May 25, 2019 at 1:49 pm (Books, Conversations, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: advice, Catherine Morland, English writers, favorites, Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, novel, reading lists, Saturday, wisdom
Northanger Abbey, p. 273:
Mrs. Morland addresses Catherine’s seeming dejection after the abrupt end of her visit with the Tilneys:
“. . . you are fretting about General Tilney, and that is very simple of you; for ten to one whether you ever see him again. You should never fret about trifles.” After a short silence — “I hope, my Catherine, you are not getting out of humor with home because it is not so grand as Northanger. That would be turning your visit to an evil indeed. Wherever you are you should always be contented, but especially at home, because there you must spend the most of your time.”
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
May 23, 2019 at 4:47 pm (Books, Conversations, Food and Drink, Personal Bookshelf, plans, Recommended, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: Catherine Morland, England, English writers, favorites, Henry Tilney, Jane Austen, novel, Prague, reading lists
Self flopped into bed at 2 and did not wake up until almost six. Sooo tired! Nevertheless, at some point, she WILL go downstairs, she WILL take the tram, she WILL inquire of passersby regarding restaurants serving “traditional” Czech food. Either that or she will go to the grocery store next door which sells the most amazing, huge, sweet cherries she has ever tasted in her whole life and buy more cherries!
Now to Northanger Abbey: Catherine Morland, Eleanor Tilney and Henry Tilney are in the drawing room, discussing Isabella Thorpe.
“But perhaps,” observed Catherine, “though she has behaved so ill by our family, she may behave better by yours. Now she has finally got the man she likes, she may be constant.”
How candid Catherine Morland is! How artless. Henry Tilney listens without once giving away his true opinion of Ms. Thorpe. For the nth time, self really loves Henry Tilney, because his manners are so exquisite.
Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
May 23, 2019 at 10:12 am (Lists, Personal Bookshelf, television, Women Writers)
Tags: Catherine Morland, disappointments, English writers, Game of Thrones, Gendry, Henry Tilney, Jane Austen, novel, reading lists
It’s nearly the end of Northanger Abbey, Henry Tilney still hasn’t declared any feelings for Catherine Morland, but self loves loves loves this him: his diffidence, his wit, his tenderness towards his sister Eleanor. So far, this is her favorite Jane Austen ever (a close second: Emma)
Still reading about Game of Thrones‘ final season because it hurt self to the core. Still more from yesterday’s USA Today (the first thing self grabbed during afternoon tea at the hotel yesterday):
- Much like Cersei’s death last week, Dany’s demise felt like a dull, anticlimactic end.
- Bran “hasn’t had a personality since Season 6 and is the least-helpful all-seeing magical reason ever.”
Self is still bitter that they brought Gendry back in Season 7 just to function as Arya’s boy toy in Season 8 (also, if you really want to know, she thinks Ed Sheeran’s pointless cameo in Season 7 should have warned her: You’re not going to like the way this ends.) Cleganebowl happened too late to really matter. Bronn stayed on-brand as the No. 1 Advocate for Brothels. Nice job, Sansa Stark, becoming Queen of the North. The melting down of the Iron Throne was whatever. Jon got to keep his melancholy look. And Davos was sitting right next to Gendry during the gathering of all the remaining families of Westeros, so these two will get to become each other’s family.
Self thinks the wriers’ interest in the story ended with Season 6. After, they were just making sure they dotted their “i’s” and crossed their “t’s” per contractual basis.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
.
Leave a Comment
May 22, 2019 at 8:07 am (Books, Conversations, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: Catherine Morland, England, English writers, favorites, Henry Tilney, humor, Jane Austen, novel, reading lists
Self’s new literary crush is Northanger Abbey‘s Henry Tilney. In his exceedingly dry wit, he is the perfect foil for our heroine, she with the unquenchable thirst for the Gothic, Catherine Morland.
p. 177:
Nothing further to alarm perhaps may occur the first night. After surmounting your unconquerable horror of the bed, you will retire to rest, and get a few hours’ unquiet slumber. But on the second, or at farthest the third night after your arrival, you will probably have a violent storm. Peals of thunder so loud as to seem to shake the edifice to its foundation will roll round the neighbouring mountains — and during the frightful gusts of wind which accompany it, you will probably think you discern (for your lamp is not extinguished) one part of the hanging more violently agitated than the rest. Unable of course to repress your curiosity in so favorable a moment for indulging it, you will instantly arise, and throwing your dressing-gown around you, proceed to examine this mystery.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
May 22, 2019 at 5:59 am (Books, Conversations, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: Catherine Morland, England, Henry Tilney, humor, Jane Austen, novel, reading lists
While riding with Henry Tilney in his curricle, Catherine shares her thoughts on their destination: the family seat, Northanger Abbey.
Catherine: Is not it a fine old place, just like what one reads about?
Henry: And are you prepared to encounter all the horrors of a building such as “what one reads about” may produce? Have you a stout heart? Nerves fit for sliding panels and tapestry?
