erika's.

Just finished reading Northanger Abbey, and I liked it a lot.

For being such an essential novel in the Romantic / Gothic period, and giving such insight into gothic parody, I’m quite surprised I hadn’t read it yet… especially in the Austen class I took last year. But anyway, it was a good read and although seemingly typical to Austen’s style and themes, it has a unique touch to it as it has that dark, overblown gothic imagination element that I haven’t come across in any of her other works. The way Austen was able to mock the default “heroine” love tale, but then write one, and then go on to write several others (Northanger was her first novel), was intriguing and I thought it really amusing. Also, if you study/read other female novelists from the period like Burney or Wollstonecraft or even Bronte, I think that this novel is essential to creating an advanced understanding of how they are all connected and Austen goes out of her way in this novel to allude to and sometimes parody other authors of the period.

Watched the 2007 film as well, and enjoyed that. Giggled at some of the changes the screenwriter chose to make, but overall not a far off or unenjoyable little adaptation.

“Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love” and

“Where the heart is really attached, I know very well how little one can be pleased with the attention of anybody else”