I was a fool the first time. The way Austen even parodies the origin stories of heroines is spot on. Plus, it's totally meta! So in other words, read something Gothic then come back and read how Austen tells her version... it's a little snarky, but in my mind nearly perfect.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bath, Catherine Morland, Going Gothic, Gothic Literature, Henry Tilney, Heroes, Heroine, Jane Austen, Meta, Mrs. Radcliffe, Northanger Abbey, She Stoops to Conquer, The Twilight Saga, Vanity Fair

Are you like me and every once in awhile you long to read a book as bleak as you feel? Do you hear mist shrouded moors and dark abandoned castles calling you? I admit that recently I have really felt this and gave full reign to my desires. The more Victorian, the more psychologically manipulative, the more supernatural the better! Gothic literature has been a staple and highly successful genre since Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe set pen to paper in the 1700s. But I'd argue that ghost stories and hauntings and any story told around the fire since time immemorial had that spark that evolved into Gothic literature. But what I really love about Gothic literature is that it's still ongoing, still evolving, with new twists on old tropes and pastiches that rise above the original. Modern sensibilities still lured into tales of monsters and mansions, foreign climes with unpredictable weather, and the chill you get up your back as you feverishly devour the book late into the night. So join me this month in a sampling of Gothic literature, from it's formative years to the present. Also if you want more information on what makes a book Gothic check out this wonderful infographic by Adam Frost and Zhenia Vasiliev.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: 1700s, Adam Frost, Ann Radcliffe, Ghosts, Going Gothic, Gothic, Gothic Literature, Horace Walpole, Infographic, Psychological, Theme Month, Victorian, Zhenia Vasiliev