A new review of Northanger Abbey (part 1 of The Austen Series)

I'm an unashamed fan of Jane Austen and my only regret is that she didn't write more than the six novels she left behind as a legacy.

For the past 20 or so years, I've read and re-read Pride and Prejudice the most (I estimate I probably read it over 35 times), followed fairly closely by Emma, then Persuasion, then Sense and Sensibility. I read Mansfield Park perhaps twice, and Northanger Abbey only once, because the two heroines Fanny Price and Catherine Morland annoyed me with their passivity and lack of wit - so unlike my favourite Elizabeth Bennett!

Anyway, having done a re-read of all her six works in recent months, I've decided to review them all through fresh eyes. Let's start with the one least travelled by.

Northanger Abbey

Perhaps more than any of her other books, re-reading this one surprised me the most because I realised my memory of it was so imperfect and prejudiced. I probably read it for the first time at around age 16, so coming back to it two decades later gave me an entirely new perspective.

I realised that Austen was doing something completely different with this book than her others. It's not just a straightforward novel - it's in fact a tongue-in-cheek parody of the gothic novels that were so popular at the time. It pokes fun of gothic sensibilities - the expectation of dark horrors in every empty wing of a large estate - through the very virginal and supremely innocent eyes of Catherine (Kitty) Morland. So influenced is she by these novels, that she makes a fool of herself in front of Henry Tilney, the love interest in the book.

The interesting thing about Northanger Abbey is how the tone is so different from her usual slightly detached but affectionate and wry narrative voice. There's something almost comedic in her tone, and this really saves the book from becoming insipid. I have to admit I missed it the first time and found it quite unlikeable. Because Kitty is so witless and innocent, it's easy to mistake Northanger Abbey as the same, but I found a new enjoyment of it this time and was much more charmed by it than before.

In praise of: Lost in Austen (mini series)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Austen fans clamour for more from their long-dead favourite author, so new variations of her work will always be acceptable if they're done well. And what a corker this one is. It's not perfect but it's a charming homage about a modern day Austenite who swaps places with her favourite character and literally gets lost in the world of Pride and Prejudice.

The first time I watched this four-part mini series was on TV, each episode doled out weekly while I waited with bated breath. The twists and turns had me utterly enthralled. (Spoiler alert) What, Jane marries Collins? Lydia runs away with Bingley? Wickham turns out to be the good guy??? With all these plot differentials, the time travelling portal isn't hard to swallow.

The second time I watched it all at once and became more aware of the gaping holes. Nonetheless, I think a little suspension in belief is good for the imagination. Anyway, what can you expect when you've got time travelling heroines and a huge plot to deal with in just four 46 minutes episodes? I would have been happy for them to have doubled that number. Despite glossing over some major inconsistencies, Lost in Austen does a great job creating an escape for those who, like Amanda, love the world that Jane Austen creates.

The casting was great: Jemima Rooper as Amanda, the modern-day Elizabeth with her witticisms and love-hate relationship with Darcy, was perfect, as was the smouldering Elliot Cowan as Mr Darcy and the luminous Gemma Arterton at Elizabeth Bennet.

And it's funny too. There's a scene where Amanda says to Mr Darcy, 'Will you do something for me...' and next thing you know, he's coming out of the lake, his wet shirt clinging to his considerably-more-buff-than-his-predecessor body. 

The biggest treat is how wayward the characters go as Amanda tries desperately to keep the plot together. Any self-respecting Austen fan knows the book practically by heart, so it's wonderful to see the characters come to life without the boundaries of Jane Austen's pen. We as the audience also find ourselves going wayward. I mean, what is the world coming to when we don't want Lizzie and Darcy to get together?

Ah the romance.

It's been at least two years since I've read P&P (it always takes willpower not to pull it off the shelf, but I know that the next reading will be the better for having waited), so I think now it's time to get a little lost myself.

The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger (a second look)

This isn't my first time reading The Catcher in the Rye but I have to say it affected me more this time than any other, which is ironic considering that I read it for the first time as an angsty teen and now I'm in my thirties.

The protagonist is 16 year old Holden Caulfield, who's just been expelled from his latest school for poor performance. He's not dumb though, he's just not interested. Still suffering from the effects of his brother Allie's death and in a state of... I guess you could call it depression, he leaves school early and wanders around New York like a self-professed 'madman' for a couple of days before returning home to face the music.

When I was all set to go, when I had my bags and all, I stood for a while next to the stairs and took a last look down that goddam corridor. I was sort of crying. I don't know why. I put my red hunting hat on, and turned the peak around to the back, the way I liked it, and then I yelled at the top of my goddam voice, "Sleep tight, ya morons!" I'll bet I woke up every bastard on the whole floor. Then I got the hell out. Some stupid guy had thrown peanut shells all over the stairs, and I damn near broke my crazy neck. (Chapter 7)

I never noticed before just how funny the book is. It's really a riot and I could barely stop myself chuckling out loud on the bus.

