Reading Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey
Oct. 4th, 2019 07:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daisyninjagirlNorthanger Abbey
And next we have Northanger Abbey, the first of Austen's novels accepted for publication, and heartbreakingly, one of the last two to be published, shortly after she had passed away. Seriously, that must be one of the most infuriating things to happen to the author - the copyright was bought by a printer, who put an advertisement in a paper, and then sat on it unpublished and threatened Austen with legal action if she tried to sell it elsewhere. During her poor years, paying back the ten pounds she'd earned on it was an expense too great, and she had to wait until she had independently reached success before she was able to get the rights back. Her brother, who handled the transaction, made a point of waiting until after the paperwork was done to tell the publisher that he'd been sitting on an unpublished Austen novel. It came paired with Austen's last completed novel, Persuasion, and as the pair together bookend themselves in the city of Bath, a teenager on her first big excursion, compared to a woman past her first bloom being sent back to a place full of unhappy memories where it rains a lot, there is a great sense of nuance and irony reading them back to back.
I often feel that this novel should be required reading for teenagers. It so exquisitely lays out the workings of Mean Girl behaviour - the taking Isabella Thorpe who flirts with men (for love) and young women (for affection), ruthlessly builds them up, before tearing them down, and always tries to keep the attention on herself. Her brother, John Thorpe, is an acknowledged rattle who keeps pressuring the heroine Catherine into giving up social engagements she wants to do to keep him happy, talks himself up, and pays no attention to her comfort. The sheer frustration of being told that John was flirting with her and presumed she was flirting with him, when Catherine was doing her best to be polite with a very boring and disagreeable person is sadly a bane of a young woman's life that hasn't gone away in the 21st century. As with modern teenage culture, the details of who is dancing with whom, and who has read the latest sensational novel (whether they like it or not) is very much lampooned. It doesn't much look like Catherine Morland actually enjoys balls that much, but the triumph of having an acknowledged partner for one - that's a very big deal indeed.
In the second half of the book, in which Catherine progresses from her apprenticeship as a Gothic heroine (trying to work out how to deal with the Thorpes), to her more challenging journeywoman's work in the home of the Tilney's (the Northanger Abbey of the title), she's allowed a couple of days of Gothic fantasies; but her true challenge is trying to figure out the controlling General Tilney who makes much of her and keeps saying he doesn't care about money, because he can't say that he was acting on the mistaken belief of her being an heiress. The crux of the novel, in which the General comes home in a rage and turns the 17 year old Catherine out of the house at 7 in the morning without an escort and without checking she has the fare home would be a severe insult by today's standards when we have cellphones and credit cards and intercity buses: in Regency England, it was a terrifically awful thing to do to a young girl. The descriptive prose of Catherine's last night in the Abbey is so intensely apt to the feelings of social rejection - all the Gothic imaginings earlier are eclipsed and exhausted by them. I do feel very sorry for Catherine in her homecoming. Her parents are properly outraged at what happened for about half an hour, and then they shrug their shoulders and tell Catherine that at least now they know not to continue the acquaintance, put her back to work on the housekeeping, and offer her conduct books to read. Arggggggh.
In the introduction of one of the editions to this, there's a comment that Henry Tilney may have been an authorial stand in for Jane Austen, who was around the same age (mid twenties) as the character at the time she wrote it. I like the idea because Henry is such a great, kind, and wise mentor to the naive Catherine. The book has a narrative about how she is learning things: learning how to read, learning how to be pretty, learning how to be a heroine through heavy consumption of Gothic novels, and that's only in the first chapter. In the body of the book, she is learning how to get by in Bath, for which Henry happily outlines the programme for her, and learning about aesthetic ideals (in her visit to the Abbey, she regrets on her first stroll around the gardens that he is not there to tell her what is picturesque and what isn't); but more importantly she is learning to decode the peculiar behaviour of people like the Thorpes and General Tilney who say one thing and do another, which Henry drops hints about but wisely lets her do some figuring out on her own. It's notable that Catherine's only really serious blunder, presuming the General to be the villain of a great Gothic novel, is only really able to take flight while Henry is away, and collapses as soon as she sees him again. He's the wry pragmatic figure who sets her straight, but also takes the trouble to be exceptionally kind for the next few days while she's getting over the embarrassment. This is a recurring motif of the books, where Austen displays the evidence of people's self-image of themselves, observes their actions in particular situations, and wryly lets the reader form their own conclusion. She must have made a wonderful older friend and aunt. I also noticed that Henry is arguably the most androgynous character of the novels. He comes equipped with guns and greatcoats and a well-built curricle that he drives competently; but he also takes an eager interest in more feminine activities like the fabric of women's dresses and the most extreme of the Gothic novels, which he is fully capable of summing up and satirising. At the end of the novel, we are told that Henry fell in love with Catherine primarily from gratitude, that he gave her a second thought because he could see that she had a partiality to him, more normally (at least as described in conduct books and the beginning of this novel) the role of the woman in the partnership. Henry as author stand in is a very defendable premise. Returning to our sister author, Charlotte Bronte's view that Austen's stories were too figured and controlled: here, Austen is looking ahead in time and giving Bronte's interest in mad women in the attic rendered insane by their own appetites it's own reproof: "every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open"
Battle of the Adaptations
There's only one film version that I've seen, released in 2007. A very young Felicity Jones (who later went onto Star Wars) is the young Catherine, who spends a lot of time heaving her bosom and looking thrilled and overwhelmed. The Henry Tilney of this adaptation is perfect, Isabella Thorpe (played by a pre Oscar nomination Carey Mulligan) shines out like a searchlight compared to the other actors, which I expect was the point. This adaptation very much emphasises the Gothic fantasies of Catherine - there are a lot of imaginary fantasy scenes - which I think is a shame. I love the novel so much more for its breakdown of social behaviours.
