Book Review: Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey
The Jane Austen Cycle: Northanger Abbey
"...I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny or reward filial disobedience."
I don't believe one can ever be bored with Auntie Jane's novels. In terms of its philosophoical scope, Northanger Abbey is a far lighter novel than Persuasion, or even Emma. Northanger Abbey, however, is a much more explicitly satirical work. Austen, as usual, satirizes the snobbishness of the high society, with, again, her memoriable characters. Isabella Thorpe is an absolute hypocrite, claiming that constancy is a virtue while being inconstant herself; John Thorpe is a self-centered man who only likes to talk about horses (his own horses, in particular); General Tilney is a phony who cares for nothing but money. In this novel, however, Austen also makes fun of the gothic novel by imitating her heroine Catherine's adventure in a gothic scene, only to let her discover the ridiculousness of her own fancy of being a heroine in a gothic novel.
Two things I want to note in this review. Firstly, there is this strange theme of the value of the novel form. Austen's opinion, expressed through the hero Henry Tilney, is that the novel form is every bit as worthy as the poetic form; only idiots like John Thorpe would think novel as useless and trash. This point is interesting because it shows historically the conflict between the prose and the poetic form. Austen, being a brilliant artist herself, seems to be highly aware of the novel form's limitations as well as its strengths.
The second thing is that very strangely, in this novel Austen's narrator voice is especially pronounced. When we read her other works, like Persuasion and Emma, the narrative voice is almost invisible - we are not conscious of a narrator telling the story. But in Northanger Abbey, the narrator is ever present; we are constantly reminded that Austen is telling us a story, that the story is not simply unfolding itself. The novel, in short, is self-reflexive. I think this self-reflexivity functions to remind the reader that this is a novel, this is fiction, that this is not real. While by itself it does not seem to be profound, but it really completes Austen's satire of the readers of gothic novel in the 18th and 19th century, like Catherine, who enters into Northanger Abbey and thinks that she is actually going to become a gothic heroine.
"...I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny or reward filial disobedience."
I don't believe one can ever be bored with Auntie Jane's novels. In terms of its philosophoical scope, Northanger Abbey is a far lighter novel than Persuasion, or even Emma. Northanger Abbey, however, is a much more explicitly satirical work. Austen, as usual, satirizes the snobbishness of the high society, with, again, her memoriable characters. Isabella Thorpe is an absolute hypocrite, claiming that constancy is a virtue while being inconstant herself; John Thorpe is a self-centered man who only likes to talk about horses (his own horses, in particular); General Tilney is a phony who cares for nothing but money. In this novel, however, Austen also makes fun of the gothic novel by imitating her heroine Catherine's adventure in a gothic scene, only to let her discover the ridiculousness of her own fancy of being a heroine in a gothic novel.
Two things I want to note in this review. Firstly, there is this strange theme of the value of the novel form. Austen's opinion, expressed through the hero Henry Tilney, is that the novel form is every bit as worthy as the poetic form; only idiots like John Thorpe would think novel as useless and trash. This point is interesting because it shows historically the conflict between the prose and the poetic form. Austen, being a brilliant artist herself, seems to be highly aware of the novel form's limitations as well as its strengths.
The second thing is that very strangely, in this novel Austen's narrator voice is especially pronounced. When we read her other works, like Persuasion and Emma, the narrative voice is almost invisible - we are not conscious of a narrator telling the story. But in Northanger Abbey, the narrator is ever present; we are constantly reminded that Austen is telling us a story, that the story is not simply unfolding itself. The novel, in short, is self-reflexive. I think this self-reflexivity functions to remind the reader that this is a novel, this is fiction, that this is not real. While by itself it does not seem to be profound, but it really completes Austen's satire of the readers of gothic novel in the 18th and 19th century, like Catherine, who enters into Northanger Abbey and thinks that she is actually going to become a gothic heroine.
posted by Tristan at 12:41 p.m.
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