I was half in love with her by the time we sat down. That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can. (Chapter 10)

Salinger writes in one of the strongest narrative voices I've ever read. It's completely absorbing and sucks you right into the character of Holden, whether you like him or not (many find him annoying). He's lonely and isolated and horny and angsty and all the things you could expect of a 16 year old, just more heightened. He's at the bottom end of a downward spiral which comes crashing down at the end of his 48 hours of wandering. 

There's an underlying tone of tragedy beneath it all, and through his erratic behaviour we sense an impending doom. A review published in 1951, when the book was still fresh, said:

It’s a sort of lost week end; it’s a boy who can’t go home again; he belongs to a lost generation and lives in a world he never made.... but besides that, and despite your hoots of laughter at Holden’s indomitable speech, this is in essence the tragic story of a problem child, unless indeed it’s an indictment of a problem world. Month in, month out, novels don’t come much better. (source)

Rather than it being an indictment of a problem world, I would suggest that it's just a tale of someone trying to find their place in one. It would explain why so many people are drawn to it, and why others identify themselves with it. It offers no solutions but beautifully captures the troubled thoughts of someone navigating their way.

From my current perspective, I think the breakdown was the obvious conclusion to his not having dealt with Allie's death and possibly even the sexual abuse that he hints at ('perverty stuff' has happened to him around 20 times). When he hits rock bottom, we find that he's telling his story from a psychiatric hospital, possibly the best thing that could've happened to him. Although the novel ends on a bittersweet note, we feel that he is on the way to healing.

A note on the title

I love how the title is explained in the book. Although other members of my book club didn't have patience for Holden, I have a soft spot for him because he has such a tender heart.

I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all.  Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me.  And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.  What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them.  That's all I do all day.  I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.  I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. (Chapter 22)

A note on the author

What really knocks me out is a book, when you're all done reading it, you wished the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. (Chapter 3)

I found this bit quite ironic because although I don't know much about JD Salinger, I do know that he was a recluse. Actually, that's probably why I don't know much about him.

In all honesty though, I probably wouldn't call him up to talk about The Catcher in the Rye because I'd be intimated by his genius.

The great library challenge: Capote, Truman Breakfast at Tiffany's

I chose this book for my 'C' author because:

• Truman Capote has a big reputation and I wanted to know if his writing lived up to it;
• I never really got why people loved the movie so much, and thought maybe the literary version would enlighten me;
• I was travelling overseas (more in my next post) and wanted something short and quick that I could finish before I left.

I didn't have time to post my review before I left, so it's been two very long weeks and lots of experience since finishing this book, but to the best of my recollection, it was pretty good.

I still don't get why people love it so much - or more to the point, love 'her' so much. Holly Golightly. Quite a refreshing character in some ways, but totally flighty (not necessarily a bad thing), selfish, social-climbing, racist and immature in so many others. It's easy to love Audrey Hepburn in her very stylish portrayal of Holly, but as a literary character, she doesn't quite pass muster. One can't really understand why so many other characters in the book are obsessed with her, and personally, I think that Capote actually manages to portray a rather emotionally disturbed young lady who can't (or doesn't want to) connect with reality.

However, Capote's narrative style is impressive. He immerses you immediately in the 1950s New York social scene (for some reason I kept imagining everything in black and white) and his writing is like a confident hand in the small of your back pushing you along.

As for the next books in the challenge, I had a hard time picking my D author and easy time picking my E author. The only stipulation for this challenge is that I mustn't have read any of the author's books before.

So D is Becoming Strangers by Louise Dean, and E is The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco. Yes, shame on me for having never read him before.

Wuthering Heights sucks big time

I will never understand how Wuthering Heights achieved such cult status. The characters are awful, the situation ridiculous and the writing absolutely bog-sewer atrocious.

Let's start with the main characters. Heathcliff and Cathy are the most vile, melodramatic, selfish and unnecessary creations in literary history. There isn't a single appealing aspect of their characters, and their so-called 'love' is shallow and self-torturing. Heathcliff, cried up by the author as such a dark and tortured character, is simply one-dimensional and boring as hell (except when he's being domestically violent). He's an immature stamp-footy cry-baby who never gets over his forced separation with Cathy, won't stay away and let her be happy with her choice of husband, and then interferes with their offspring for his own dastardly delight. Bastardly, more like. He is simply pathetic, and not in the good literary 'pathos' kind of way.

Their offspring are almost as bad. The second Cathy is more forgivable, but by God how many times did you want to slap Linton across his weak-willed, self-pitying face? The trashy schoolgirl ending with the ghosts of Heathcliff and Cathy undo the goodwill of Heathcliff's redemption in allowing Hareton and Cathy II to get together.