Two Bonus Fan Fic adaptations (one of which was written for me!) that give the Tilney view of events:
To Want Nothing But Patience (6482 words) by felix814
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Catherine Morland/Henry Tilney
Characters: Eleanor Tilney, Henry Tilney, Catherine Morland, General Tilney (Northanger Abbey)
Additional Tags: Solitude, Conversations, Loneliness, Family, Regency
Summary:
Chapters: 25/25
Fandom: Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen, AUSTEN Jane - Works
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Catherine Morland/Henry Tilney, Catherine Morland & Eleanor Tilney
Characters: Catherine Morland, Henry Tilney, Eleanor Tilney, General Tilney (Northanger Abbey), Frederick Tilney, Isabella Thorpe, John Thorpe, Charles Morland
Additional Tags: Canon Rewrite, Henry Tilney's POV, Romance, Historically Accurate, Falling In Love, Regency Romance, Regency, Fluff, Slow Burn, Henry Tilney is the perfect gentleman, and a tease, Full Rewrite, Canon Compliant
Summary:
I can also say that I would really love it if this got the Pemberley Digital vlog treatment - I think the vlog form gives a lot of room of showing both Catherine's character growth, and also letting the viewer judge the other characters by their actions vs the stated reasons for the actions with a lot of elegance. Like Emma, this is a detective story without a detective - I think it could really shine.
And next we have Northanger Abbey, the first of Austen's novels accepted for publication, and heartbreakingly, one of the last two to be published, shortly after she had passed away. Seriously, that must be one of the most infuriating things to happen to the author - the copyright was bought by a printer, who put an advertisement in a paper, and then sat on it unpublished and threatened Austen with legal action if she tried to sell it elsewhere. During her poor years, paying back the ten pounds she'd earned on it was an expense too great, and she had to wait until she had independently reached success before she was able to get the rights back. Her brother, who handled the transaction, made a point of waiting until after the paperwork was done to tell the publisher that he'd been sitting on an unpublished Austen novel. It came paired with Austen's last completed novel, Persuasion, and as the pair together bookend themselves in the city of Bath, a teenager on her first big excursion, compared to a woman past her first bloom being sent back to a place full of unhappy memories where it rains a lot, there is a great sense of nuance and irony reading them back to back.
I often feel that this novel should be required reading for teenagers. It so exquisitely lays out the workings of Mean Girl behaviour - the taking Isabella Thorpe who flirts with men (for love) and young women (for affection), ruthlessly builds them up, before tearing them down, and always tries to keep the attention on herself. Her brother, John Thorpe, is an acknowledged rattle who keeps pressuring the heroine Catherine into giving up social engagements she wants to do to keep him happy, talks himself up, and pays no attention to her comfort. The sheer frustration of being told that John was flirting with her and presumed she was flirting with him, when Catherine was doing her best to be polite with a very boring and disagreeable person is sadly a bane of a young woman's life that hasn't gone away in the 21st century. As with modern teenage culture, the details of who is dancing with whom, and who has read the latest sensational novel (whether they like it or not) is very much lampooned. It doesn't much look like Catherine Morland actually enjoys balls that much, but the triumph of having an acknowledged partner for one - that's a very big deal indeed.
In the second half of the book, in which Catherine progresses from her apprenticeship as a Gothic heroine (trying to work out how to deal with the Thorpes), to her more challenging journeywoman's work in the home of the Tilney's (the Northanger Abbey of the title), she's allowed a couple of days of Gothic fantasies; but her true challenge is trying to figure out the controlling General Tilney who makes much of her and keeps saying he doesn't care about money, because he can't say that he was acting on the mistaken belief of her being an heiress. The crux of the novel, in which the General comes home in a rage and turns the 17 year old Catherine out of the house at 7 in the morning without an escort and without checking she has the fare home would be a severe insult by today's standards when we have cellphones and credit cards and intercity buses: in Regency England, it was a terrifically awful thing to do to a young girl. The descriptive prose of Catherine's last night in the Abbey is so intensely apt to the feelings of social rejection - all the Gothic imaginings earlier are eclipsed and exhausted by them. I do feel very sorry for Catherine in her homecoming. Her parents are properly outraged at what happened for about half an hour, and then they shrug their shoulders and tell Catherine that at least now they know not to continue the acquaintance, put her back to work on the housekeeping, and offer her conduct books to read. Arggggggh.
