Checking in: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
"The mere habit of learning to love is the thing; and a teachableness of disposition in a young lady is a great blessing."
“If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad,..”
I am thoroughly enjoying Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. What say you? Have you read this comedic satire aimed at the Gothic novels of her day? I think it may be my favorite of her six major works thus far, and most tragically, it is the last one I will get to read for the first time, as my Austen binge is quickly coming to an end this “Jane Austen July.” I’ve relished the other five and look forward to re-reading all of her books in the future.
I quite appreciate Jane’s defense of novels in general, which she peppers throughout this spoof horror story. Her wit is second to none and is heard in this exchange between the hero and heroine of Northanger Abbey.
“But you never read novels, I dare say?”
“Why not?”
“Because they are not clever enough for you—gentlemen read better books.”
“The person, be it gentlemen or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
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Surprisingly, it is not unlikely that the sentiments of Jane’s father, George Austen, echo through this most noble character, Henry Tilney. I recently read a biography about Jane by Lucy Worsley called Jane Austen at Home, and in it, Worsley reveals a snapshot of Jane’s dear dad.
“It was Mr Austen who had a slightly unconventional love of novels, and who passed it on to his daughter. He relished an evening spent with a ‘horrid’ book like The Midnight Bell, enjoying scenes like this: ‘the girls came running down the stairs, with terror painted on their countenances, and the elder of them exclaimed - that her Uncle’s bed was all over blood!’ It was surely Mr Austen who later encouraged his daughter to write her spoof horror story, Northanger Abbey.”
Note Worsley’s description of this book, “For Jane, then, it doesn’t matter what books you read, even if your choice is ‘trashy’ Gothic novels. It’s what you make of them, how you behave in consequence, that counts. Northanger Abbey, at first sight a satire on Gothic fiction, also mounts a subtle defense of the books it appears to mock. Jane is once again teasing us with her ‘double-voice’.
-Jane Austen At Home, Lucy Worsley
I would echo Worsley’s estimations, and chuckled my way through Jane’s tangent in chapter five regarding novelists bashing novels within their own novels.
“And what are you reading, Miss ———?”
“Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame.
“It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”
Hear, hear! Miss Austen paints vividly clear portraits of human folly and virtue with her writing, and rewards us both pleasure and understanding as we read over and over again her timeless tales.
“You have gained a new source of enjoyment, and it is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible.”
Won’t you please join me in reading this book and many more to come? The Reading Collective is a patchwork fellowship of creatures who love good books, and I invite you, as Jane says in Northanger Abbey, to “taste the sweets of friendship in an unreserved conversation” as we pour over these enriching works together.
We are currently reading through “High Five Book Stack #1,” and I would love to have you along.
Yours deeply,
Alicia