It's my understanding that Emily Bronte gained publication of her manuscript off the back of her sisters' successes, and in the early days, there was a widespread belief that Wuthering Heights was in fact an earlier, more immature work of her sister Charlotte. This is no wonder, because her attempt at writing in Wuthering Heights is abysmal. Case in point: the original narrator is the self-proclaimed hermit Mr Lockwood, whose heightened curiosity about Wuthering Heights and its inhabitants is unlikely from the first. He re-tells the story as told to him by the servant Nelly Dean, and at points of the narration, Nelly Dean re-tells someone else's  version of the story, so you have a narration-within-a-narration-within-a-narration situation, yet the style of writing never changes. When Joseph speaks in this thick almost-unintelligible brogue, every storyteller reproduces it faithfully. This stretches the imagination of even the most gullible.

The entire story is suffocatingly small both in scope and nature, and the fact that it was even published is astonishing, let alone its success in the past 150 years and the number of people who defend its 'complexity and depth'. For me, it was a waste of time and even the $3.50 I bought it for.

Pygmalion, Bernard Shaw

This is one of my all-time favourite plays to read, and it's got nothing to do with the musical adaptation My Fair Lady, which is also glorious. The transformation of Eliza Doolittle and her curious and dear relationship with Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering is a truly delightful story. Bernard Shaw captures all the intricacies in manner and speech to bring the characters to life, and create scenes of true hilarity and deep feeling which lose none of its potency over time.

LIZA Well: I must go. [They all rise. Freddy goes to the door] So pleased to have met you. Goodbye.
...
FREDDY [Opening the door for her] Are you walking across the Park, Miss Doolittle? If so -
LIZA [perfectly elegant diction] Walk! Not bloody likely. [Sensation]. I am going in a taxi. [She goes out].
Pickering gasps and sits down. Freddy goes out on the balcony to catch another glimpse of Eliza.
MRS EYNSFORD HILL [Suffering from shock] Well, I really can't get used to the new ways.

Love it! Recommend it! It's now a cheapie Penguin Classic so it's probably time to replace my tattered copy.

Catch-22, Joseph Heller

Catch-22 is a brilliant and scathing anti-war book that's equal parts frustrating, funny and absurd. The hero (or central character, since he's hardly heroic) is Yossarian, a bombardier whose main objective is to stay alive throughout the war (WWII). Unfortunately for Yossarian, his attempts are thwarted at every turn. Trying to prove himself mad (and therefore unfit for duty) is undermined by the evidence that he wants to stay alive, and only a sane person would want to save their own life. That's the essence of Catch-22, and the reason for it being coined in the common lexicon.

The book is filled with a veritable Forrest Gump box of chocolate range of characters. Madness of some sort seems to be a general theme, although each to a different degree. Hungry Joe is war-mad from trauma, Chief Halfoat is race-mad from exploitation by white people, Milo is profit-mad and even bombs his own squadron to make money, Colonel Cathcart is approval-mad, continually raising the men's number of missions in order to get his picture in the newspaper, and the list goes on. There's whore-mad, son-in-law-mad, weakling-mad, danger-mad, mad-mad... Yossarian, who simply wants to stay alive, seems the sanest of them all, despite showing up to a medals ceremony completely naked and signing a fictitious name to official documents and causing havoc.

Although I think Catch-22 is a work of real genius, the experience of reading it was not enjoyable. With its circular logic and dark humour, it is incredibly frustrating to read, and its many idiosyncratic characters can be difficult to keep track of. Nothing seems to make any sense at all and power is held absolutely by absolute idiots. It's a maddening book that acts as a parable to question society, and in particular, war.

As a female reader, I have to also take a moment to mention the role of women in the book, as much as I don't want to. Apart from the doctor's greedy wife, no woman is mentioned without a reference to her sexuality, whether she's a whore, a colonel's wife or a nurse. It's disconcerting that in a book about power, women are hung on the very bottom rung of the ladder. The men are subject to the whims of their superiors, but women are subject to the whims of everybody. A particularly disturbing scene occurs later in the book where one of the men in the squadron (who you think you know, even as a reader) rapes a domestic servant and throws her out of a window to her death. I'm sure there's a thesis in here but this is only a book review so I'll end on this topic here.

Right at the very end, in the last few pages, the story eventually breaks out of its frustrating confines (not before things get a lot worse first) and finally a gust of hope is introduced. These last few pages, for me, made the whole book worthwhile. Finally you get a taste of what Yossarian (and you, because in the process of reading your empathy is entirely with him) has been wanting all along. But it doesn't come the way you think it will. I won't spoil it, but it's a truly rewarding ending.

