Skip to main content

Northanger Abbey, 1/2 way through

It's very fast reading. It is the most engrossing thing I've read in a while. My initial impression of it was wrong in many ways. It's not completely a spoof. The characters are like the characters in her other works. The heroine is staunch though, like a gothic heroine, I find myself wanting to shout directions at her, and cringing when her decisions, or lack of them, cause trouble.

I have a couple of questions. One is about Henry Tilney. When Catherine first meets him he is clearly a likeable fellow, really more teasing and fun rather than aloof. He parleys with her a great deal. He is very talkative. However, he is in fact elusive. He disappears. There are explanations for some of his seeming coldness, but there is cause for suspicion. Not everything adds up. Am I misinterpreting his playful and extremely verbose speeches? What he has to say is very interesting, but I wonder if I am interpreting him as being too flippant because I am unaccustomed to heroes speaking so much and so variously. When he is with Catherine, there is nothing unreassuring about him at all. He is very dashing, which also makes me uneasy. His speeches are so verbose it makes me wonder how many times he has made these witty remarks to his dance partners. Catherine is totally obsessed with him. I question that.

In addition there are the occasional appearances of Henry's father. Catherine's instantaneous reaction to him was to find him very handsome, and on his very occasional appearances in the story I notice him very distinctly. There is some subtle highlight, unless I am interpreting things the wrong way. There is some growing intrigue surrounding him. Is he trying to keep Catherine away from Henry and Miss Tilney? Does he really approve of her? But I found my imagination running away with me onto fields far less decent than anything which Miss Austen would condone, such as, is Henry's father really the gothic hero villain? What if Catherine falls in love with him? We know Henry's mother is dead, so he's single. Did Austen include that sentence on purpose, because I really noticed that? Is she above pairing Catherine with this man? I really want to know.

Henry has no depth of character. His father has at least suffered a loss. So there is some emotional highlight over him.

Also, I am halfway through the book, and there is no Northanger Abbey or faintest mention of one. Catherine almost toured Blaize Castle. She's a gothic novel fanatic, so she was excited about that. I really want to keep reading. Right now my vote is on Mr. Tilney. He's subtly tragic.

Popular posts from this blog

The secret to a happy home

I finished Marion Harland's guide tonight and I wonder ceaselessly at two things. 1. She is so down on America! Even more than I am. She complains of things in which I am so well-steeped I could not see them for what they were. In particular, American style and cookery. It is true that our food, which we count as so much more generous in portion than the overseas counterpart, is as coarse and indecorous as it is plentiful, but as an American woman I cast up my hands and declare I would rather spend my time on something else. She makes an interesting point about American women's fashions. In France women wear what looks good on them, and in America women wears what comes off the manufacturing line in the latest style. It is very conformist, and I have to admit I feel it in myself, for I would be embarrassed to wear something that is "out" even if it flattered me better. 2. Harland's other point I feel clearly from last night's experiences. I looked in my journ...

Sprouts

Sprouts Originally uploaded by ladyhildegarde . I am getting sprouts. Hopefully they are carnations. It is such a beautiful spring day. It's good I'm taking the chance to come outside: I have craved a moment to reflect on something beautiful.

Blanche, a re-telling of Snow White

I began this story after reading a collection of short stories by Angela Carter. “Snow White” has always been a favorite tale of mine and I have placed this re-telling in nineteenth-century rural Louisiana. Near Vacherie, Louisiana, there are not only swamps but also old beautiful plantations. Some of them are restored but others are abandoned and ruined. The places I have seen captured my imagination and I combined them with my impression of Snow White as an object of envy and lust. My heroine Blanche is a hard-working girl who longs to be rich and to live in New Orleans, where her father was born. She is threatened constantly by the attention of the rustics who live around her. Her stepmother beats her when she finds Blanche in Jean-Jacques’ arms. When Blanche runs away from home she is beguiled by Philipe de la Roche, who persuades her to live in New Orleans in a fancy house with seven women. Blanche does not realize that the women are prostitutes. The farmer Jean-Jacques, who love...