I went to all the trouble of explaining why I was having so much trouble getting through Northanger Abbey, just yesterday, and then I went and finished it today!
So what can I say about it? First, I was way off about the General. The thing is, he was so solicitous, and Eleanor was talking about a mother being such a dear friend...I just completely misread everything. And what the General turned out to actually be like! Well!
It isn't my favorite Austen (it's cliche, but I just love Pride and Prejudice - none of her other books come close in my estimation), but it isn't my least favorite either (that dubious honor going to Mansfield Park or Emma, I can't say which for certain). Catherine Morland is frustratingly naive but still quite endearing. And the younger Tilneys are lovely. Austen paints these characters with a rather broad brush - Isabella is a contriving coquette, her brother a boorish buffoon, and Mrs. Allen is pure comic relief (and she really is funny - I laughed out loud when she kept repeating that she really had no use for General Tilney). But I guess this makes sense in the context of Austen taking about heroines and what should befall them.
What book should be next? I nicked Freakonomics the last time I visited my parents, and I am in a pattern of switching back and forth between fiction and nonfiction, so perhaps that's the way I'll go. Stay tuned.
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