Heaven 2024: July Book Group: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
I am a bit late to the party starting this thread. As a Canadian, I never had to study Jane Austen in school. In fact, I have never read any of her novels. Earlier this year, I picked up a copy of Northanger Abbey at a secondhand book sale. I thought this was a wonderful opportunity to read my first Austen book. I felt that scheduling it for the book group would provide me the motivation to read it. So here we are! Questions will be posted around the 20th.
Comments
I've never managed to finish a Jane Austen novel although so many people I know think she's wonderful. I think this month's book discussion will be "make or break" for me!
I read Northanger Abbey some years ago and will try to re-read for this thread.
Also tried hunting up an online map of Bath from that era. The closest good map seems to be the Library of Congress 1820 map of 24 miles around Bath http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g5754b.ct002384 and a list of maps at https://bathabbeyquarter.com/Old Maps of Bath in Somerset.html
https://www.readinggroupguides.com/reviews/northanger-abbey/guide
1. Although Northanger Abby was the first book Austen sold, it was one of the last published. Some readers feel that it's obviously an early work without the narrative control Austen was soon to develop. Do you agree? Why or why not?
2. Catherine Morland is clearly a suggestible reader, but her gullibility extends beyond books into the real world. Is the tendency to think the best of people a trait you admire? Is it a trait you have?
3.The one character about whom Catherine is inclined to think the worst is General Tilney. Why is this? She is humiliated when Henry realizes how her imagination has run away with her, but how mistaken is she really regarding his general character? Are her powers of imagination more reliable than her powers of observation?
4. Henry Tilney tells Catherine that his father was attached to his mother and greatly afflicted by her death. Do you believe him?
5. Henry, himself, is a controversial hero. Sylvia Warner Townsend has suggested she thinks he's one of Austen's most delightful. Some find him witty and appealingly interested in feminine matters. Others find him condescending and even misogynistic. How well do you imagine it will be possible for Henry to love? Affectionately? Passionately? Steadfastly?
Why does he choose Catherine and how much in love with her is he?
6. Hidden within Austen's satire on gothic novels is Eleanor Tilney's story. Eleanor has a dead mother, an overbearing father, and ends up married to a viscount. Imagine the book if Austen had chosen Eleanor as the heroine. Would it have been a gothic novel?
7. Northanger Abbey is a book about reading. Much of the plot has to do with the folly of confusing one's own life with the stuff of fictional adventure. But the book also contains a famous Austen defense of novels and novelists, particularly those read and written by women.
a. We are told immediately that Catherine does not object to books so long as "nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them" and they are "all story and no reflection."
Escapist fiction continues, in our day, to have a bad reputation. Is that reputation deserved?
b. Austen flatters the reader of Northanger Abbey by allowing him/her to see and understand things the heroine does not. It's fun for readers to find that they are smarter than the people in books.
Have you read books in which you felt you were smarter than the author? Is that also fun?
Is it possible to like a book if it makes you feel you're not quite smart enough to read it?
It says at the end that Henry is 26 and Catherine is 18 when they marry.
I'll post in more detail later, but I think you can see this is one of Austen's early works. She doesn't quite seemed to have worked out the plotting or how to keep a grip on her characters yet.
She always takes the mickey. Sometimes it's quite subtle. In NA it's out there, loud and proud.
This is why, BTW, her books are always more fun than the TV adaptations. TV really doesn't convey subtle humour very well. That's even if the TV writer isn't po-faced, as many are, (The latest Poldark version had all the humour stripped right out, presumably because it wasn't romantic enough.)
The “telltale compression of the pages” reminds me of David Lodge’s Changing Places too…
Agreed, and fun to see that, as @Lamb Chopped said. This is a young writer's book in which she is playing with exaggerated notions of Gothic, trying her hand at satire, and enjoying her concocted romances. There isn't the control and plausibility of her later works, but the Bath scenes are lively and filled with charming and ridiculous characters. The title 'Northanger Abbey' is something of a misnomer (Austen originally called her novel Susan after her first version of Catherine Morland), and the Abbey is a nod towards Gothic and not really the locus of the narrative.
