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Northanger Abbey, the end

This novel was one of Austen's earliest, if not the earliest published. I was reading her early unpublished work, Love and Freindship (sic) and saw some decided similarity between it and Northanger Abbey. Love and Freindship (sic) was written before Austen knew how to spell, and I find it nearly unreadable, even with grammar corrected. Northanger Abbey has emotional conflict arising from love, friendship, gossip, speculation and is overwrought and excruciating with satire and dry interjections from the author. The end had me cringing. How different from Mary Shelley's loving and lovely interpositions in her own works.

I feel discouraged from this work in continuing to read the rest of Austen. Technically now I have read all of her books, but I was going to re-read the big and cinematic three before watching the Masterpiece Theatres.

My focus as a writer of love has shifted considerably. In high school I tested every boundary I knew in my work and as I matured I decided most of those experiments were unsuccessful. I concluded that the most lasting love is found in faithfulness, fidelity, devotion, and I became more interested in chivalry, Camelot, and found my ideals in accord with Victorian romances, where the characters suffer dutifully through bad choices and are rewarded richly. However Austen's cynicism reminds me of the self-destruction possible in adhering to those ideals. There is some suggestion that Austen was disappointed in love and her cynicism was born from that. How can I ignore that kind of pain in my ideal Victorian world? How can I continue to paint the rose-colored pictures of successful and earned love when I have seen the devastation of those who followed the formula and failed to see results? Or, like Austen, do I spend too much time thinking about other people?

After reading any work of verisimilitude (sp?) I am left with the conclusion that life is a muddle, that there are no easy answers, a concept blanketed in what I learned in English class as "human condition."

And so I concede to this, I do the best I can, and the only thing I can positively promote in any of my works is hope, and as I feel that cynicism is the death of hope, I am tired of Jane Austen and will not be continuing the books for a while.

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