Victorians! discussion

Hello wonderful 'Victorians!',

I'm currently studying [Author: Jane Austen]'s [Book: Northanger Abbey] and have set up this thread (...with the kind permission of Boof) for two reasons...

a) with the thought that the lovely people who populate this forum might be interested in sharing what I'm learning; and

b) in the hope that you may be able to share your thoughts and opinions on the novel with me so that I can improve my understanding and open my mind to opinions that may not have occurred to me on my own.

To begin, I'm simply interested in whether anyone has read [Book: Northanger Abbey] and if so, whether or not you found it enjoyable?

Thanks in advance for any contributions and debates generated!

Ally

I read it a few years ago, Ally, and I do remember enjoying it (in fact it is the only one of hers that I have tried to read that I have enjoyed so far!). I loved the tongue in cheekness about it and I liked Mr Tilney far more than Mr Darcy because he seemed to have a sense of humour. I think the gothicy feel gave it some intrigue too. I must confess that I read it a while ago and can actually remember more about the TV drama more than I can about the book though.

Hi Ally,

I haven't read it, but it is on deck to be read quite soon. I will be sure to stop in and chat. I have heard good things about it, so am looking forward to it.

Northanger Abbey was a fun read for me. Well, I always do enjoy reading Austen. But I found this one as the lightest read of all Austen's novel. Catherine's character with all her overly imaginative case is quite interesting but I wasnt deeply engaged as I usually do while reading other Austen's. Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion is still my favorite from Austen.

Northanger Abbey is my favorie of the Austen novels. Like others have said, it is the most lighthearted and playful of her novels. The part I really also love is the stirical part of the novel. In many many ways, Austen, who usually uses her satire at society adds another layer and throws her wit at the Gothic tradition and plays off other authors like Anne Radcliff. It makes for a very entertaining read.

I read this a long time ago and remember having LOL moments reading it. That said, this is Austen lite, and though enjoyable, not on par with her best novels.

The gothic aspects is interesting but it only shows up in the second part (almost reaching the end) of the book. I was hoping for something like Jane Eyre when I first read it. But, yes I also enjoyed her witty-satirical style...

Thanks for all your lovely replies!

When I first read Northanger Abbey a number of years ago I really didn't like it much - At school I studied Sense & Sensibility and then read Pride & Prejudice straight after, both of which I absolutely loved. - To then go on to read Northanger felt like a real let down as it is definitely NOT written in the same style as S&S or P&P.

However, the more I read it the more I like it and I'm beginning to agree with Kimberly that it's probably now may favourite of Austen's novels. As I get older I find I can more easily appreciate the witty, tongue in cheek style and the more I learn about literature I can spot her deliberate lampooning of Radcliffe et al and the strict behavioural standards put forward by Dr Fordyces Sermons etc.

It's really interesting that so many of us have noted the less serious nature - the 'Austen Lite'. I agree -it doesn't appear very serious to me either!.

But my course materials have turned my thinking on its head. It notes that Austen had a very serious purpose behind writing this novel. She wanted to defend the novel genre, which was thought detrimental to women readers in general - 'pestiferous' was one term used to describe novel reading & 'rank treason against the royaly of virtue'!. Austem also wanted to chastise those women authors that conformed to the view that their art was somehow lesser or just a hobby and therefore ratified it within the stories they wrote.

Northanger Abbey is apparantly famous as one of the only times in Austen's fiction when "the authentic voice of the novelist" shines through. - I'm glued to my textbook now hoping for may more such insights! LOL.

Ally

...oh - and I wasn't aware that Northanger Abbey was the first novel Austen wrote and had accepted for publishing in the 1790's. The publisher just hung onto it and it wasn't actually published until after Austen died in 1817!

Ally, I've just read an essay by an Austen scholar which speculates that she might have been compelled to tone down her writing so that her novels could be deemed safe reading material for the Regency public. We know that there were prototypes of P&P. S&S, and NA which did not survive, and they might be quite different from the finished novels. She was originally an edgier writer in the 18th century mold. When NA et al were finally published in the 1810's, there had been a shift in public mores to the conventional side, and she had to revise them to conform to the new morality.

I can't judge whether that's a valid theory or not, but it is surely fun to imagine what the uncensored prototypes were like.

And and you're right about how novels were looked down at as a barely proper reading material. Nevertheless, the majority of novels at that time were authored by women writers. A few of the popular ones made a bit of money for their authors. Something that Austen, a spinster aunt living on the charity of her family, sorely needed.

Sandybanks wrote: "Ally, I've just read an essay by an Austen scholar which speculates that she might have been compelled to tone down her writing so that her novels could be deemed safe reading material for the Rege..."

