Northanger Abbey review

[alobear]

Corone's comments on Northanger Abbey made me realise that I remembered very few of the details of the plot, so I decided I must reread it - oh, the hardship!

It's much shorter than I remembered - only 250 pages - but a delight from the very first page, much more playful than Austen's other novels and much sillier - deliberately so, as it makes fun of the gothic genre.

Henry Tilney has always stood out for me as by far the best of Austen's heroes, and I realised on this reading that it's because he has a very easy sense of humour, which is sadly lacking from his more sober brethren.  He really needs a sense of humour for dealing with Catherine, though, so it's a good job he has one.  I've also always thought he deserves much better than Austen's impressionable, over-imaginative heroine, but this reading has convinced me he's not as perfect as I had previously thought.  I think he should take at least some of the blame for the extent of Catherine's flight of fancy regarding the General and the death of Mrs Tilney - he winds her up so much on the journey to Northanger with his story of her potential adventures there that he cannot entirely escape responsibility for where her imagination later leads her.  Austen also makes it quite plain that his interest in Catherine is initially only due to her obvious regard for him, and he seems to be desirous of being more intelligent than his chosen companion in life, so I suppose any later disadvantages resulting from a silly wife are his own fault.

Katie suggested that the couple's future may be that of Mr and Mrs Bennett from Pride and Prejudice, once Tilney's amusement at Catherine's idiocy wears off and he's left with someone he can't have a sensible conversation with.  However, I to think Catherine has a lot more sense than Mrs Bennett and that most of her faults can be put down to youth and inexperience.  She certainly has a very strong sense of right and wrong and a good willingness to be instructed in most areas - I would like to hope that she will develop her intellect over time and prove a worthy companion of the eponymous hero, whose sense of fun will add a great deal of enjoyment to their pursuits.

Most of my attention was on Isabella Thorpe, as it was discussion of her fate that prompted me to reread the book in the first place.  She turned out to be much more annoying and much more culpable than I had remembered.  The fact that her separation from James and the reasons for it are only conveyed to Catherine by letter does open the situation up to misrepresentation and ambiguity, but I am not of Corone's opinion that Isabella's actions could have been misunderstood or her letter truly sincere in its bewilderment.  Her actions as viewed directly in the first half of the book reveal her to be very inconsistent in her speech and actions, as well as quite mercenary in her future ambitions.  The way she proclaims one thing with absolute certainty and then does exactly the opposite on several occasions sets up her character with enough clarity that we can be fairly sure Jame's representation of events is accurate, and Isabella's protestations of innocence are precisely as calculated as Catherine deems them to be.

I think the only criticism I could produce would be the rather abrupt ending, with Eleanor's completely unexpected marriage providing an overly convenient deus ex machina to resolve the obstacles of General Tilney's objections to Catherine.  However, I think this can be forgiven in a first novel of otherwise such tremendous quality.