Title: Northanger Abbey
Author: Jane Austen
Rating: 5/5 stars
Synopsis: The
story’s unlikely heroine is Catherine Morland, a remarkably innocent
seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few
weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love
with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate,
Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic
thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind
with terrible suspicions. What is the mystery surrounding the death of
Henry’s mother? Is the family concealing a terrible secret within the
elegant rooms of the Abbey? Can she trust Henry, or is he part of an
evil conspiracy? Catherine finds dreadful portents in the most prosaic
events, until Henry persuades her to see the peril in confusing life
with art.
My thoughts: This is a story of lady meets gentleman. The lady in question likes
reading gothic novels and the gentleman’s father owns an abbey that
could easily be the set of one of the lady’s beloved tales. Perfect
match, isn’t it? Seems so, but what if the Abbey turns out to be not
nearly as pleasant a place as the lady thought it would be? What if the
gentleman belongs to a peculiar family with a past that some members of
the kin cannot bury?
Northanger
Abbey could be divided into two parts set-wise. The first part of the
novel takes place in Bath, to where our heroine Catherine Morland
accompanies family friends and where she expects to spend a joyful time.
And indeed, she soon gets acquainted with two families, each of which
provides her with one friend and one suitor. In this first half of the
book there’s an awful lot of talk about gigs and bonnets, but don’t
worry, dear reader, Jane Austen is that kind of an author, who can make a
conversation about ladies’ attire interesting.
The second part of
Northanger Abbey is set in the Abbey itself – here Miss Austen reaches
back to gothic novel traditions and shakes the reader’s spirit up a bit:
if you get to the chapter where the journey to the Abbey starts, then
it’s time to bid adieu to the ‘rosy’ part of the story. The nights grow
longer and a hunt for the truth begins. But will the search around the
house give Catherine satisfaction?
All in all, Northanger Abbey is
a really entertaining tale. What I enjoyed the most in it were the
gothic elements, the dark and at times creepy-crawly nature of the
story-telling in the second half of the text. The main character
Catherine is a lovely young lady, but since she’s young she’s quite
naïve – oh well, who wasn’t at seventeen? As for the other characters, I
was a bit irritated by Mrs. Allen as well as Mr. Thorpe. Unfortunately,
the ending was spoiled for me – thanks mom! – but I liked it
nonetheless as well as the whole of the novel.
