Northanger Abbey...
Did anyone watch Northanger Abbey on Masterpiece Theater? The picture to the left is from this link to Masterpiece Theater's site. Check out the site, and while you're there, vote for your favorite Jane Austen hero.
This was one Jane Austen novel that I had neither read nor seen a movie of. We were out on Sunday, and I forgot to record it. I got home in time to see the last third of it, and I really enjoyed it.
Oh, since you need to know what I look like in order to play along with my fantasy, here's a hint: I used to be told that I was a dead ringer for Debby Boone. Truth be told, I don't get that anymore. I don't know if that's because time has erased our similarities, or if it's because no one under the age of thirty-five has ever heard of Debby Boone -- much less her father, Pat.
Now, on to the real gist of this post: If you saw Northanger Abbey, what did you think of it?
Did you know that in the book -- which I still have yet to read -- Jane Austen mentions at least five Gothic romance novels by name? I read on a Jane Austen board that many modern readers have assumed these were all made up, though they are, in fact, real books that were popular in her time period. Jane was lampooning the beginnings in her day of the romantic movement, with its focus on the sensational and the lurid.
Why do you think Jane Austen has been enjoying such a revival starting about fifteen years or so ago? I've heard different opinions about that. If you're a Jane Austen fan, I'd love to hear why you enjoy her works.
Enjoy!
Elizabeth
6 comments:
I really enjoyed Northanger Abbey. I liked it better than Presuasuion. Although I haven't read either of the novels. I have Northanger Abbey on hold at my Library so that when it comes back in, I can check it out. I thought the girl who played the main character was beautiful! How I adored her hair-dos and would LOVE to learn to do my hair that way.
I love Jane Austen and read her over and over. I just finished reading all of her letters as well as a biography. It was fun learning more about HER, and it has made her works even more fun to read for me. I think she is a terribly witty and smart writer. She has a wonderful way of blending the "cozy" with the "tart," if you know what I mean. She makes me laugh, and her characters draw me in every time.
My girls and my husband watched Northanger Abbey, but I only caught the last half hour. It was very good, what I saw of it, and my girls LOVED it. I've been trying to get my 13 year old to read it, so maybe now she will.
Yes! I wouldn't miss it! I read all of Austen's novels aloud to my daughter probably three different times as she grew up - as well as all of the Brontes, Gaskell, Trollope and more very obscure ones. I think that of all the books Northanger Abbey is weakest, but they did a nice job with it. When I first read it I had read Mysteries of Udolpho - if you haven't it just doesn't make sense. Udolpho is wonderful! :)
I'd be honored to "Merryrose" any photo you like! ;)
My photoshop skills are known and ridiculed all over the web!
Blessings & Love to you!
I think one of the reasons there are so many films and TV adaptions of her books is partly a nostalgia for the way things were then. I think some people see her only as a romantic writer and don't realise that her writing was witty and ironic.
I have enjoyed watching the Jane Austen remakes as well as the story of Jane Eyre a few weeks ago.
What I found pleasurable is that my daughter, without any prior knowlede of this genre, found and decided to begin wacthing the series.
Now had I found it I would have recommended it as a Literature/English grade (Homeschool), but for her to discover and begin watching it on her own makes my heart leap for joy.
Her heart and affections are slowly being turned from today's ideas of romanticism to a more vicotorian (read : Courtship) style of television viewing.
We enjoy the costumes and hairstyles especially.
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