Janespotting: Northanger Abbey, 1987 TV-film

There haven't been many film adaptations for Northanger Abbey—the fewest of any of Austen's novels—probably owing to its relative lack of popularity as well as the difficulty of translating all the literary references to film. I felt fortunate that my library had the first such adaptation, a 90-minute BBC/A&E production broadcast in 1987. I approached it with a mixture of hope and trepidation. After all, less than a decade later a BBC/A&E collaboration would give us the sublime Pride & Prejudice mini-series. Still, 1987 might be a little early to expect an upgrade from the bland quality of some early productions. After having viewed this version of NA, however, I can safely say it wasn't bland. Instead, I think the writer and director might have erred a little too much in the other direction, for there were times I thought I might have enjoyed the film better if I had been on hallucinogens.

I understand that there is a challenge in conveying Catherine's interest in Gothic literature, one that is most easily met by showing scenes from these novels. In this adaptation these scenes are shown as Catherine's fantasies (starring Catherine and other characters), but often they bleed into scenes that are supposed to be taking place in the "real" world. For instance, there is one scene that in the novel takes place in Bath's Pump Room, but in the film is set in the Grand Bath. Men and women are in special swimming costumes (gowns for the ladies), still wear their elaborate hats, and have little plates worn around their necks that float in the water and hold edible treats. Evidently this co-ed bathing was a custom at the time (but without the hats), although as portrayed in the film it looks like something out of Fellini. A similarly bizarre scene occurs during Catherine's visit to the Abbey, when a visit from the General's friend the Marchioness (an invented character who looks ridiculously like a harlequin) leads to a fantasy involving the Marchioness's young African servant leading Catherine outdoors, where she is rescued by Henry on a horse. Extremely weird.

The strangeness wasn't helped any by several design elements, in particular the music, hair, and costumes. The latter involved lots of bright colors, tons of ribbons, huge feathers, and a style that was entirely too baroque for the era. The hair was very '80s, with lots of feathers and curls (even, God help us, on blond Henry Tilney). And the music ... completely bizarre and out of character. I get that they were trying to enhance the Gothic mood, but when you hear electric guitar and keyboard during landscape scenes, or a saxophone during a romantic scene, or Gregorian chants during the bathing scenes, it just takes you entirely out of the Austen mood.

I think that was my main problem with this adaptation: it doesn't have the Austen mood. I'm not sure they understood that Austen's NA is a satire of Gothic novels, not a tribute to them. This version too often tried to re-create the Gothic atmosphere—even to the point of exaggerating both James Thorpe's and General Tilney's characters so that they seem genuinely threatening—but the whole point of NA is that Catherine is seeking the Gothic in a place where it doesn't exist. And the one scene in the novel that most closely resembles the Gothic—when John Thorpe"kidnaps" Catherine for a coach ride when she has promised the Tilneys a walk—is for some reason omitted in favor of her first ride, when all he does is go a little too fast.

Still, I don't want to leave the impression this adaptation wasn't any fun at all. The performances were pretty good, especially Peter Firth (no relation to P&P's Colin Firth) as Henry Tilney. Some scenes were spot on (despite the music), especially the one where Catherine finally gets her countryside walk with the Tilneys, and I liked how they fleshed out the final romantic declaration that Austen is frequently too modest to detail. There were many good uses of dialogue directly from the book, and even one phrase that I believe is original but sounded so like Austen I had to look it up to see. As the film opens, and Catherine's brother calls her away from her book, she tells him, "literature and solitude are as necessary to a young woman's development as sunshine is to ripe fruit." Now that is a sentiment I can fully agree with.

Photo of the Week--1/25/10

No pigeons in this picture, but I had to post it as an example of how you never know what a kid will latch onto when you travel. Boy was six during this trip to Germany, and he was fascinated by these little canals that threaded their way through the city of Freiburg. We visited in June, and in October he was still talking nonstop about how he was planning his own system of canals to cross our backyard, the neighborhood, the school.... I'm not sure what their purpose was supposed to be, I guess it was enough for them to look cool.

