Book Review: The Mysteries of Udolpho

What’s a 21st century guy like me doing reading an 18th century novel like The Mysteries of Udolpho? 
I’m a big fan of Victorian literature, so this is merely a step backward to the era of Frankenstein, when Gothic novels were the rage:  a mixture of romance, mystery, and horror.  A sweet, young heroine.  A brooding villain.  Overwrought emotions.  Supernatural elements. 
In Ann Radcliffe’s Udolpho, Emily St. Aubert is a recently orphaned young woman who is taken under the charge of her selfish aunt and her Italian nobleman husband, Montoni.  Montoni is the prototypical Gothic villain.  He is grim and cruel and exerts complete control over poor Emily, endeavoring to force her to marry for his political gain.  For a year, she is trapped in Castle Udolpho, which is replete with ghostly voices and strange things hidden behind curtains.  Eventually Emily escapes from Montoni’s clutches, and she returns home to reclaim her parents’ estate.

Along the way, Emily meets Valancourt.  Talk about a perfect name for the heroine's love -- suggestive of valor and courtliness (or courtesy).  Don’t worry; what follows next is in no way a spoiler.  Though they appear destined to be together, the course of love never runs smoothly.  Valancourt has a weakness for gambling.  While Emily eventually forgives him, she is unwilling to risk her heart with him.  Of course, it proves all a misunderstanding, and by the end of the novel, they are wed.
"You can quit fainting now.
It's only the wind."Radcliffe spends excessive amounts of time describing the scenery of the Pyrenees and the Appenines – great overblown paragraphs of Nature with a capital N, in which everything is lush and rich, pulsing with life.  Sometimes the scenery inspires young Emily to compose lengthy poems, which intersperse the novel.  The irony is that the author never visited any of these locations and instead she used travel books to guide her descriptions.  These passages, unfortunately, halt the course of the action.  I thought that this was merely my 21st century sensibility to not have the patience to wade through thick language, but evidently contemporary reviewers had the same complaint:
“[Radcliffe’s] talent for description leads her to excess.  We have somewhat too much of evening and morning; of woods, and hills, and vales, and streams.  We are sometimes so fatigued at the conclusion of one representation of this kind, that the languor is not altogether removed at the commencement of that which follows.”  The British critic, and quarterly theological review, 1794.
"Oh, sweet mysteries
of Udolpho,
at last I've found you!"One amusing aspect of this Gothic story is the role of overwrought emotions.  Characters are forever swooning and quaking before apparently supernatural events.  Emily herself often finds herself trembling under the pressure of too much emotion.  When she overhears some mysterious notes of music through her bedroom window, she cowers for the entire night.  But when another character is afraid that ghosts or specters are wandering the corridors, Emily indulgently humors them, as though they are childlike in their imaginations while she is the strong one.  Well, if that isn’t the kale calling the cabbage green.
Even the author herself cannot always face the terror.  In one incident, Emily draws aside a veil, thinking to see a painting, but instead finds herself face-to-face with … something so horrifying that Ann Radcliffe cannot even bring herself to describe it.  It’s not until the very end of the novel that the object is revealed.
The Mysteries of Udolpho is like a tasty dinner buried under too much guacamole.  I’m not sure I can recommend it to anyone other than diehard fans of Gothic literature.  But then of course, if you are a fan, you’ve probably already read it.