A Jane Austen Re-read: Northanger Abbey
Hello!
Another week in quarantine, another Jane Austen marathon down. This week, I have been hoping for spring to come, and trying to stay upbeat despite some dreary weather.
I’m working on what comes next on this blog, because I have one of these books left, so let me know if there is anything you want to see!
Next week, we are wrapping up this series with Persuasion, which is both short and one of my favorites, so I am looking forward to it!
There are spoilers below. If you haven’t already read this book or watched one of the movies, this post likely isn’t going to make much sense anyway.
Rereading The Book
I only read Northanger Abbey a few years ago, and if you are looking for a novel that tells a wonderful story, this isn’t really it. However, as a send up of the gothic novels of the day (especially Ann Radcliff) it is excellent. Austen’s asides, in which she pokes fun at the contrast between her story and what a “heroine’s story” should be are quite amusing.
Unfortunately, due to the fact that a good quarter of this already slim novel is devoted to making fun of itself, there isn’t much else to say. 17 year old, Catherine Morland goes to Bath, makes an unsuitable friend, falls in love with a guy way out of her league and then through a series of fortunate events, ends up being invited into his home, discovering a nonexistent murderer, getting packed off home unceremoniously and marrying him in the end anyway.
In addition, most of the driving motivations of the entire novel are explored in the last 5-10 pages, so the book makes no sense until you re-read it for the second time.
There is one aspect of this book that is truly great, and that is Isabella Thorpe, the unsuitable friend. Isabella is a wonderfully awful and manipulative character, who may be one of Austen’s strongest characters overall. Every scene with her was fun and full of humor and tension, and after the book leaves Isabella and Bath, even the “spooky” Northanger Abbey of the title can’t save the book from the rather earnest and drippy characters.
Overall, this is not Austen’s best work, but I will say that it inspired some of the more unusual adaptations (think vampire fantasies and Harry Potter fans).
Written Adaptations
There are not a huge amount of Northanger Abbey adaptations out there, but there are a few – quite a lot of these take Catherine Moreland’s obsession with Gothic novels and run with it, so I imagine these are entertaining at least.
- Henry Tilney’s Diary: A Novel by Amanda Grange – Part of Grange’s Jane Austen hero’s collection.
- Northanger Ailbi by Jenni James – Modern day with a Twilight obsession
- Northanger Abbey (Marvel Adaptations) by Nancy Butler – A graphic novel
- Newbury Acres: An Amish Retelling of Northanger Abbey by Sarah Price – An Amish retelling, complete with the parody aspect
- Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid – Part of the Austen project, modern day retelling with a vampire obsession
- Beloved: A Fairy Tale Retelling of Northanger Abbey by Nina Clare – A medieval retelling
- Northanger Abbey and Angels and Dragons by Vera Nazarian – One of many mashup adaptations, this is Northanger Abbey with angels and dragons
- Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey by Steven Butler – Out this October, a middle grade retelling
Film Adaptations Worth Watching
One of the things adaptations of this book struggle with is the fact that this book has a hefty dose of author commentary on the plot and almost no information that Catherine Moreland does not know. However, a movie with regular asides would be weird, and a movie told entirely from the point of view of an unobservant 17 year old girl would be a bad movie. For me, that means that none of these adaptations were actually all that great, but granted, I don’t love the book either, so take it will a grain of salt.
Also, as a big fan of Isabella Thorpe, I didn’t think any of these shows got her completely “right”.
In order of enjoyment, see below:
1.) Northanger Abbey 2007
While this still had plenty of over the top imagination scenes, I felt that Felicity Jones did an admirable job of playing Catherine with the right mix of naiveté, sweetness and imagination. Henry was just about perfect, the relationship felt natural, and Henry’s interest in Catherine came across like it should have.
I also thought this movie did the best job of peppering the movie with the necessary information at the right rate to make the story enjoyable as a movie.
Every movie makes choices of what to include, and this movie spends less time with Isabella Thorpe and the Allen’s than I would like, but overall, it was still a very well done adaptation, and the best Northanger Abbey adaptation by a long shot.
2.) The Cate Morland Chronicles
The Cate Morland in this is on point – they transform her naiveté from the book into her being a HUGE fangirl of all things geeky who gets to meet her celebrity crush, child actor Henry Tilney. This helps make the disparity in their relationship make sense in a modern world, and is also just a super awkward fun world to play in.
Overall, I think this modern adaptation is pretty good. I think they did a great job of keeping the tension here, and I liked the the format itself becomes part of the narrative. Cate’s obsessions with the celebrity of the Tilney family and with vlogging everything around her, including their personal struggles are great modern analogues to the obsession with Gothic sensibilities in the books and Catherine’s invasion of the Tilney’s privacy in the original book.
The other thing I appreciated was that someone did an amazing job of collecting the “transmedia” parts of this story (the twitter/instagram/tumblr posts of the characters), and they add a lot to the story, especially in developing the characters of James Morland and Mrs Allen (whose fashion-oriented comments mostly come through in her posts)
3.) Northanger Abbey 1986
This was a weird movie. I thought the imagined scenes of her being kidnapped were super funny, but overall, the book didn’t really reach past the material all that well, and kept to the same structure, so most of the movie was explained in the last 5 minutes or less, which just isn’t all that fun.
Overall, I also felt the style was VERY 80s (the HAIR), and the relationship between the two lead characters felt forced with very little chemistry. In the end, the actor who played Henry wasn’t able to portray the balance between amusement and love that makes the relationship “work”.
I did like the location they chose for Northanger Abbey however, and I thought Isabella Thorpe was amazing!
4.) Northbound
I thought this was super cute. In this version Catherine is a college freshman who moves to New York City. She is naive, just like the book version but with a bit more sense and she doesn’t get as carried away by things. The main struggle of the book centers on her wanting to do her own thing in a class instead of following what is being asked of her, which gives her a lot more agency than the books. Henry Tilney is CUTE, and I think the chemistry between the two lead characters is well done.
That being said, the Gothic aspect of it was missing, and the tension about Henry and Eleanor’s father was missing. Overall, it potentially was a more interesting story, but wasn’t as close an adaptation of the book, so it lost me a bit.
Thank you all for reading, and I will be back next week for the last installment of this series, Persuasion.
