There's Got to Be a Better Version

Have you read Northanger Abbey?

If you are not a fan of Jane Austen, you probably have no idea what I'm referring to. And even for those who have read Pride & Prejudice and enjoyed it, many still have never heard of (or read) NA. There's a good reason for it: it was Jane Austen's first novel written as an adult, though it wasn't published until after she died. It's radically different from her other novels in style and subject. Well, it's set in the early 1800's, and there is a heroine who falls in love, and silly people abound, but that's pretty much it. NA was written as a satire of the popular Gothic novel, and so a lot of the humor only makes sense if you have any experience with what Gothic novels were like. Plus, it is her first real novel, and so it isn't written half so well as some of her later books. (Though I would count my lucky stars if I could write as well as even that!)

Well, in Northanger Abbey, the main character is Catherine, kind of a silly, naive girl who goes away from home for the first time. She is a lover of the Gothic stories, and she kind of mixes up reality with fiction. Most of the humor in the book comes from listening to people all over the place tell Catherine the dumbest things, and she believes them. And even when she meets the hero, Henry Tilney, she can't make heads or tails of the clever things he says most of the time.

Since I am a lover of nearly all things Jane Austen, I introduced my husband to the movies made from the books a long time ago. Over time, we've seen every version of every book we could get our hands on, and we've enjoyed nearly all of them (though we always have our favorites.) Just recently I managed to get my hands on a copy of a BBC version of NA, and Terence actually watched it before I did.

"I don't understand this movie at all," he told me in the morning. "Is the book this confusing too?"

Of course, I hadn't actually seen the movie yet, so when I sorted laundry I put it on, thinking that Terence was probably just a little confused and I would be able to help him figure it out.

Yeah, right! This had to be the absolute worst adaptation of a Jane Austen novel I've ever seen! Besides the gothic daydreams they inserted that verged on gory (I had to send B out of the room), I couldn't make sense of it half the time! I felt like Catherine myself, listening to people but never being quite sure what they were getting at. That made the humor, such as it was, fall flat nearly every time. Above all, the hero was quite repulsive. He was not handsome in any sense, and worse, his lines made him seem callous and manipulative. Terence couldn't figure out he was supposed to be the "good" guy, and it wasn't hard to see why. Then I learned that the part of the hero Henry was played by the same guy who directed the movie. Ewww. Maybe he couldn't get a leading role any other way? Of course, I won't pretend to understand British taste, so maybe he was the hot thing at the time. But still . . . if you like Jane Austen movies, and you are tempted to branch out a bit, avoid the Peter Firth version of Northanger Abbey like the plague!!!!