Wow - thanks for this. That article does sound great. I agree - its fun to imagine what our view of Austen might be now if only her original drafts had been published instead. Or would we have ever even known she existed?

I know there's a little section in my course materials entitled 'Jane Austen: 'conservative' or 'radical'?' - I'll have to let you know what that chapter digs up when I reach it! - it may cover similar groud to your essay.

In the meantime - do you have the article title and/or author that you were reading? - it may be something I could refer to in my studies.

Thanks again!

Ally

You're welcome, Ally.

Here's a link about the book which has that essay :

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

I've also just read an Austen biography by Claire Tomalin :

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50...

I hope that they will be useful for you, and please share anything interesting that you discover in your studies!

I found out from a friend on GR that the author of Atonement--Ian McEwan was very much inspired by this book. Just thought this might be something interesting to know...

An Interview with Ian McEwan: http://www.eruditiononline.com/04.04/...

From Wiki:

"A passage from the novel appears as the preface of Ian McEwan's Atonement, thus likening the naive mistakes of Austen's Catherine Morland to those of his own character Briony Tallis, who is in a similar position: both characters have very over-active imaginations, which lead to misconceptions that cause distress in the lives of people around them. Both treat their own lives like those of heroines in fantastical works of fiction, with Miss Morland likening herself to a character in a Gothic novel and young Briony Tallis writing her own melodramatic stories and plays with central characters such as 'spontaneous Arabella' based on herself."

Sherien, that's really interesting. I didn't know that McEwan was influenced by NA but now I think about it, Briony Tallis is very similar in her imagination. She also makes things up like Cathering Morland. I LOVED Atonement . I do see Cathering being a lot more playful that Briony though - I though Briony was a very serious little thing.

Briony gave me the creep. Atonement might have been inspired by NA, but Atonement is quite dark in tone, in contrast to NA.

Yes - I agree that Atonement is both fabulous and quite dark in tone. I've been reading in my course materials that Northanger Abbey can be described as burlesque (...strange I know - makes you think of Dita Von Teese doesn't it LOL!).

My books describe burlesque as: when you take a 'high' or serious art form but fill it with 'low' or comic content. It also goes into a little bit about the nature of parody - which it says "...usually shadows a parent text or style, producing a kind of literary satire by following its conventions and structure faithfully but in a ludicrously truncated or exaggerated manner".

I suppose what its saying is the Austen is using a serious 'form' but lacing it with comic overtones in order to make a point. So really although the tone does come across as light maybe it's not meant to be taken lightly. That there is a stark message attached.

Austen is taking a pop at novelistic conventions and the values they portray - In Northanger Abbey she is "harness[ing:] this satiric impulse to make a free-standing moral, political and social fable".

She also takes a pop at the sentimental novel and the gothic novel etc within this book.

I have to say that I completely missed most of this on first reading!

Ally

Well - I didn't get a any specific answers on whether Austen was a conservative or a radical (Slightly disappointed!).

The discussion centred on the idea that because Austen didn't write about the political turmoil of her world (i.e. the Napoleonic wars etc) that she was consigned to being 'unimportant' as a writer until around the 1970's when (presumably with the push of the feminist movement) her barbed comments on the moral and intellectual education of women and the roles open women within marriage became more 'noticed' in lit crit.

In Catherine Morland and Isabella Thorpe Austen can successfully play off against eachother the qualities of innocence and manipulation. In Mr Tilney and John Thorpe we can also see different aspects of gentlemanly and ungentlemanly behaviour. which makes me think there could be more to the idea of Austen as a radical than I first thought! - In Catherines choice of reading material and the effects it has on her imagination she can have a pop on the education of women and the standards of a society that thinks novels can corrupt female readers.

I'd be interested to know what people on this forum thought about this issue. Is Jane Austen simply a parochial writer of local themes with no great significance or could she be potentially considered an early feminist who packs a more 'political' punch?

Ally

If people actually read Austen's work as a collective and THINK about it (see the responsibility is on the reader) and think about this written by an English minister's daughter, born in 1775, it seems pretty obvious that this writing is not the work of a conservative person.

Maybe reading only one work of hers does not fully reveal Austen to a reader. Maybe if Pride and Prejudice is just skimmed through, or, if you just watch the ball scenes in the movie. However, if a person really reads Austen, they will see many statements about social structure and changing society.

There is such a distance between the terms conservative and radical though, if you are examining the issue for research, you might want to look at all the terms you could possibly use. Radical suggests activist and other things to me.

For example, I might term Austen as a social chronicler with liberal views. Which would have placed her by far apart from many ladies of the time who played out truly traditional domestic roles with no thought of writing novels and pointing out how women suffered under entailments of property.

