Northanger Abbey

By Jane Austen

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

This is the second Jane Austen book on this blog, so I'll just come clean. I’m taking a class on her, so by May I will have read all of her books. I read this book during the brutal Chicago winter. Sub-zero temperatures and two feet of snow means I stay firmly inside.

Catherine scaring herself with Udolpho

Northanger Abbey is the first novel Austen wrote, though it was published much later. Our heroine is Catherine Moreland; 17, naïve, and utterly obsessed with gothic novels. It is all she wants to talk about, passing over her friends interests in boys, painting, or history. Very little else engages her, and it is only gothic scenery and discovering dark secrets that captures her wonder.

The book mostly takes place in Bath. Where, in between hours of reading, Catherine has her first foray into Society. There she meets an array of new people; some she likes, some she doesn’t, and none as purely virtuous or cunningly sinister as those in her novels. Through the book, Catherine must learn about actual people, infinitely more complex than the ones in her novels, and not nearly as open about their intentions.

From an author known for her recognizable characters, this book is full of people we’ve met: toxic friends, self-centered old women, and, Austen’s crowning achievement: the obnoxious frat boy, John Thorpe. It is extremely difficult to create a less likable character than Mr. Collins, but Austen has done so in creating this “raging hemorrhoid of a human being” (my professor’s exact words). To capture his character succinctly, he’s the kind of guy who has a “Saturdays are for the boys” flag up in his room. All he wants to do is drink, talk about how much he drinks, and brag about his horse and carriage. Literally the 19th century equivalent of the guy who can only talk about beer and cars. He’s the worst. And he causes most of the problems in the book.

Despite all his obnoxiousness, Thorpe should not dissuade anyone from reading Northanger Abbey. As I said, the familiarity of the characters makes this book delightful, especially Catherine Moreland. She is utterly known to me. I understand what it is to be a teenager obsessed with a certain piece of media, then talking about it beyond anyone’s patients. I also know what it is to struggle with actual people: learning how toxic (some of) my close friends are, and that not everyone deserves my good will was a difficult growing pain.

I would recommend this book to people who have had a cringey adolescence, or are still struggling through one.

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My Copy: Jane Austen. Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sanditon (Oxford World’s Classics). Reissue, Oxford University Press, 2021. Get it Here!

Print: Catherine Scaring Herself with Udolpho. Northanger Abbey. Richard Bentley, 1833. Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NACatherinereading.jpg