new writing: on northanger abbey
(at the paris review)
Long ago… like… a year ago…? you might recall that I was reading a bunch of Gothic novels. Or maybe you don’t remember this because you have no reason to remember all the details of my life, or you subscribed after this post, reasons of that nature. Anyway, I was actually reading all those novels for a reason. I was writing an essay about Northanger Abbey, my favorite Austen novel.1
And now that essay lives, breathes, exists online, etc. You can read it at the Paris Review’s website! Right now! Here it is:
Given that people often say and do different things, and say and want different things, how are we to read them? It is crucial, particularly for Austen’s young women when evaluating marriage prospects, to know how to tell if somebody deserves your trust before you actually need to trust them. Yet you’ll only ever know if you made the right decision when it matters. Everything else is a judgment by proxy. But given that life is not a novel, Gothic or otherwise, what do we do with all these signifiers of character that we steadily collect as we go? You cannot read people like a book. But what if, sometimes, you need to?
Weird as it may sound, this is an essay I’ve been thinking about for a long time—longer than the Persuasion essay I also wrote for the Paris Review. (Possibly ten years?) But it’s never really Northanger Abbey season (except in my heart),2 so it’s just sort of languished. I’m very happy that Sophie Haigney was willing to take it on.
I mention Elizabeth Hardwick’s essay on Northanger Abbey briefly in the piece but in it she makes the claim that Henry Tilney is “one of [Austen’s] most attractive characters” (elsewhere she calls him “masculine, witty, generously sane, and attractive […] a preview of Mr. Knightly [sic] in Emma”). She is right and should say it. Henry Tilney is probably the only Austen hero I’d want to go on a date with if I met him outside of one of her books. (Mr. Knightley is great, but, well, he’s taken from the jump, isn’t he. I mean isn’t that part of why we all like him so much?) But if you want somebody to prove it you, with math, then
has it covered:
NB, I think this might be a two piece week. A post titled “new writing:” may strike at any time. It’s never safe.…
Somehow this post feels appropriate:
Actually, Adelle Waldman has inaugurated Northanger Abbey season.
This is unrelated to your post, but I buy a decent amount of books mentioned on Substack (with a mediocre success rate of actually reading them or enjoying them if I do) but I got The Course of the Heart after it was mentioned here and devoured it in two sittings. Really good stuff and to my tastes (already looking to get more of his work) so thanks for the rec in addition to your great essays.
One of my colleagues just read "Northanger Abbey" for the first time, and now we're both trying to convince another co-worker to read it as her first-ever Austen novel! It's a Northangerssaince!