I know she labeled herself a "miniaturist," but that doesn't mean she wrote about small things in a conservative way, right?

One area that I'm always interested in is cross-disciplinary approaches to studies. My degrees are in history, so literature was a side topic if approached at all. It seems that those who study literature need to be more aware of the historical component than us 'historians' need to be aware of literary pieces. Do you think that's true, Ally?

For example, I recall reading, as a side interest this summer, of women writers. I read Elaine Showalter's "A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing," and was delighted in the extra details Showalter provides (such as the use of pseudonyms). Showalter goes into depth about the social climate and the struggles women writers had to face in order to be accepted; such as feigning physical distress to appear that writing for a living exhausted women. I know this particular book doesn't help your cause much, as I believe Austen was nearing the end of her life as C Bronte, for example, was beginning her life. What is interesting to me is if any of the Brontes or Austen had lived into their late 40s or early 50s, how that wealth of life experience might have impacted their writings.

I guess my question is - how much history to students of lit know or are they expected to know? And what other books are you reading this semester?

Hi Paula,

A couple of years ago I did a course with the OU that was partially devoted to your very questions - it was called 'Approaching Literature' (...actuallly come to think of it last years course on Twentieth Century Literature also went into these questions in some detail).

Reading in context is an integral part of the study of literature, not just in historical terms but also in geographic and cultural terms. (And in addition - Gender debates, such as those engaged in by Elaine Showalter, Gilbert & Gubar & Janet Wolff, are raging through the whole of literature with many works being re-classified and may 'forgotten' or 'abandoned' female writers from the past being brought to the fore).

In terms of your direct question on whether those who study literature need to be aware of the historical component there are two schools of though. Firstly that to read and fully understand a piece of prose, poetry or a play requires a peripheral understanding of the context in which it was written. However, the contrary school of thought dictates that a reader brings his/her own experiences to bear on a work and that it can be complete in itself. Basically, that the writer ceases to have any intellectual rights in terms of the way their work is received by its audience that the thing that completes the reading process is the interprative qualities of the reader.

Its an interesting debate but I personally find that I understand far more about a work of literature if I know a little of the history of both the times and the authors personal views on their world.

In terms of how much history we're 'expected' to know - we are given a great deal of contextual information within the course structure (especially with the OU) but there is also a suggested reading list as long as your arm for those who are keen!

Ally

I haven't forgotten about this thread, I've just been side tracked by Jane Eyre. But I'll be back on Northanger Abbey again in a week or so.

My question asks me about how important setting is in Northanger Abbey.

For example in structuring the novel or developing the themes. Or maybe to help develop the 'genre' of the novel i.e. Gothic or Sentimental??? - The social aspects of Bath and then the gothic abbey/castle.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on the settings in Austen's Northanger Abbey?

It's so long since I read this, Ally, that I'm really not sure that my opinion counts for much (can't remember a great deal about it). But here goes anyway:

Catherine came from a very small home in the country and was whisked away to Bath which was very cosmopolitan in its day. People went there to be seen and had second homes there (as they did in London). It was all about being seen. Then she is again whisked off away from the bright lights to a remote, huge, imposing mansion in the middle of nowhere after already having her imagination fed by the novels she has read. I think that the novels she has read are really important before introducing us to Nothanger Abbey because it is Catherine's reaction to the house that makes as much of an impression as the physical presence of the house, I think.

I don't know if that has helped at all?

I read this book over the summer.
One aspect I really liked is that it accurately captured how teen girls think/feel (even applied to today). For a short time, Catherine's relationship with Isabella was the most important in the world to her, but it was really based on nothing more than fun & gossip. And also, Catherine's imagination gets in the way of her having adult relationships. I think the settings of Bath and the gothic Abbey are to show areas in which a young girl would find exotic.

thats interesting - I don't think that would have occurred to me - Thank you. - I think you're right, especially given that the books they were reading around the time Austen was writing were things like The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Italian and The Monk etc, all of which would have contributed to what was classed as exotic. - Austen was probably, like you say, highlighting how succeptible young minds could be!

And this links into what Boof points out too doesn't it - about Bath being THE place to be seen and the Abbey being food for Catherine's overactive imagination!!!

Ally

Ally

I've just written a review of Northanger Abbey for Goodreads - if I knew how to put a link in here I would - but otherwise you can get to it through my profile.

Ally

Ally wrote: "I've just written a review of Northanger Abbey for Goodreads - if I knew how to put a link in here I would - but otherwise you can get to it through my profile.

