During an eventful
season at Bath, young, naïve Catherine Morland experiences the joys of
fashionable society for the first time. She is delighted with her new
acquaintances : flirtatious Isabella, who shares Catherine's love of
Gothic romance and horror, and sophisticated Henry and Eleanor Tilney,
who invite her to their father's mysterious house, Northanger Abbey.
There, her imagination influenced by novels of sensation and intrigue,
Catherine imagines terrible crimes committed by General Tilney...
It's been a while since I first read this. I think it's a perfect introduction to Jane Austen if you've never read one of her novels, or just classics in general. The story is rather short (236 pages in this edition), easy to read and just lots of fun. In fact, it's a parody of Gothic novels and the heroin features an ordinary girl, Catherine, complete book lover (can't we all relate ?) who has an overactive imagination, she longs for a good thrill. I love the gap between what she imagines and what really happens.
She's new to Bath, comes from the country, has a big heart but not much education, is pretty if not a beauty and is smart enough even if there are more intelligent people than her. I really like her, she's fresh and utterly loveable.
For the first time in an Austen novel - as much as I remember, there is a hero I really fully like : Mr Tilney. He loves his family, takes care of his sister, is gentle, witty and funny. He's not absolutely perfect, which makes him even more endearing. In fact, I think he's too witty for Catherine, who sometimes has trouble understanding him, and I wonder what the two of them would be like in the long run ("Miss Morland, no one can think more highly of the understanding of women than I do. In my opinion, nature has given them so much that they never find it necessary to use more than half." Ouch !)
I also love Isabella and John Thorpe's portrayals, one so manipulative and one so stupid !
Northanger is a fun, engaging, witty, lighthearted, lively story that I immensely enjoyed reading !
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