That said, I came across one of the most famous passages in Austen and had forgotten it was in this novel until I read it again. The critic DW Harding based his essay on 'regulated hatred in Jane Austen' on what Henry Tilney says to Catherine, rebuking her for suspecting General Tilney of murdering his wife:
"Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open?"
That phrase is chilling and thoroughly contemporary in its mention of the constant and hostile surveillance from behind lace curtains, and the malevolent gossip, it cuts through the light and amicable image we often have of Austen's society.
This is the only Austen I've managed to finish so I can't compare it with any others.
2. Catherine Morland is clearly a suggestible reader, but her gullibility extends beyond books into the real world. Is the tendency to think the best of people a trait you admire? Is it a trait you have?
It is not a trait I possess and I have to work hard at what a real life friend describes as "assuming benevolence" in other people. Whether I admire it is hard to answer but I think it's a kinder way to move through the world.
3.The one character about whom Catherine is inclined to think the worst is General Tilney. Why is this? She is humiliated when Henry realizes how her imagination has run away with her, but how mistaken is she really regarding his general character? Are her powers of imagination more reliable than her powers of observation?
I don't know why Catherine thinks the worst of General Tilney and would be interested to hear what others think.
4. Henry Tilney tells Catherine that his father was attached to his mother and greatly afflicted by her death. Do you believe him?
It hadn't occurred to me not to believe him...
5. Henry, himself, is a controversial hero. Sylvia Warner Townsend has suggested she thinks he's one of Austen's most delightful. Some find him witty and appealingly interested in feminine matters. Others find him condescending and even misogynistic. How well do you imagine it will be possible for Henry to love? Affectionately? Passionately? Steadfastly?
Why does he choose Catherine and how much in love with her is he?
He's a man of his time and I think would love Catherine affectionately and steadfastly. I liked that he took time to converse with her and didn't find him condescending. I may well be missing something.
6. Hidden within Austen's satire on gothic novels is Eleanor Tilney's story. Eleanor has a dead mother, an overbearing father, and ends up married to a viscount. Imagine the book if Austen had chosen Eleanor as the heroine. Would it have been a gothic novel?
I expect it would have been a pastiche of a gothic novel, as this is; isn't that what Austen set out to write?
8. Northanger Abbey is a book about reading. Much of the plot has to do with the folly of confusing one's own life with the stuff of fictional adventure. But the book also contains a famous Austen defense of novels and novelists, particularly those read and written by women.
a. We are told immediately that Catherine does not object to books so long as "nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them" and they are "all story and no reflection."
Escapist fiction continues, in our day, to have a bad reputation. Is that reputation deserved?
I don't know that I've come across the view that escapist fiction is bad. Most people I know take it for what it is. If it's poorly written I'd consider it "bad" and for me it's only escapist if it does envelop me in another space and time. If I'm constantly annoyed about the writing or the grammar or the unbelievable characters it's not doing its job! I didn't believe what Austen said about Catherine and reading, I thought she was just doing her customary poking fun. More on that below.
b. Austen flatters the reader of Northanger Abbey by allowing him/her to see and understand things the heroine does not. It's fun for readers to find that they are smarter than the people in books.
Have you read books in which you felt you were smarter than the author? Is that also fun?
Is it possible to like a book if it makes you feel you're not quite smart enough to read it?
I can't think of any examples at the moment; I sometimes find the device of the omniscient reader annoying.
I read this book while away for a week with our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter and they live in Bath. It was fun reading bits out to them, such as the bit near the beginning:
"...for a fine Sunday in Bath empties every house of its inhabitants, and all the world appears on such an occasion, to walk about, and tell their acquaintance what a charming day it is."
"Yep, that still happens, Mum."
