Resenhas - Northanger Abbey

Fimbrethil Call 06/06/2013

Uma moça cheia de imaginação.
Na verdade, esse livro começa a ficar interessante na página 100, no começo é muita enrolação, e as melhores características dos livros de Jane Austen: as situações e os diálogos bem escritos e bem humorados, estão ausentes, como esse foi a primeira grande obra dela, é de se perdoar; mas já está presente a grave crítica social que ela apresenta em todos os seus livros. Catherine é uma mocinha engraçadinha, cheia de imaginação, que se deixa levar por ela, mas que tem personalidade e não é facilmente enganada pelos outros.

Toni 08/10/2011

A playful defense
Of all Jane Austen’s novels, Northanger Abbey is presumably the one which most relies on the reader’s previous readings. To understand it thoroughly one has to bear in mind the discussions that were taking place during the time of its composition and the literature that preceded it, especially the ones influenced by the Gothic sub-genre. As Marilyn Butler suggests, in her introduction to the novel:

"By pooling the contemporary novel’s sub-genres together to make her own continuous plot, Austen draws attention to a family similarity and a common stock of motifs found widely dispersed in time. Ultimately, indeed, Northanger Abbey depends for its own interest, suspense and colour on being itself a romance."

In this romance, Catherine Morland, the main character, is a plain eighteen years-old girl with a disposition rather improbable of becoming a heroine. She is described as having ‘a thin awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank hair, and strong features; (…) and not less unpropitious for heroism seemed her mind’. (I, 1) All first chapter suggests that the destiny of such an ordinary character one is to follow has a doubled path, which ought to be simultaneously trodden by the reader: the first covers the story of Catherine’s rite of passage to adulthood, which she will undertake; the second encompasses the exploration of the possibilities of novel-reading, by means of breaking the conventions of novelistic writing.

In the second sense, the opening lines of the novel reveal Austen’s satire of novelistic formulas, as follow: ‘No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be a heroine’ (I, 1). As the novel resumes, a bright pact is established between the author and her readers, as she continues to speak directly to her audience, reminding them of each novel convention as they are broken, ignored or put into use. For instance, as the party sets their journey to Bath, Austen’s description of the trip is constructed as a burlesque version of what should be expected from a Gothic heroine’s distress: ‘It was performed with suitable quietness and uneventful safety. Neither robbers nor tempests befriended them, nor one lucky overturn to introduce them to the hero.’ (I, 2) Then, in her account of Mrs. Allen—another instance of the author addressing her readers—, the irony functions as to mark the differences of the parody and the parodied texts:

"It is now expedient to give some description of Mrs. Allen, that the reader may be able to judge, in what manner her actions will hereafter tend to promote the general distress of the work, and how she will, probably, contribute to reduce poor Catherine to all the desperate wretchedness of which a last volume is capable—whether by her imprudence, vulgarity, or jealousy—whether by intercepting her letters, ruining her character, or turning her out of doors."

As Linda Hutcheon points out in her Theory of Parody, the parody exists, essentially, when it marks a difference, not a similarity to the parodied text. The many conventions implied in this passage, such as the length of the novel and the predicaments of the heroine’s misery, were ironically inverted by Austen as a way of spotting the parody. This was probably expected to provoke, in the eighteenth century reader, utter amusement and serious reflection. The necessity of well-informed readers, connoisseurs of the works of Samuel Richardson [1689-1761] or Ann Radcliffe [1764-1823], just to name a few of the referred authors throughout the novel, is thus of utter importance, for otherwise the parody would be neutralized.

Parody, according to Hutcheon, is utterly dependant of considering ‘the parodic text’s entire situation in the world—the time and the place, the ideological frame of reference, the personal as well as the social context’ (2000: p.xiii). For that reason, parody ‘is intensely context- and discourse-dependent.’ (Idem) Having that in mind, associated to all that has been discussed above, on the situation of women and the rise of novel, how can one situate Jane Austen’s novel in the cultural milieu of the beginning of nineteenth century? It seems that the defense of her genre in I, 5 of Northanger Abbey has an acceptable answer to that question.