Janespotting: Northanger Abbey (Austen's original)

The holidays interrupted me, but finally I get to resume my examination of Austen and her imitators by moving onto her novel Northanger Abbey, which was published posthumously in 1818. Why skip over Mansfield Park and Emma? First of all, NA was actually the first novel Austen actually completed and sold for publication, although the bookseller who initially purchased it decided not to publish after all, and Austen's brother Edward ended up buying back the rights. (What a comfort to us aspiring authors: even Jane Austen had problems getting published.) Second, NA is one of my favorite Austen novels, for it's her funniest. It's a parody of the gothic fiction of the time, and there's more about writing and books in it than in any of her other works. On several occasions she defends novels and the writing of them:

I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding—joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. 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.

NA's heroine, Catherine Morland, is certainly not snobbish about novels; she devours Gothic romances like Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho with gusto. There's not much else for her to do at home in the country with her many brothers and sisters, but soon she's called to accompany her wealthy neighbors, the Allens, to Bath. Ah, Bath! Later, in Persuasion, Austen would portray this resort city as tiresome (as she herself found it), but in NA we see it full of all the fun and activity that would enchant a naive 17 year old: plays, shopping, and best of all, assemblies where one might make new acquaintances. Almost immediately Catherine makes the acquaintance of Henry Tilney, a young clergyman with a quirky wit who catches her fancy.

Not long afterward she befriends Isabella Thorpe, the daughter of one of Mrs. Allen's friends. Isabella is quick to claim her as a bosom friend, and introduces Catherine to her brother John, who is a bit crude and wild, but is also a friend of Catherine's brother James, so she tries to be polite. She would much rather spend time with Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor, but Isabella and James conspire to usurp Catherine's time, even going so far as to lie in order to get her to accompany them on a drive instead of a prior engagement with the Tilneys. (This "kidnapping" scene is just one of many that parodies typical events in a gothic novel.) Still, Catherine remains close to Isabella, especially after she announces her engagement to James.

Things start to head south in Bath after Isabella discovers that James's marriage settlement will be less than she imagined ... and she imagined quite a lot, it's clear from both her attitude and James's pursuit of Catherine. Catherine, of course, remains clueless to this, just as she doesn't realize that the Tilneys have extended an invitation to their home at Northanger Abbey because General Tilney, Eleanor and Henry's father, believes her to be an heiress. Catherine is excited about the trip to the Abbey, believing it will be just as full of atmosphere as the castles and monasteries of her Gothic favorites. Henry even teases her about it on the trip there:

How fearfully will you examine the furniture of your apartment! And what will you discern? Not tables, toilettes, wardrobes, or drawers, but on one side perhaps the remains of a broken lute, on the other a ponderous chest which no efforts can open, and over the fireplace the portrait of some handsome warrior, whose features will so incomprehensibly strike you, that you will not be able to withdraw your eyes from it.

Of course, after Catherine arrives she lets her imagination run away with her. She looks into a wardrobe only to find a laundry list, and misinterprets General Tilney's reluctance for her to see the late Mrs. Tilney's rooms as something sinister. When Henry catches her peeking into his mother's rooms and intuits her thinking, she is deeply ashamed. She also wises up about the Thorpe family, after Isabella throws over James for the wealthier Captain Tilney, and then writes Catherine to intercede with James after she discovers Tilney was only playing with her. Still, Catherine is puzzled when General Tilney suddenly comes home one day and abruptly orders her out, not realizing that the General has just discovered she isn't an heiress.

She returns home, sad and puzzled, and after a few days everything is resolved quickly, in true Gothic fashion: Henry visits, appalled by his father's behavior, and proposes; Eleanor own, previously unmentioned, suitor comes into money and a title and softens General Tilney's objections; and the Thorpes fade into obscurity.

With a typical happy ending, and a whole bunch of comic subversions of the Gothic genre, why isn't NA more of a favorite with readers? My best guess is that it's because Catherine Morland is a rather unexciting heroine. Although she's honest and sweet, she's naive, not particularly witty, and ignorant. Even Austen recognized Catherine's limitations:

though Henry was now sincerely attached to her, though he felt and delighted in all the excellencies of her character and truly loved her society, I must confess that his affection originated in nothing better than gratitude, or, in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought. It is a new circumstance in romance, I acknowledge, and dreadfully derogatory of an heroine's dignity; but if it be as new in common life, the credit of a wild imagination will at least be all my own.

