Northanger Abbey
A study of social mores and associated personal relationships mainly set in the city where I was brought up. The observations are timeless, classless and nationless and therefore of interest to everyone despite the time and place setting of this novel. Starting as a commentary comparing our heroine with romantic trashy novels that she's read she lives as if she's part of one which once reaching the books title seems to take her and the book over. It's preceded by the hero, sister and heroine playfully debating, with a misunderstanding between real life and literature, the actions of people whilst looking over Bath from the vantage point of Beechen Cliff. As my secondary school was at Beechen Cliff and I walked down Jacobs Ladder to Bath every day for years I can just imagine their vista and the smell of wild garlic wafting up through the woods. I'm wondering that if after ridiculing that book genre that Austen falls into it through laziness. The ending in particular is hardly twist in the tail stuff. Maybe the book isn't so timeless and was a lot sharper back when written. A lot of the references to literature would have been better understood no doubt. A good read nevertheless.
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