This short chapter is a summary of how the relationship between Catherine and Isabella Thorpe quickly increased into the warmest affection; and how books played an important role in their friendship. Not any kind of books, of course, but novels:

"Yes, novels;—for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding—joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust."

Austen’s main target here is obviously the silly novel writers and readers of her time. She was probably aware of Samuel Johnson’s celebrated defense of the novel published around 1750, in which he praises ‘the manner of the Richardson and his followers (but not Fielding) for their accurate observation of character, naturalistic mixing of virtues and weaknesses, and moral, educative intention.’ (BUTLER, 1995: p.xvii). Nevertheless, he condemns the ignorant novel-readers and the set of works, which Austen’s novels inevitably became part of. These novels are written, according to Johnson (1750),

"Chiefly to the young, the ignorant, and the idle, to whom they serve as lectures of conduct, and introductions into life. They are the entertainment of minds unfurnished with ideas, and therefore easily susceptible of impressions; not fixed by principles, and therefore easily following the current fancy; not informed by experience, and consequently open to every false suggestion and partial account."

It is rather easy to presume that Catherine Morland will be precisely the kind of reader Johnson is describing; and, naturally, the kind of character Austen needs to proceed in her defense. By choosing such protagonist for her novel, it seems that Austen is assuming her work to be the very epitome of what was wrong with fiction, and she employs herself in proving that assumption wrong, resuming her speech with eloquent conviction:

"Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. (…) There seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labor of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit and taste to recommend them." (I,5)

As the voice of an ‘injured body’ (I, 5), she points out the intrinsic values of novel-reading while remarking the frequent injustice done towards the writers of the genre. Why should the heroine of one novel patronize another? Novelists must stick together. Finally, in the final lines of her discourse, Austen provides us with a fine definition of her art, as ‘a work, in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humor are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language’ (I,5). Thus, the apology is completed, joyfully resented but impressively accomplished.

Within Jane Austen’ oeuvre Northanger Abbey stands as a key cross-reference to current claims for women’s place in culture as both readers and creators of genres of their own. By relying on her readers’ capacity of recognizing her work as a parody, and inviting them to complete the novel together with her, adding their own impressions and readings, Austen not only defended this feminine genre as a legitimated form of art but also guaranteed women’s place in the competent readership of early nineteenth century.

Sara 01/02/2011

Mistérios/Fantasias...
Catherine Morland... uma personagem leitora... de Os Mistérios de Adholfo... e se vê influenciada e levada a imaginar misteriosos acontecimentos... Quem não já leu um livro que lhe deixou fantasiado/a? Bom, é claro que cada pessoa tem seu jeito próprio de ler e de considerar um livro... que pode não ter o mesmo valor literário para todos igualmente, no entanto, é dificil imaginar que todos, leitores, claro, não tenham aquele livro que não lhes sai da cabeça ou pelo menos fizeram sua cabeça por um bom e/ou determinado tempo!

Lu 01/04/2010

Esse livro foi escrito por Jane Austen quando ela ainda era adolescente. É sua própria versão de um romance gótico: um castelo assombrado por um mistério, uma mocinha ingênua e corajosa e um herói pronto para salvá-la.

Nada de novo. Mas estamos falando de Jane Austen. Então, a narrativa é permeada de uma delicada ironia. De uma crítica sutil a esses estilo literário. O resultado é um livro romântico, divertido e adorável. Talvez não seja o melhor trabalho dela, como os fãs mais puristas dizem.
Porém, como diz um amigo meu: "Austen é sempre Austen".

Larissa2518 08/01/2010

De todas as obras da Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey foi a que menos capitou minha atenção. Fala muito sobre vestidos e salões, a relação do casal tem pouca complexidade.
Esperava um pouco mais.