In the introduction of one of the editions to this, there's a comment that Henry Tilney may have been an authorial stand in for Jane Austen, who was around the same age (mid twenties) as the character at the time she wrote it. I like the idea because Henry is such a great, kind, and wise mentor to the naive Catherine. The book has a narrative about how she is learning things: learning how to read, learning how to be pretty, learning how to be a heroine through heavy consumption of Gothic novels, and that's only in the first chapter. In the body of the book, she is learning how to get by in Bath, for which Henry happily outlines the programme for her, and learning about aesthetic ideals (in her visit to the Abbey, she regrets on her first stroll around the gardens that he is not there to tell her what is picturesque and what isn't); but more importantly she is learning to decode the peculiar behaviour of people like the Thorpes and General Tilney who say one thing and do another, which Henry drops hints about but wisely lets her do some figuring out on her own. It's notable that Catherine's only really serious blunder, presuming the General to be the villain of a great Gothic novel, is only really able to take flight while Henry is away, and collapses as soon as she sees him again. He's the wry pragmatic figure who sets her straight, but also takes the trouble to be exceptionally kind for the next few days while she's getting over the embarrassment. This is a recurring motif of the books, where Austen displays the evidence of people's self-image of themselves, observes their actions in particular situations, and wryly lets the reader form their own conclusion. She must have made a wonderful older friend and aunt. I also noticed that Henry is arguably the most androgynous character of the novels. He comes equipped with guns and greatcoats and a well-built curricle that he drives competently; but he also takes an eager interest in more feminine activities like the fabric of women's dresses and the most extreme of the Gothic novels, which he is fully capable of summing up and satirising. At the end of the novel, we are told that Henry fell in love with Catherine primarily from gratitude, that he gave her a second thought because he could see that she had a partiality to him, more normally (at least as described in conduct books and the beginning of this novel) the role of the woman in the partnership. Henry as author stand in is a very defendable premise. Returning to our sister author, Charlotte Bronte's view that Austen's stories were too figured and controlled: here, Austen is looking ahead in time and giving Bronte's interest in mad women in the attic rendered insane by their own appetites it's own reproof: "every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open"
Battle of the Adaptations
There's only one film version that I've seen, released in 2007. A very young Felicity Jones (who later went onto Star Wars) is the young Catherine, who spends a lot of time heaving her bosom and looking thrilled and overwhelmed. The Henry Tilney of this adaptation is perfect, Isabella Thorpe (played by a pre Oscar nomination Carey Mulligan) shines out like a searchlight compared to the other actors, which I expect was the point. This adaptation very much emphasises the Gothic fantasies of Catherine - there are a lot of imaginary fantasy scenes - which I think is a shame. I love the novel so much more for its breakdown of social behaviours.
Two Bonus Fan Fic adaptations (one of which was written for me!) that give the Tilney view of events:
To Want Nothing But Patience (6482 words) by felix814
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Catherine Morland/Henry Tilney
Characters: Eleanor Tilney, Henry Tilney, Catherine Morland, General Tilney (Northanger Abbey)
Additional Tags: Solitude, Conversations, Loneliness, Family, Regency
Summary:
Eleanor is a loving sister.
Fullerton Parsonage (66571 words) by SunfreckleChapters: 25/25
Fandom: Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen, AUSTEN Jane - Works
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Catherine Morland/Henry Tilney, Catherine Morland & Eleanor Tilney
Characters: Catherine Morland, Henry Tilney, Eleanor Tilney, General Tilney (Northanger Abbey), Frederick Tilney, Isabella Thorpe, John Thorpe, Charles Morland
Additional Tags: Canon Rewrite, Henry Tilney's POV, Romance, Historically Accurate, Falling In Love, Regency Romance, Regency, Fluff, Slow Burn, Henry Tilney is the perfect gentleman, and a tease, Full Rewrite, Canon Compliant
Summary:
When in search for a tragic hero, no one would have thought to look twice at Henry Tilney. His life may have begun promising, being born under the roof of a former abbey as the second son of a very stern military man, but from this point on both Henry’s situation in life and his disposition were entirely against him…
[A full rewrite of Jane Austen's “Northanger Abbey”, this time told from the perspective of Henry Tilney. Since the original is named for the Tilney’s home, I thought this reimagining should be named for the Morland’s.
Written to be canon compliant, historically accurate and in the style of the original work.]
I can also say that I would really love it if this got the Pemberley Digital vlog treatment - I think the vlog form gives a lot of room of showing both Catherine's character growth, and also letting the viewer judge the other characters by their actions vs the stated reasons for the actions with a lot of elegance. Like Emma, this is a detective story without a detective - I think it could really shine.
