Maybe Jane Austen doesn’t need to die in a dark, dank hole.

So here is my first literary blogpost of the year and I think this is a good book/reading to start with.

this is not my first time around the Austen rodeo. In the past I have read Sense and Sensibility, or as I like to call it – WTF nothing happens as well as Emma, also known as SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND GET LOST. As you see from my intense bolding of the seocnd titles, you can probably deduce that I find Jane Austen and her writing a waste of my ever so precious time, or atleast i did! (cue duh duh duh)

When i saw that Northanger Abbey was on the reading list, it was bitter sweet. YAY we aren’t reading more philosophy (atleast for a week or two) and NO, I have to read about women sitting. Luckily enough in Northanger Abbey the women do not only sit, they also walk, bathe and ride in carriages.

In all seriousness, I did enjoy reading Northanger Abbey. It was a quick and easy read with some good characters and a nice flow..

Now I think Imma go through the cast list and have soem fun with it.

CATHERINE- I want her to get a life, stop reading novels and get it in. ( can i say that on a UBC blog?)

HENRY- Stop being a wuss and learn to flirt. I imagined him as this like awkward but super good looking man..i.e Paul Rudd.

P.S anyone else get a bit freaked out when at the end they were like ” …begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen: (p186) like i have read enough Phillipa Gregory to know that like that happened, but still….That shit is ratchet.

Mrs. Allen- Stop buying dresses and work on your face/talking (she reminds me of Mrs Bennet)

Isabella- Now this girl knows what is up. I know she and General Tilney are supposed to be the villains, but honestly, she was fucking boss. She wormed her way into a strangers confidence and used her to get at her brother, as well as other men and like was not afraid to get violent (i.e the scene when she grabs Catherine’s arm) I laughed so much at her glibness and how stupid Catherine was in respect to her. There should be a spinoff for Isabella Thorpe.

Eleanor- GET A PERSONALITY!

Those are the characters that i really remember. i know there are others but no one really cares so whatever.

My major issue with Austen is that all of her stories/characters are interchangeable. Like all of her books are about a middle class girl falling in love and her misadventures. Now I know that that is what sold back then but holy cow, be a bit more original.  Atleast with this book, it has the element of a parody of gothic novels (although i felt that there wasn’t enough of it).

I did enjoy how the narrator would address directly the reader — that is always fun.

 

 

 

1 thought on “Maybe Jane Austen doesn’t need to die in a dark, dank hole.

  1. Yeah, I have to agree that Isabella and John were probably the most *interesting* characters, really. Catherine and Henry are just blah. I don’t get Catherine as a character–why make your protagonist such a simple-minded (but good-hearted at least) woman who just fawns over a man who is rather narcissistic? When you could make, as Austen has made before, more interesting female protagonists?

    And I learned something today: I have a long way to go to keep up with slang these days. I never before thought of myself as old, but silly me…I’m not sure what “get it in” and “ratchet” are. Yep, I’m old.

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