Book reviews from the library
What’s this? Northanger Abbey, the Fringe Festival, and Facebook? Yes, you heard (read) right. As part of the Austen Project, Val McDermid has written a modernisation of Jane Austen’s classic. I read this in the week after Christmas, and since I really enjoyed it, I think it merits three thumbs-up out of five.
McDermid’s take on the classic is silly and hilarious. Bath, the ultra-fashionable place to be for Georgian ladies and gents, becomes the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and seventeen year old Catherine Morland reads Twilight instead of The Mysteries of Udolpho. This makes for wonderfully lighthearted, funny reading -John Thorpe, the consummate boor, brays about his car rather than carriage- but at times it’s a bit too vapid. When the description of Cat’s dress at a ball is so lovingly detailed, (sleek, shiny, catches the light just perfectly so the hero of the novel can gaze at her admiringly from across the room, people fall swooning- you get the idea) I wonder whether McDermid is, like Austen did, trying to mock social expectations and values, or if the superficiality is unintentional.
All the characters are very true to the original; for instance, Bella and John Thorpe are deliciously dislikeable; Henry Tilney is dashing and gallant, and Cat is the mildly frustrating if accurately depicted fluff-headed teen. The plot is closely mirrored, bar one bizarre alteration which sees a character accused of homosexuality rather than poverty, but the novel was on the whole faithful. Having been to the Edinburgh Festival before, I loved McDermid’s exciting presentation of it and, despite the unrealistic teen-girl-speak which I think any reader here may find slightly distracting, I would happily recommend it to any High School girl. Admittedly it has little real substance, but, funny and lighthearted, it’s a nice indulgent read. And if it makes you want to read the original, which I really hope it does, then even better!
The Library at LHS 