Northanger Abbey Review: The Real Mystery is in the Pacing
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
If you’re a Jane Austen fan and Northanger Abbey is one of the books you have yet to read, and the internet has brought you here—you might not be in the right place. Apparently, this is supposed to be a “Gothic Parody,” whatever that is. Very little about Northanger Abbey is ‘gothic’, since most of the story takes place in the ballrooms and lodgings of Bath, the spa city of England, where rich people went to holiday and socialize.
The story follows the adventures of seventeen-year-old Catherine Morland, who steps out from her country home for the first time, to explore the charms of social balls and dances. She is hosted by an old couple in Bath, where she befriends another young woman called Elizabeth, and becomes enamoured by a handsome man called Henry Tilney. So, when she is invited to Nothanger Abbey, the private estate of the Tinley family, to keep Henry’s sister company, she immediately takes up the offer, ready to be swept up in the corridors of the ancient abbey and its many secrets.
Northangar Abbey was first published in 1818, so the reader obviously needs to read it in the context of that time, which I tried to, but ugh, the first half was very slow-moving, annoying, with no semblance of humour in any page. Parodies are supposed to be funny right? Although, yes, to Austen’s credit, the second half of the novel does get humorous in nature, largely on account of Catherine’s silly antics at the abbey.
I kept thinking how this could’ve simply been a short story because practically nothing happens in the first half, except for Catherine going to dances, meeting Tilney, and hoping to see him again at another dance. She does have some distraction in the form of Elizabeth’s loud, annoying older brother, who keeps trying to spend more time with the heroine, to no real avail. Catherine has her heart set on Henry Tilney but isn’t sure of his feelings or if the disparity in their social standing will act as a hurdle to a potential matrimony between the two.
Since Catherine is only seventeen, having grown up in a sheltered household in the country, she can often be naive and completely unaware of the motives of those around her. Jane Austen repeatedly emphasizes that our protagonist is very “well-read,” but apparently, since Catherine only likes to read Gothic thrillers, her head is filled with far-fetched melodrama. She is highly clueless when needed but overtly imaginative when unnecessary. But at no point could I bring myself to dislike Catherine – she is a sweet-natured girl with a kind heart and a simple mind. And to Catherine’s credit, even though she isn’t a great judge of character, she does try to hold her ground when it comes to her own principles. Thus, the primary mystery is obviously about who our sweet heroine will end up with.
Catherine’s stay at Northanger Abbey and her interactions with Henry Tilney’s father instantly reminded me of Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell, where a primary plot revolves around the heroine spending time at the estate of a very wealthy family. I wouldn’t be surprised if Gaskell drew some inspiration from Austen’s work, though there’s no way to confirm it.
Anyway… Northanger Abbey is a confounding novel. Some parts make you think Austen could’ve condensed the tale into 30 pages, but the climactic chapters are so rushed that they needed more space for the story to grow. The pace is inconsistent, and except for Catherine herself, the other characters do not get enough time to grow on the reader. Despite being a romantic comedy, the romantic elements are almost non-existent. Towards the end, I was imagining a rather scandalous turn of events, but instead, Jane Austen delivers a saccharine happy ending. Maybe this was hilarious for its time, but the story hasn’t aged too well for 2025.
Rating: 2.5 on 5.
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