This year it was my purpose to read all of Austen’s works – which I have been ignorant of in my first 26 years of life –, and was able to almost achieve my endeavour, having left for 2024 only Mansfield Park. 

 

In this exercise – which I admit was very heterodox – Northanger Abbey was my fourth novel. I believe the novel was not written for me – as most of them – and thus I don’t believe I had the proper tools to appreciate it. It is fun, at times mysterious, and the love and friendship story in it is quite engaging. As a comment on her own works and satire of the genre, it works perfectly. 

 

For me, it was a bit dry. Indeed, the first half of the novel is almost uninteresting. The dynamism of the second does not entirely compensate for it.