Klassics Korner, 6 - Taunton, MA - The Taunton Daily Gazette

Klassics Korner, 6

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By Kristina Fontes

Title: Northanger Abbey

Author: Jane Austen

Publisher: Signet Classics, New York

We all know that if something is fiction, that means it's not real. Most of the time.

Sometimes though, our imaginations run wild and fiction can blur with reality. For example, sometimes the monsters on "Doctor Who" are so scary some of us are jumpy for a few days whenever we see a statue (dare you to look up the Weeping Angels and not get freaked out!). Usually, these little eccentricities don't carry serious consequences.

For Catherine Morland, the heroine of this novel, they very nearly do.

Catherine is very much taken with the "horrid" Gothic novels of her time, especially those of Ann Radcliffe. Jane Austen undoubtedly read these books, and enjoyed them. Northanger Abbey is a satire of these works, but very much a loving one. There are several passages where Austen passionately defends novel reading and declares novels to be just as important as the weightiest of treatises.

This is also a cautionary tale. Novels are fun, but most of them do not and should not translate directly into real life. One needs to sprinkle a few grains of salt in the process (some of us prefer to use the salt lightly though, and we get along alright). Catherine gets so carried away with her books and the dastardly villains therein that she tells the hero, Henry Tilney, that she believes his mother was murdered by his father, and not the victim of a sudden and terrible illness.

Catherine is very lucky that she doesn't lose Henry's respect and affection. That would have put a damper on this book, for sure.

It is Catherine's innocence and her good heart that are her saving graces. She is a good, decent person. However, she's not been out in the world before this novel starts and she gets to go to Bath. She doesn't know that there are people out there who are not kind,  who will hurt and take advantage of others and are nothing but selfish. Catherine just assumes that she is ordinary, as are many other people, and therefore most other people must be as good and true.

Her naive views lead her into an ill-advised friendship with Isabella Thorpe, who is basically a snake in Regency dress. Catherine is soon courted by Isabella's odious brother John, who's chief concerns are curricles and fast horses.

Catherine assumes for most of the novel that these people mistreat her because they simply don't know that they're doing it.

No, Catherine.

You're a sweetheart, but no.

The Thorpes are just bad people. And the only thing to do is get away from them as soon as possible.

And she does, thanks to a timely and fulfilling friendship with the Tilneys. Austen deals with the nasty people accordingly, and leaves us wishing that karma were as swift as Miss Austen's pen.

This novel wasn't published until after Austen's death, but it was the first novel that she sent out to be published. Though it's so early in her career, there are echoes of the greatness she will eventually attain in her last complete novel, Persuasion. The satire is more heavy-handed in this novel than in her others, but the humor is spot-on sharp, as it is in her other books. And there's that colorful cast of characters that run the gamut from delightful to contemptible.

What's truly special about this work is Austen's use of "I." She speaks directly to us, and that doesn't happen in her other books. It's as close as we'll ever get to a conversation with her, and it's delightful. She'd be great to have a cuppa with, that's for sure.

Next time: Persuasion, and copious amounts of gushing over what it will be obvious to see if my favorite book of all time.

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