Released in March
this year, McDermid’s take on Northanger
Abbey takes Catherine (now Cat) Morland out of the Bath winter season of
balls and into the Edinburgh Fringe festival. She is constantly on twitter and
facebook, and finds a lack of wi-fi to be definite proof of vampirism. And
rather than being obsessed with the eighteenth century gothic of Mrs Radcliffe,
she is obsessed with Twilight. It is, perhaps like all things related to Jane
Austen, great fun.
Yet, strangely
enough, I have to make the opposite complaint of McDermid’s Northanger Abbey than I made of
Trollope’s Sense and Sensibility. I
absolutely and thoroughly loved and enjoyed Trollope’s adaptation, but
objectively I didn’t really think it worked in a modern framework – or at
least, not in the modern framework Trollope used. With Northanger Abbey I found the opposite. Objectively I think the
novel works far better than Sense and
Sensibility. McDermid’s modern adaptation is, for me, much more convincing,
aside from a few moments I’ll talk about later. Still, I’m not I enjoyed it
quite as much. I didn’t sit glued to my sofa reading and grinning for hours on
end as I did with Trollope’s new Austen. Although of course that’s not to say I
didn’t still love it, because any Austen plotline is probably bound to win me
over.
I’m not entirely
sure why I didn’t like it as much as Sense
and Sensibility. Perhaps I just don’t like the original Austen plot as much
to begin with. I find Catherine (in both the original and the modern version) a
little bit irritating. Her naivety makes her a little harder to sympathise
with, then, say, Eleanor from Sense and
Sensibility. Likewise, Henry Tilney has never been my favourite Austen
hero, and I found the modern Henry quite patronising, and at times almost
verging on sexist. I imagine most of the bits where he cites silliness and an
overactive imagination as solely feminine traits are taken from the original,
but I still didn’t completely like him. I think I found less characters to
sympathise with in Northanger Abbey
than in Sense and Sensibility (the
main exception being Eleanor Tilney, who is wonderful), but I think that’s
probably my fault rather than either McDermid’s or Austen’s.
As with Sense and Sensibility – as with any
modern rewriting of a nineteenth century novel – engagements are a problem. I
liked how McDermid fixed this issue at the end of the novel, but this doesn’t
change the problem of Isabella Thorpe and her relationships. The fact simply is
that people nowadays are far, far less likely to get engaged in a matter of
months, then alone a matter of days. Isabella’s engagements, more than any
other aspect of the plot of this Northanger
Abbey, struck me as entirely ridiculous, and mostly unnecessary. Apologies
for the spoilers ahead, but I imagine after a novel’s been about for
two-hundred years you’ll just have to forgive me.
I can just about
understand why McDermid decided to still have Isabella get engaged to James,
even though I personally think it would have worked just as well to have them
going out and her wanting to move in with him. It might have worked well in
fact if James’s parents objected to James’s and Bella’s engagement on the basis
of their age. After all, Bella is only eighteen or nineteenth, and nowadays
this is very very young to get married. Yet why McDermid chose to also make Bella
think herself engaged to Freddie is entirely beyond me. That was unnecessary,
and entirely unbelievable. It is surely impossible than anyone nowadays (no, not
even Isabella Thorpe) would take seriously and then accept a proposal from
someone they had known for about two weeks. Besides, it isn’t really necessary
for the plot that Bella’s a golddigger; all that’s needed – which would have
translated perfectly to the modern day – is for her to cheat on James, and in
general be careless, inconstant and selfish. Were marriage taken out of the
equation it would be far more realistic, and James would still be heartbroken.
The other slight
problem (again, one that I imagine every writer doing the Austen Project will
find) is that there are far fewer “ladies of leisure” any more. Obviously Cat
is only seventeen, but the fact that she has been nothing for a year since she
finished her GCSEs seems strange to me. Even if it had been casually mentioned that
she’d tried and failed or dropped AS levels it would have made more sense.
Still, I love the idea of making Cat homeschooled. An automatic update would
send her to school, but her naivety (both about vampires and about men) was far
better explained this way.
I must admit I got
quite annoyed by the text speak in the novel. Yes, people text now, but the
only people I know who write in text speak (as in, how R U?) are either under
fifteen or over fifty. For one thing, I think a lot of people have accepted now
that it’s a bit silly, and for another, now that most people (including the
characters) have smart phones with touch screen full keyboards, it’s quicker
and easier to write full words that your phone’s dictionary will recognise. I
can just about forgive the choice to make Cat and Bella write in text speak,
because they’re teenagers and both supposed to be rather childish, but there is
absolutely no way that either James, a trainee lawyer, or Ellie, who seems very
sensible and is said to talk in an old-fashioned way, would use text speak. A
minor point, perhaps, but it did annoy me. Maybe that’s just because I value
good grammar.
I shall now cease
my complaining, and go on to praise McDermid’s Northanger Abbey as it deserves to be praised.
The setting was a
brilliant idea. The Edinburgh Fringe festival is probably about as close to a
fashionable city “season” as we have today. The quantity of events, the sheer
busyness, the concentration of people and the strange likelihood of meeting
people you know – it all translates wonderfully. The presence of ceilidhs even
allows McDermid to keep the ball scenes from the original somewhat intact,
while still making them realistic, which was lovely. Throughout the Edinburgh
scenes McDermid creates a brilliant atmosphere, and one very akin to Austen’s
original Bath one. I thought this was very well done. Oh, and it also really
made me want to go to the Edinburgh festival, which is probably a good sign.
I absolutely loved
all the in-jokes and Austen references, the casual, ‘this wasn’t some
Sunday-evening period drama’, and dropping into sentences references to ‘Jane
Austen heroines’. It was beautifully self-conscious.
Also, it would be
unfair to say I never sympathised with Cat and Henry. There were a few lovely
scenes between them. I particularly enjoyed how the original conversation of
what-will-you-write-in-your-diary-about-me? became
what-will-you-post-on-facebook-about-me? This really made me smile. I thought
John (now Johnny) Thorpe was done very well, even though I imagine a modern day
John Thorpe might have been a bit more forward and a bit more suggestive that
he was here. The updated Bella worked well (except for, as I said, the engagements)
and, as with the original, Eleanor Tilney emerged as my favourite character.
The altered reason
for General Tilney’s turn against Cat is a stroke of genius. Sheer brilliance.
It’s so clever, and means that McDermid manages to avoid (as Trollope didn’t)
fairly outdated values with regards to wealth. I spent most of the novel
wondering how McDermid was going to update this aspect of the plot, and was
very pleasantly surprised.
All in all, I did
enjoy Northanger Abbey, and
ultimately I think the modernisation works well. It was a thoroughly lovely
book, and good fun. And again, it made me want to go back and reread all of
Austen.
I await the next
instalment of the Austen Project with great excitement.
Greatest
strength: The
setting and general atmosphere was all in all very strong. I also thought
McDermid had some great ideas for updating the novel.
Greatest
weakness: The
few weak plot points I mentioned, especially the many engagements of Isabella
Thorpe.
Let’s
finish on a quote: The furniture was
surprisingly modern, and although the General gave her a blow-by-blow account
of each piece and its designer, Cat could not have been less interested. If he
was trying to put her off the scent, he’d failed. She’d seen the Twilight films
and she knew you could have the latest in designer clothes and furniture and
still be a vampire. You didn’t have to wear period costume and live in a
museum.
Next week: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
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