Overall, Catch-22 is brilliant, funny and a little disturbing.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith

'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains' begins Seth Grahame-Smith's version of Pride and Prejudice, with one key added ingredient: a proliferation of zombies in England. In this version, the Sisters Bennett are Shaolin-trained warriors engaged in her Majesty's service to protect the good people of Hertfordshire (until a suitable marriage offer, of course) and hordes of 'unmentionables' abound, whose sole aim is to gorge on the fresh brains of the living.

The first two, maybe three chapters are truly enjoyable, then the novelty factor wears off and the laughs become fewer and further between. Fans of P&P, like myself, will enjoy Grahame-Smith's almost seamless Austenese insertions of battle scenes and innuendo (the latter less successful, such as the double entendre on 'balls'), but towards the end P&P&Z becomes boring for its too-accurate following of the original plot. We already know what's going to happen - in many cases, we know it word for word already. The plot deviations are refreshing - like in Lost in Austen - as long as you don't deviate too far so as to render the characters unrecognisable. It's a fine line to tread, but a more sure-footed excursis of the original novel would have been well-received.

The inventive bits are great - Lady Catherine's ninjas, the dojo in every truly accomplished young woman's home, Elizabeth throwing Mr Darcy into the mantelpiece while rejecting his proposal - but nothing can save the plot from becoming a big yawn in the end - not even our zombie warrior heroine and her Katana. In fact, in Lydia and Wickham's case, the plot becomes totally lame. But Grahame-Smith has chosen his audience well - Austenites will flock to the book by sheer curiosity alone (this reviewer being a case in point) and he'll definitely make a crapload of money, so I guess its mission has already been accomplished.

Easy Virtue, Noel Coward

Easy Virtue is an enjoyable play with more than one layer. On the surface, the story of a brazen, older woman-of-the-world marrying the eldest son of a genteel country family and being thrust into their world is a plot ripe with explosive possibilities. On another level, Coward uses the plot to unveil the snobby culture of the English upper crust. This theme is well-worn now, but in Coward's day I can imagine that his depiction of the snobby Mrs Whittaker and her daughters - self-righteous Marion and naiive and vindictive Hilda - would have been quite a rude look in the mirror for the starched English audience.

The 2008 movie explores the first layer well, creating rich comic moments exaggerated by the fact that the temptress is American, rather than Coward's original English socialite. The chemistry between Jessica Biel's carefree brazen American intruder and stern-faced matriarch Kristin Scott-Thomas rescues the movie from descending into farce, even though the comedy turns slapstick at times.

It's a shame that Coward doesn't explore this further, as this entire period seems to fall into the crevice of the three months that pass between Act I and Act II. However it's in the second layer that Coward's dialogue really shines, managing to depict the adulterous and laconic father (the Colonel) as the most genuine and sympathetic member of the family. The two most morally corrupt characters in the play (Larita and the Colonel) in fact become Coward's heroes for their lack of hypocrisy and largeness of mind, which Larita in particular shows at the end in relinquishing what is most dear to her.

Re-reading this review so far, I notice that I haven't even mentioned the son John, whom Larita falls in love with and marries. I think that's actually part of Coward's design - John is practically an absent character known more to the audience from being spoken of than for his own presence, but he's an important character because it's through his very absence that Coward poignantly shows the damaging effect of pressure and disappointed expectation on young love.

Easy Virtue in both its forms is very enjoyable, but the ending of the movie, which diverges a little from the play, is rather perplexing. Overall a good read and enjoyable watch.

Persuasion, Jane Austen

Persuasion is a charming and mature love story - not driven by impetuous young passions, but rather by character and virtue. Sounds boring, but it isn't. The heroine is Anne Elliot, a quiet and good-hearted soul who is much maligned by her father and older sister - two foolish, spendthrift aristocrats to whom looks, money and title mean everything. They dissuade her from marrying young Frederick Wentworth from his lack of all the above, but Anne is never able to get over her lost first love.

Eight years later, he returns - a captain in the navy, rich, dashing and now much sought after by women younger, richer and more attractive than Anne, at the ripe old Elizabethan age of 28. Their subsequent encounters cause such bittersweet pain to read. Blinded by his pride and hurt, he ignores and slights her, only to dicover - when he believes he has lost her for good - that he is, in fact, still desperately in love with her.

Persuasion is an extremely satisfying read. A fairytale that's eminently believable with two characters you can't help but root for. Austen's style of writing is, as always, impeccably timed, perfectly tuned and conveys the heartache and ecstasy of Anne and Captain Wentworth in the most delicious way. This was her last finished work, and is worthy of its place in her catalogue.

Another unexpected source of enjoyment in Persuasion is in seeing the development of the English language over the centuries since the novel was published:

Anne had always thought such a style of intercourse highly imprudent; but she ceased to endeavour to check it, from believing that, though there were on each side continual subjects of offence, neither family could now do without it.
(Chapter 5)

He did justice to his gentleman-like appearance... but at the same time 'must lament his being very much under-hung'
(Chapter 15)