I appreciated some of Austen's humour, such as the bit quoted above by @Net Spinster about Catherine's father, "...a very respectable man, though his name was Richard..." but I find it irritating that she seems to poke fun at everything and everyone. For some people I guess that's part of her charm but on me it has the effect of my not really believing in any of the characters or the situations they find themselves in.
Quite a lot of Northanger Abbey reads to me like satirical farce, which Austen has rewritten to try to make the characters more rounded and in the case of Catherine more sympathetic. I'm not quite sure that she succeeds in some of the episodes - Catherine in the Bath episodes is certainly naive but she doesn't that I remember show any great propensity to confuse real life with gothic fiction until she travels to the Tilney's Abbey.
1. Although Northanger Abby was the first book Austen sold, it was one of the last published. Some readers feel that it's obviously an early work without the narrative control Austen was soon to develop. Do you agree? Why or why not?
It is more obviously a fun read than some of her more mature work. It is easy to forget that the same satire that fuels this story is at work in “Emma” or “Pride and Prejudice”, while Catherine’s attachment to Gothic novels is mirrored in “Sense and Sensibility” by Marianne Dashwood’s devotion to romantic poetry. Austen is, I think, poking fun at the world in which she lived in all her books, even the more serious (dull?) Mansfield Park, and, my own favourite, Persuasion.
3. Catherine Morland is clearly a suggestible reader, but her gullibility extends beyond books into the real world. Is the tendency to think the best of people a trait you admire? Is it a trait you have?
I do have that tendency, though at times it is strained! I have never thought about whether I admire it in others. Probably I do, or I wouldn’t confess to it!
3.The one character about whom Catherine is inclined to think the worst is General Tilney. Why is this? She is humiliated when Henry realizes how her imagination has run away with her, but how mistaken is she really regarding his general character? Are her powers of imagination more reliable than her powers of observation?
I need to think more about this one. I wonder if the General is a character who does not travel well into the 21st century? He can seem capricious and domineering, but it could be that this was what Austen herself had experienced from ex-military men, and was not a comment but simply a portrayal.
4. Henry Tilney tells Catherine that his father was attached to his mother and greatly afflicted by her death. Do you believe him?
I see no reason not to believe Henry. He is, throughout the story, portrayed as a reliable guide to life.
5. Henry, himself, is a controversial hero. Sylvia Warner Townsend has suggested she thinks he's one of Austen's most delightful. Some find him witty and appealingly interested in feminine matters. Others find him condescending and even misogynistic. How well do you imagine it will be possible for Henry to love? Affectionately? Passionately? Steadfastly?
Why does he choose Catherine and how much in love with her is he?
I think he will love tenderly and truly and that he will be delighted when he realises how well Catherine is learning to understand life as he does.
6. Hidden within Austen's satire on gothic novels is Eleanor Tilney's story. Eleanor has a dead mother, an overbearing father, and ends up married to a viscount. Imagine the book if Austen had chosen Eleanor as the heroine. Would it have been a gothic novel?
Either that, or a modern psychological study.
8. Northanger Abbey is a book about reading. Much of the plot has to do with the folly of confusing one's own life with the stuff of fictional adventure. But the book also contains a famous Austen defense of novels and novelists, particularly those read and written by women.
a. We are told immediately that Catherine does not object to books so long as "nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them" and they are "all story and no reflection."
Escapist fiction continues, in our day, to have a bad reputation. Is that reputation deserved?
No genre of literature can escape the curse of being bad for the reader, or unbalancing, if the reader reads nothing else, or reads it obsessively. Escapist fiction has its place, and indeed, one person’s escapism is another person’s tribulation.
b. Austen flatters the reader of Northanger Abbey by allowing him/her to see and understand things the heroine does not. It's fun for readers to find that they are smarter than the people in books.
Have you read books in which you felt you were smarter than the author? Is that also fun?
No. It is frustrating.
Is it possible to like a book if it makes you feel you're not quite smart enough to read it?
