NORTHANGER ABBEY CONCLUSION

I finally finished Northanger Abbey and I really like this book. It is an in-depth look into what life was like in the 1800's like many of her novels. The characters converse about the novels they have or haven't read and they come to the conclusion that life is rarely like a novel.All the symbols of the gothic novel are disrupted here. Catherine, the main character continually sees and misinterprets Gothic symbols: an old chest, a mysterios manuscript, a secret passageway...

The abbey activates Catherine imagination and she mistakes fiction for reality

As a reader, I haven't been at all disapointed by the evolution of the plot. I particularly enjoy the interventions of the narrator into the story to clarify anything that could lead to missundertandings. I have always loved happy endings so the ending of this novel is predictable but quite good.

You can find interesting information about this book here and here.

My next book was going to be Mysteries of Udolpho; however, I have been convinced by my sister that before approaching the world of Gothic I should read Neil Gaiman's Stardust. She's just read the novel and she had a good time so I have started Stardust. It's quite different to Austen but I'm having fun. So, now I'm entering the lands of Faerie

Faerie, after all, is not one land, one principality or dominion. Maps of Faerie are unreliable, and may not be depended upon.
We talk of the kings and queens of Faerie as we would speak of the kings and queens of England. But Faerie is bigger than England, as it is bigger than the world (for, since the dawn of time, each land that has been forced off the map by explorers and the brave going out and proving it wasn’t there has taken refuge in Faerie; so it is now, by the time that we come to write of it, a most huge place indeed, containing every manner of landscape and terrain).

Here, truly, there be Dragons. Also gryphons, wyverns, hippogriffs, basilisks, and hydras. There are all manner of more familiar animals as well, cats affectionate and aloof, dogs noble and cowardly, wolves and foxes, eagles and bears.

Extract from Neil Gaiman's Stardust

The novel starts with this beautiful poem from John Donne.