Ally"

I am looking foreward to reading it as it has had mixed reviews

I read Northanger Abby... last year some time... I love Jane Austen, but this is by far one of my favourites of hers. It seems very... optimistic, almost? I might have a bit of a crush on Henry Tilney. xD

<3

I have recently read Northanger Abbey for the first time and I enjoyed it, although I look back on it and think it wasn't as great as I thought it was when I read it. I still like it but Persuasion is my favorite so far. I found the gothic edge to make the book slightly less appealing compared to some of her others. I still like it and will probably read it again at some point in my life, but it wasn't my favorite.

I recently watched the PBS Masterpiece adaptation. I was left wanting so much more It was only 90 minutes and left alot undone and unsaid. Is the book like this as well?

Rebecca wrote: "I recently watched the PBS Masterpiece adaptation. I was left wanting so much more It was only 90 minutes and left alot undone and unsaid. Is the book like this as well?"

Yes, the book is far too short.. I also watched the PBS Masterpiece adaptation before and after reading the book and I had the feeling the action was flowing at the same pace with the book. But I was expecting a few more gothic stuff, for example I was persuaded the book would follow Catherine's overactive imagination as a result to some gothic action in the book. I did not know much about Austen at that time, did I ?
And because of the movie I read The Monk by Matthew G. Lewis, though the book makes no reference to it. Still I enjoyed Northanger Abbey

A lot of the adaptations on PBS are shorter than they used to be, and sometimes give details short shrift.

I read Northanger Abbey last year as well,and thought this book was not the usual Austen read. It had elements of gothic in it, and suspense, almost like a good mystery book.

I just finished Northanger Abbey, and I was surprised and delighted by it.
I was very interested in the above comparisons with McEwan's Atonement. I did read an interview with him where he talked about this book as an Austen book. I was surprised by the comparisons with Northanger Abbey, I really thought it had a lot of similarities with Mansfield Park. I thought that Briony was a Fanny type character, who is passive through out the story but becomes more important as it concludes.
Anyway, as far as Northanger goes, I really think a lot of this book is fan fiction. Austen was clearly a fan of Radcliffe's and lifts whole chunks of dialoge from her books. She does so to parody. But I think she originally saw Catherine as a Radcliffe type heroine and probably changed her mind in rewriting it. That is just my opinion though.

Paul wrote: "I just finished Northanger Abbey, and I was surprised and delighted by it.
I was very interested in the above comparisons with McEwan's Atonement. I did read an interview with him where he talk..."

Paul, I loved Atonement and I thought linking it with Northanger Abbey with a quote on the book's first page was a great touch. It helped (for those who had already read N. Abbey.. or at least for me) to get an clue of what was coming, but with quite dark touch, don't you think? Both Briony and Catherine have a wild imagination... but the consequences!
Apart of that I didn't think Atonement would be an "Austen book" but I might re-read it
I haven't read anything by Radcliffe but my only negative point while reading N. Abbey might be the feeling I had that as I wasn't familiar with Radcliffe, I was missing lot of the fun

I'm reading Northanger Abbey again right now; even if I find it not as good as Pride and Prejudice I like the way Jane Austen depicts her chatacters: they're not heroes, but silly persons like us!!
Atonement is much deeper, tragic, real notwithstanding...

I tried reading Atonement, but couldn't get into it. I don't know if it has similarities to Northanger, but I would be willing to give it another try, since I really liked Northanger Abbey.

I hated Atonement the first time I tried to read it. It got a lot better the second time.

So maybe I will read it again. Usually the second time is much better than the first.

It's the best with Emma Jane Austen book!!!!

I like Northanger Abbey, catherine is a very likeable heroine with her eager enthusiasm and enjoyment of everything, and her vivid imagination. Not so sure about Henry Tilney, he's a bit of too pleased with himself and his own cleverness.

And some day, Ally, try reading The Mysteries of Udolpho. It is actually a lot of fun and chock full of all the Gothic accouterments you could want including a heroine who faints at crucial moments!

Louise, one of the reasons I like Northanger Abbey so much is because of Tilney's cleverness. I loved how he was gentlemanly and respectful to the norms, but he also made fun of them at the same time. I felt this was perfect as it set Catherine at ease in a sphere to which she was somewhat new. He was the perfect person to have done so. If the mishaps Catherine experienced throughout the story had happened with a different kind of man, I don't believe the ending would have been possible as it was written--the hero would've left her long before. :)

Ashley wrote: "Louise, one of the reasons I like Northanger Abbey so much is because of Tilney's cleverness. I loved how he was gentlemanly and respectful to the norms, but he also made fun of them at the same ti..."

I thought he was perfect for Catherine also.

I love 'Northanger Abbey' but by the end of it, I was very disappointed in Isabella but am glad that Catherine married Mr Tilney.