Today’s Friday. The fifth day of this retrospection through Austen’s Completed Novels. Today it’s the turn of Northanger Abbey.
The families at the forefront of this work are the Tilneys, the Thorpes, and the Morlands. Well drawn, yet predictable, characters make this novel similar in nature to Emma, in my opinion – deep enough to be satisfying. On the other hand, it’s superficial enough that it doesn’t take up too much energy, mental, emotional, etc. Well, once you get into the ‘long and winding sentences’, that is.
Example: her last sentence in this novel. I love it!
“To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen, is to do pretty well; and professing myself moreover convinced, that the General’s unjust interference, so far from being injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge of eachother, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.”
Phew! How cool is THAT!