Book: Northanger Abbey

I've had this HUGE book on my shelf for years. Like, 15 years. It's the Complete Works of Jane Austen, and I cracked it for the first time yesterday. I figured I'd better read Northanger Abbey before it's on Sunday night, and it had to be short if they're doing it in one night, right? Thankfully I did get it finished this morning, because that is NOT a copy to take on a plane, as I will be doing with an Anita Shreve novel this weekend.

It doesn't hold a candle to Persuasion, of course. What really can? But it is a totally different style of novel - a parody of the obsession with gothic novels. If it was remade, it could be a parody of CSI/Law & Order type TV shows - laden with cliches, sinister implications, every alibi questioned, etc. Our heroine, Catherine, lets her imagination get the best of her, but this is not really the entire moral of the story. There are also the necessary Austen characters: airhead aunts, false friends, loyal lovers, and men after money.

It's a cute, quick story, and I'm eager to see how MP Theater handles it. I'll be in Lake Havasu helping celebrate my parents-in-law's 50th Anniversary, so I hope I can still catch it. If not, I'll have to trust finding a recorded copy!

I just hope I don't feel compelled to read the rest of Austen's novels at the pace PBS is setting.

Truly enraptured with Austen's men? Try this!