Oh yes, it can be a great experience and stretch your mind.
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My first one was that the whole story seemed to flag when we got to Northanger Abbey. For instance I wouldn't say that Catherine is presented as gullible as such at first, more a little naïve in the ways of the world. Her conversation with Henry when she first meets him seems to show an intelligent young woman enjoying a conversation with a young man who is interested in what she has to say, rather than a young man such as Thorpe who just wants her to listen to his boasts. However in Northanger she seems to lose her wits entirely and become obsessed with the gothic tale she thinks must lie behind the death of the General's wife. It seemed like a joke that she'd extended too far, unlike the earlier ones.
Secondly the whole plot didn't seem tight enough. I think it would have been better if it had either all been set in Bath, which in my view were the most successful bits of the story or in Northanger Abbey itself. I could see Thorpe as a house guest who over stayed his welcome for instance.
I loved the smashing of traditional tropes. Catherine is a tom boy and a healthy young woman, she doesn't go into a decline when she sees Henry with another man, but assumes it must be the expected sister. The whole Eleanor marrying a viscount is great too.
I also think the characters escaped Austen somewhat. Henry seems to get much less interesting as the story progressed and I also started to be much less interested in Catherine. Part of the problem I think was that Isabella and John Thorpe were dreadful people, but they came across as very real, and then more or less faded away from the story as if Austen wasn't quite sure what to do with them.
And yet I wanted to know if Isabelle as a resilient schemer would bounce back and find another suitor or if she would remain unmarried and have to live at home as a spinster with a bad reputation. She intrigued me more than Catherine in some ways.
So what is the status of the Thorpes and the other families? I suspect the Thorpes are living beyond their means especially with John Thorpe's spending.
plus at least 3 daughters.
Merchant Taylors' was at that time a Public School in London though not as well known as Eton, Harrow, or Rugby. I think 'at sea' would mean William was in the Navy (presumably as a midshipman since the list seems to be going down by age). Isabelle was probably well aware that she needed to make a "good" marriage income wise to stay in her social class though probably aimed too high giving up James Morland.
The Morland family even with 10 children could still endow a daughter with 3000 pounds (at 4% this would mean about 120 pounds a year and about 3 times as much as Elizabeth Bennett would get upon the death of her parents). James Morland would receive a living (one of the two his father held) worth 400 pounds per year when he turned 23 and could be ordained. As the eldest son he would also inherit an estate worth the same when his father died. (We could digress on having a plurality of livings and how Anglican clergymen were chosen in those days.)
The Tilneys had property and a lot more than the Morlands though the General was still on the look out for ever more (his wife brought 20,000 pounds as her dowry) and John Thorpe has misled him to think Catherine's expectations are in the same range. A pinery was for growing pineapples. Imagine the wealth to grow a 100 pineapples in Gloucestershire in the 1790s. https://jasna.org/publications-2/persuasions-online/volume-40-no-1/natali/
John Thorpe is the only villain/rival completely without charm. In the later novels they are all plausibly pleasant, for a time.
There was a lot to like, I think on the whole she managed to update it well. The Edinburgh Festival is an ideal place for Catherine and Henry to keep bumping into each other, and for people to meet up with old friends. I also liked the use of social media instead of letters, and the problems encountered when it turns out you can't get a signal at Northanger Abbey and the General is suspicious of the WiFi so doesn't turn the router on much. I also thought the change of reason for the General throwing Catherine out
The downsides, Austen is much better at showing rather than telling than McDermid. John Thorpe was not exactly subtle in the original, he is less so here, and we are told how awful he is rather than working it out for ourselves. Also I really didn't buy Catherine's backstory of being home schooled. I can see why McDermid did it, Catherine needs to be a bit unwordly, but it didn't seem to fit in that well with the sort of people her parent's seemed to be.
Finally I liked the way the teenage obsession for vampire novels at the time this version was written was woven into the plot. I could almost believe the Tilneys were an old vampire family.