The following guest post comes from Courtney of Adventures In My Petticoat; she's dropping in to chat about one of my favorite Austen works (and the one I think most underrated) Northanger Abbey, and the things that make Catherine Morland adorkably cool.
Who wouldn't want to be Elizabeth Bennet? What Austen fan hasn't spent a few hours of her life staring in the mirror and repeating Lizzie's most delightful zingers? (If it's just me, let me live in blissful ignorance.) Elizabeth Bennet has it together, for sure. She's so cool, so composed, so sure of herself.
I love Pride and Prejudice, but it isn't my favorite Austen.
All those hours I've spent checking out Austen-themed merchandise online, waiting for my new Jane Austen calendar to arrive in the mail, and playing Pride and Prejudice: The Board Game tell me that I'm much more like Catherine Morland, the protagonist of Northanger Abbey.
Simon Pegg famously said, "Being a geek means never having to play it cool about how much you like something." I've never been able to play it cool about how much I like Jane Austen--or for that matter, books in general. Catherine never manages to play it cool about anything, whether it's her love for gothic novels, her suspicion that General Tilney murdered his wife, or her feelings for Henry Tilney.
Here's the thing about Catherine Morland: as delusional and daydreamy as she might appear, she's rarely wrong.
A hundred scholars have pointed out that General Tilney really is a jerk, and his kids really are afraid of him. Maybe he did murder his wife: Austen leaves that one hanging. Maybe all those hours reading gothic novels didn't teach Catherine to see things that aren't there. Maybe they just taught her to recognize things others don't.
Catherine gets other things right, too. At the end of the novel, readers have every reason to believe that, despite Austen's sly jabs at fairytale endings, Catherine and Henry will be reasonably happy together.
But above everything else, Catherine gets the importance of the novel right. Though she is occasionally abashed by public opinion, which at the time did not hold the novel in high regard, she keeps reading. She imagines and immerses herself in the worlds of the books she loves. She totally geeks out over novels.
When Austen was composing Northanger Abbey (completed in 1803), there was no guarantee that the novel was here to stay. It had been slowly gaining ground on poetry and drama throughout the eighteenth century, but it was still viewed askance by the literary elite and the social establishment alike. It was the kind of thing people who considered themselves paragons of intellect rolled their eyes at and people who considered themselves guardians of morality narrowed their eyes at.
Austen had been drafting novels for years. The rough manuscripts that would become Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility were already stuffed away in a drawer. She had already chosen how she would spend her life
"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid," perhaps Northanger Abbey's most famous line, is as much a defense of Austen's life's work as an indication that Henry Tilney, its deliverer, is worthy of Catherine's love.
Northanger Abbey is often described as a parody of the gothic novels that were popular at the time, but it's much more than that. It's funny enough even if you've never read any of the novels it references, and if you've read The Mysteries of Udolpho, Catherine's current obsession, it's hilarious.
Catherine Morland is a total geek about novels, boys, and creepy old houses, but in regarding Northanger Abbey only as a parody of gothic novels, it's easy to miss its true brilliance. Northanger Abbey is a defense of liking, and even devoting yourself to, something that's not quite mainstream yet.
Over two hundred years after Catherine Morland went to Bath, both The Mysteries of Udolpho and Northanger Abbey were on the reading list in one of my graduate seminars. Catherine Morland got the novel right. Jane Austen bet on the right horse.
Geek girls win.
 |
| Click the pic to be taken to the Austen in August Main Page! Thanks to faestock & inadesign for the images used to create this button. |
After reading this post I want to reread Northanger Abbey. I haven't read it in almost ten years and since I found a copy cheap in Goodwill I might read it this weekend.
ReplyDeleteDo it! NA is a great weekend read.
DeleteI absolutely read Mysteries of Udolpho to get the jokes in Northanger Abbey. Jane Austen is awesome and Northanger Abbey is hilarious. A few years ago, my grandmother told me novels were a waste of time. I was still writing my first one at the time. I'm not sure I've ever wanted to slap someone so hard. Not only is my first passion--reading--a waste of time. My desire for work is a waste of time. Um, shut up old woman. I've also had the checker at a Target mock my choice of books. That was probably the second woman I've wanted to slap. We don't need to defend our love of books or our choices of what we read. What's amazing to me is that I've had two experiences that probably mirrored something Austen experienced based on the evidence of Northanger Abbey. It's been two hundred years. Let's move on people.
ReplyDeleteHmm, nope, neither reading nor writing novels is ever a waste of time. But so many of the experiences Austen writes about remain current, for better or worse.
DeleteGreat post! Northanger Abbey is my favorite since Catherine is so much fun.
ReplyDeleteAnd I love what scholars recently found out - the names of the other novels in Northanger Abbey aren't just made up. They're all real books that Jane Austen herself probably read.
Northanger Abbey=#1 in my book. Not because it's technically a "better" novel than the others (it's not), but because of the way Catherine loves her books. You can just imagine that JA must have loved hers in the same way.
DeleteI have ALWAYS said that I think NA gives the best idea of who Austen would have been, what she would have been like as a friend. You can tell she's just enjoying herself with that book.
DeleteNorthanger Abbey wasn't in my top two favorite Austen novels, but it far outshines many other novels out there. I love your points about Catherine. She does feed her novel habit without apology and I adore her for it. I was heartened by her faux pas regarding Mrs. Tilney's death because that makes her human and not a paragon.
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
I think Catherine is perhaps the most "human" of Austen's heroines. She's so awkward that I just cringe for her every so often. I think it's evident that Austen wrote it when she was just barely out (or possibly still in the thick of) of that gawky teenage phase herself.
DeleteI have been meaning to read The Mysteries of Udolpho for ages, knowing it was one of the novels JA was referencing in Northanger Abbey. I've only read NA once, I read all of Austen's main books one after the other, when I was a teenager and I wasn't keen on this one. I thought Catherine was silly and I didn't see what Henry saw in her, plus he was always having a sly laugh at her, it wasn't romantic enough for my sentimental teenage heart. However a few years ago I saw the 2007 version with JJ Feild (yum) and I realised that I'd not done justice to this novel. I am well overdue for a reread.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, Ceri, The Mysteries of Udolpho is a long haul, but it's worth the attempt if only for its influence on Austen. I actually like Henry Tilney because he's NOT a brooding hero. He has a sense of humor, and he talks a lot, which is kind of rare for a romantic lead in a Regency or Victorian novel. I always felt like he was trying to laugh WITH Catherine, not AT her--and essentially trying to get her to laugh at herself. That said, I think your point about it not being quite romantic enough for teenage dreams may be true. When I was in high school, I loved Wuthering Heights--can't stand it now.
DeleteThat is what I could see more clearly in the adaptation, he was having a laugh, but it was done fondly, and it was with not at her. Plus she was so young, I don't think I gave her enough credit for that. I definitely need to reread it.
DeleteI love Northanger Abbey, because of Catherine Morland, and it's a true treat to see an excellent essay in defense of her. Catherine as an original geek girl.....ah, that warms my heart. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Beth! Geek girls FTW!
DeleteI agree--great post. Thank you!! I have long been a big fan of Northanger Abbey and Catherine Morland. And Henry Tilney is one of the most attractive Austen heroes ever. I love his sense of humor, and I love Catherine's innate goodness and childlike sense of wonder. She makes me appreciate my own world more when I try to look at it through her eyes.
Delete