Catherine: Oh! Yes — I do not think I should be easily frightened, because there would be so many people in the house — and besides, it has never been uninhabited and left deserted for years, and then the family come back to it unawares, without giving any notice, as usually happens.
lol
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
May 22, 2019 at 5:12 am (Books, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: Catherine Morland, England, English writers, favorites, Henry Tilney, Jane Austen, novel, reading lists, second reads
The Tilney family, Catherine Morland in tow, is on its way to Northanger Abbey from Bath, “a journey of thirty miles” with four horses going at a “sober pace.”
For Catherine, the “bustle of going was not pleasant . . . The clock struck ten while the trunks were carrying down . . .”
The means of conveyance is a chaise-and-four, “a heavy and troublesome business.”
(How self adores all these details about traveling, back in the day!)
At the halfway point of the journey, General Tilney urges Catherine to move to Henry Tilney’s curricle, which follows behind. Catherine is at first shocked at the impropriety but is happy to acquiesce because “to be driven by” Henry, “next to being dancing with him, was certainly the greatest happiness in the world.”
Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
May 19, 2019 at 9:07 pm (Books, Conversations, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Sundays, Surprises, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: Catherine Morland, England, English writers, Henry Tilney, humor, Jane Austen, novel, second reads
A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.
— Northanger Abbey, p. 122
Self loves this book. Loves, loves, loves it.
She hardly remembers anything from the first time she read it, it’s a good thing she decided to read it again. Catherine’s innocence, her enthusiasm for the “horrible” — who would have expected such an entertaining tale to be spun from this?
Catherine confides in her new BFF Eleanor Tilney that she is very much looking forward to the arrival of “something very shocking indeed” (p. 123) and that “it is more horrible than anything we have met with yet . . . it is to be uncommonly dreadful. I shall expect murder and everything of the kind.” (p. 124)
Eleanor assumes that Catherine is talking about a “riot.”
Eleanor: Have the goodness to satisfy me as to this dreadful riot.
Catherine: Riot — What riot?
Henry hastens to explain: “Miss Morland has been talking of nothing more dreadful than a new publication which is shortly to come out . . .”
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
May 19, 2019 at 12:31 pm (Books, Conversations, Family, Food and Drink, Personal Bookshelf, Places, plans, Recommended, Sundays, Surprises, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: Catherine Morland, favorites, happiness, Henry Tilney, humor, Jane Austen, London, novel, reading lists, restaurants
Self was supposed to go on an Old Parish Maps walk of Clerkenwall but she bailed because she wanted to take things slow today, after that loooong train journey from Cornwall yesterday.
She had an early breakfast, then set off walking. Soon, she found herself in front of the British Library, but instead of going in, she went next door, to St. Pancras/Renaissance Hotel, and inquired at reception if they could ring her son’s room.
He did not pick up, probably because he’s just arrived in London. She told the receptionist to let son know that his mother had stopped by. Then, she twirled and waltzed out without waiting for a response from the receptionist.
She wandered on Leigh Street and found North Sea Fish was closed. She walked down Marchmont Street and stopped at a café for very yummy hot banana bread with yogurt. Topped that off with red bean gelato. Picked up a couple of flyers from LSE (London School of Economics, Dear Departed Sister’s alma mater), returned to Russell Square (one side of which was sprouting police cars, she wonders why) and resumed reading Northanger Abbey.
UGH, the horrible stress inflicted on poor Catherine Morland (so far, self’s favorite Jane Austen heroine — yes, a better heroine than Emma or Anne Elliot) by manipulative Thorpe sibs Isabella and John! In the latest situation, they have conveniently dismissed Miss Eleanor Tilney (sister of that elusive love interest Henry Tilney) without checking first with Catherine whether she intended to keep her appointment with Eleanor. Catherine, on learning of the Thorpes’s horrible presumptuousness, goes running full tilt after Eleanor (and why should she not? Henry Tilney is quite a fetching man! Self too would go running if someone told her that Timothy Olyphant or Nikolaj Coster-Waldau were just around the corner!).
p. 111:
Thorpe would have darted after her, but Morland withheld him. “Let her go, let her go, if she will go.”
“She is as obstinate as — “
Thorpe never finished the simile, for it could hardly have been a proper one.
lol
Morland refers to Catherine’s older brother, James. And a wonderful older brother he is, too. He’s in love with Isabella Thorpe, who’s a ninny. If not for that, he would be self’s third-favorite Jane Austen suitor, after Mr. Knightley and Henry Tilney. He most certainly is self’s favorite Jane Austen brother.
Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
May 18, 2019 at 6:55 am (Artists and Writers, Books, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: Catherine Morland, causes, complaints, courtship, England, Henry Tinsley, Jane Austen, novel, reading lists, Saturday
Defend the novel.
Northanger Abbey, p. 34:
Alas! if the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the Reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers.
Leave a Comment
