Northanger Abbey

Many years ago, I was sure that I would never like Jane Austen. I started Sense and Sensibility at a recommendation of a friend, and dropped it after the first two money-centered chapters. I was not in the mood for pecuniary tales. But fate was kind to me, and after picking up Northanger Abbey at a booksale, I read the back and thought the plot sounded thrilling, and not at all related to inheritances. It was short, too, so I would not have to endure too much. I was enthralled. Jane Austen could be interesting! At the age of 11, all I understood of the story was that the Mysteries of Udolpho sounded like a fun book, and that Catherine's mistaken ideas about the Abbey were suspensful and funny

Two years later I read it again, and found to my delight that there was more to be gotten out of it. Instead of a support of Gothic literature, I found a delectable spoof of that genre; and I caught all the tongue-in-cheek jabs and witticisms with much pleasure.

This week, though, as I read it for a third time, the book had changed again. There wasn't much Gothic stuff at all, in fact, and what I found was a coming-of-age story in which I heartily identified with Catherine Morland. I have known what it is to be over-imaginative, to hear noises in the dark and suspect the very worst. I hadn't seen such a character portrayed in a book before, and I savored her simplicity, her artlessness, and her pure devotion to Isabella, her brother James, and Henry Tilney (who is one of the strangest and most likable of Austen's heroes).

Of course, now I have read and loved all of Austen's other works, so it was interesting to go back to the one that was first written. Like Miss Morland, Northanger Abbey neglects politics ("from politics it was an easy step to silence"), complex plots, and twisting relationships. Catherine's love for Henry only grows stronger from the first meeting to the wedding, and his, once established, is equally unmoving. The only one unable to see Isabella's capricious ways is trusting Catherine herself, and even General Tilney's nature is not unhinted at. It's a simple story, but Austen's wit makes it my favorite of her books after P&P.