Personally, I love reading Northanger Abbey; it makes me giggle, all those literary subversions. It even makes me curious about all those Gothic originals ... and I'll be reading those for future "Janespotting" installments, although first I'll be visiting some of the TV adaptations. Next up: the 1987 BBC/A&E movie.

Photo of the Week--1/18/10

Did the pigeons notice it when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989? After all, many city pigeons are too fat and lazy to fly, unless you chase them. Were there East Berlin pigeons dying to come over to the West, but were afraid of being used as target practice by the Wall guards? When we visited Berlin, in 2000, it was still a novelty for us adults, who grew up with a divided Germany. Boy, of course, didn't find a visit to Berlin unusual at all: the pigeons are still fat, they're still lazy, and they still need to be chased, even across long plazas like this one.

Wordless definitions: sun worshippers

Took this the other day, the umpteenth consecutive of sub-freezing temps, when the sun was shining in the window, promising heat and warmth. (Lying, lying sun!) I found all three of my cats indulging in the sun's rays, and I really wanted to join them for a little nap, but work called. Darn. Next time, though, I might not resist.

The Word Nerd Sez: Q is for ...

quantum

It's been shamefully long since my last Word Nerd entry, and I wish I could say it was because I was devoting myself to writing a quadrilogy, but I can't, since quadrilogy isn't even a word* and I wasn't writing one anyway. I did write an entire novel in November, as well as multiple business and biographical pieces throughout the fall, but not once during that time did I feel moved enough by the letter Q to examine a Q-word. It was a bit of a quandary, and I felt a few qualms about ignoring my Word Nerd duties, but I quashed them in order to keep working.**

Actually, I think my problem was in finding something interesting to say about a Q-word. Q words are so rare that we're familiar with most of them. (Maybe not quincunx, an arrangement of five things with four as the points of a rectangle and one in the center; try to make that in Scrabble!) To my rescue came an e-mail from A.Word.A.Day, a wonderful service that gives me a new word to contemplate at the beginning of every business day. The theme of the week was "words whose meanings have changed over time," and the word was quantum.

Quantum. Now there's a word with potential. Not only does it make me think of the most recent James Bond flick (Quantum of Solace) and thus the delectable Daniel Craig, but also about quantum physics and the uncertainty principle and not-dead-not-alive cats and all that craziness.*** And check out some of the meanings for quantum:

1. A quantity or amount; a portion.
2. A large amount. (think of the popular phrase quantum leap, for instance)
3. The smallest amount of something that can exist independently. (think of quantum physics, which investigates the smallest particles)

The word comes from the Latin quantus, meaning "how much/how great," and over time the meaning has come to answer that question with two opposites: "a whole lot," and "a teeny tiny bit." If you think about it, though, the phrase "quantum jump/leap" comes from physics, and means "an abrupt change or sudden increase," such as that of an electron from one energy state to another, sometimes skipping a stage between. That doesn't necessarily mean a huge change, but we've simplified the physics so that it means "a big change" rather than "a sudden change."

Ouch. My brain is starting to hurt, so I think I'll stop there, except to mention that the plural of quantum is quanta, and I hope to use that in an actual real-world sentence some day.

*A four-volume series is a tetralogy, sadly for the letter Q.
**And thank goodness I didn't use quandary or qualm, because both those word origins are "unknown," according to Webster's, and so they would have made for very short blog entries ... hey, now there's an idea!
***I read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time and it made my brain hurt, but it was a good hurt, like lifting weights.

Photo of the Week--1/11/10

I'm thinking we took this picture of Boy chasing pigeons in front of the Cologne Cathedral before we ascended its 509 steps, rather than after. At one point (from 1880-1884) the cathedral was the tallest structure in the world, until the Washington Monument was finished. The tower climb is almost 100 meters high and takes quite a long time, especially if you're accompanied by a 6 year old, so I'm pretty sure this photo was pre- and not post-climb. As I recall, it was a pretty warm day (close to 90F), which explains why neither Boy nor the pigeons are making a real effort. Still, I'm sure they were terrified.