In followup - Northanger Abbey

I actually did finish Northanger Abbey today.

Thoughts:

-Much better than Pride and Prejudice. Maybe not in all ways. Its construction is obviously rougher. But the story is more fun.

-Mr. Tilney is vastly more amusing than Mr. Darcy. Especially how he's always making fun of her and his sister as a sign of affection. And that story he told her to freak her out. That was excellent.

-I think that the reasons I appreciate it are the same ones that make it one of the least popular of Jane Austen's books. Because it's kind of goofy and fun, but still about real things and real drama. As opposed to many of the others, which are so stereotypically romantic. They're straight up chick-flick drama from beginning to end. (Although, I suppose she did sort of help to create the stereotype...) Some people like that, but I can only handle so much.

-I did roll my eyes when she spent a chapter in lecturing us about how novelists work just as hard as any other kind of writer, and ought to be given much more respect. Sure, it might be true, but no one likes to be preached to in the middle of a story.

-I haven't ever seen the movies of it. (Hence my not knowing a single thing about the plot before hand.) I'm now wondering if they are any good at all, or if they tried to make them just as stereotypical (IE serious and romantic) as the others.

-The heroine is a tomboy with an overactive imagination, who liked to play cricket as a child instead of learning to play the piano. Who reads gothic horror novels. Who takes 3/4 of the story to start to pick up on common social nuances. I can't even describe to you how much I relate to this.

-Back to the overactive imagination... I have done that so many times. Not searched for ancient letters in a strange wardrobe, specifically. But sat there in the dark unable to sleep because my brain keeps making up more and more freaky stuff. But in her case, it was funny. Not rolling eyes funny, but amusing and relatable funny.

-Teenagers haven't changed a bit in 200 years.

-On principle, I refuse to marry a guy who is solemn and proper. Which rules out Mr. Darcy, Colonel Brandon, and, well, basically all of the other Jane Austen main guy crushes. Leaving Tilney as the sole main guy with any sense of humor at all.

- Hugh Dancy was right. In the movie of The Jane Austen Book Club, his character (which incidentally is also a dorky, but sweet and funny guy) says that the Mysteries of Udolpho sounded so cool and interesting that he read it too. I agree. It sounds really cool, (it was probably the conjecturing about a skeleton behind a mysterious black veil that did it for me) and I do plan to read it at some point. Sadly, the Provo Library doesn't carry it.

Well, those are my initial thoughts. That's all for now, folks. Especially considering that I have to get up in 5 hours. (Blech.)