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scripturient-manipulator:
1. Her first major novel (Northanger Abbey) was written solely because she was so salty about how dramatic and cliche and formula Gothic novels were. You know what I mean. Every castle is foreboding. Every villain is awful but can’t bring himself to kill the heroine because she’s Too Pure. Every middle-aged female companion wants to do the heroine in. The heroine is Pure and Perfect and Is Good At Everything Young Women Should Be and recites quotes and/or the Bible whenever she’s in danger and that makes everything better. All butlers are evil. Jane Austen wrote a book specifically to go “THIS is how NORMAL people react to things!!!”
2. “She never changed her opinion about books or men”
3. “As a girl she wrote stories, including burlesques of popular romances” and you know what that means. Jane Austen started off writing smut fanfiction. If that’s not writing reassurement that you can be great no matter what you choose to write, I don’t know what is.
(Both quotes from the Penguin Classics version of Northanger Abbey)
No but seriously Northanger Abbey is the funniest shit. Austen is a very present narrator throughout the whole thing who’s desperately trying to make this into a Gothic Novel, but the fucking character won’t behave.
Romantic interest: *comes in with a strange woman our heroine has not seen before*
Narrator: Oh the horror, the betrayal! How could he have done her so wrong. It was all she could do to seem unaffected by his heartlessness…
Heroine: Oh, this must be his sister he told me about!
Narrator: …or we could be reasonable. Fuck this. *pours another glass of sherry*
And the best part there’s a load of subtext that there was a genuine Gothic Novel going on at the same time, but the heroine was romantic dude’s sister, and it all took place off screen and we only find out at the end.
The BBC audiobook is great and for some reason the guy voicing the romantic lead sounds vaguely Jamaican, which works surprisingly well.
scripturient-manipulator:
1. Her first major novel (Northanger Abbey) was written solely because she was so salty about how dramatic and cliche and formula Gothic novels were. You know what I mean. Every castle is foreboding. Every villain is awful but can’t bring himself to kill the heroine because she’s Too Pure. Every middle-aged female companion wants to do the heroine in. The heroine is Pure and Perfect and Is Good At Everything Young Women Should Be and recites quotes and/or the Bible whenever she’s in danger and that makes everything better. All butlers are evil. Jane Austen wrote a book specifically to go “THIS is how NORMAL people react to things!!!”
2. “She never changed her opinion about books or men”
3. “As a girl she wrote stories, including burlesques of popular romances” and you know what that means. Jane Austen started off writing smut fanfiction. If that’s not writing reassurement that you can be great no matter what you choose to write, I don’t know what is.
(Both quotes from the Penguin Classics version of Northanger Abbey)
No but seriously Northanger Abbey is the funniest shit. Austen is a very present narrator throughout the whole thing who’s desperately trying to make this into a Gothic Novel, but the fucking character won’t behave.
Romantic interest: *comes in with a strange woman our heroine has not seen before*
Narrator: Oh the horror, the betrayal! How could he have done her so wrong. It was all she could do to seem unaffected by his heartlessness…
Heroine: Oh, this must be his sister he told me about!
Narrator: …or we could be reasonable. Fuck this. *pours another glass of sherry*
And the best part there’s a load of subtext that there was a genuine Gothic Novel going on at the same time, but the heroine was romantic dude’s sister, and it all took place off screen and we only find out at the end.
The BBC audiobook is great and for some reason the guy voicing the romantic lead sounds vaguely Jamaican, which works surprisingly well.