Ch. 4
If we're continuing to think about how uneventful and unlike a book Catherine's life is, this meeting between Mrs. Allen and Mrs. Thorpe falls right in line. There ther are, sitting on a bench, not talking, kind of eyeing each other, and finally Mrs. Thorpe kind of recognizes Mrs. Allen. (And, mind you, this is no coincidental meeting the moment they arrived in Bath--Mrs. Allen has been sitting around for days wishing she knew someone there. That kind of dead air isn't usually allowed in fiction.)
Catherine met Mr. Tilney in the most run-of-the-mill way possible--being introduced as dancing partners by a guy whose whole job is to introduce people as dancing partners--and now she gets a friend in a similarly dull fashion.
Here's a great example of why I love Austen: She describes Mrs. Thorpe and Mrs. Allen as "talking both together, far more ready to give than to receive information, and each hearing very little of what the other said" (62). Austen has this way of presenting the facts of a situation in a way that gets right at the heart of human interaction; her use of understatement is one of my favorite things about her books. (I also love her quiet sarcasm: "Catherine was delighted at this extension of her Bath acquaintance, and almost forgot Mr. Tilney while she talked to Miss Thorpe. Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love" (64.) Her feelings for Isabella can hardly be called friendship at this point, just as her feelings for Mr. Tilney can hardly be called love, but certainly as readers we expect those things--and Catherine probably does too.)
Ch. 5
Isabella, it seems, is better schooled in the arts and sciences of being a heroine: she drops a strong hint about being into clergy, and even punctuates it with a sigh, but sweet dopey Catherine doesn't pick up her cue to harass Isabella into giving up her carefully not-so-guarded secret.
"Alas! if the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard?" (p. 72) Oh, Jane Austen, I love you so. She's rolling her eyes at the prevailing notion that novels were somehow shameful, immoral, frivolous, etc--which, you know, has not gone away. These days, the target of that kind of hand-wringing and pearl-clutching is usually commercial YA lit (or New Adult, or chick lit), but the essential idea is the same: "This writing is newly popular, especially with women--young women! Something must be wrong with it!" Ironically, many of the people railing against YA or whatever category of modern writing they find irksome will lament that people aren't reading the great literature of Austen, Dickens, et al.--which of course, in their time, was considered to be fluffy popular entertainment. </soapbox> This novel does, of course, parody and critique other novels, but I have to view it as coming from a place of love rather than hate. You can love a thing and still see what's laughable about it, or what could be improved, and I think that's the stance this novel is taking (at least so far.)
Ch. 6
"I do not pretend to say that I was not very much pleased with [Mr. Tilney]; but while I have Udolpho to read, I feel as if nobody could make me miserable" (84). This may be Catherine's biggest failing as a heroine and I have to say I've never loved her more. "Yeah, he was cute, but whatever--I have a book to read."
In contrast, Isabella spends the whole chapter talking about men: Mr. Tilney, the mysterious sallow-complected man in front of whom Catherine must not reveal her secret ("Huh?" thinks Catherine), and finally the two men in the pump room who bother her so much she drags Catherine all over town in pursuit of them. (Hey, sometimes a lady has to make her own meet-cute!)
Ch. 7
"He was a stout young man of middling height, who, with a plain face and ungrateful form, seemed fearful of being too handsome unless he wore the dress of a groom, and too much like a gentleman unless he were easy where he ought to be civil, and impudent where he might be allowed to be easy" (92). I can't even count the burns in this sentence. Basically: John Thorpe, who could charitably be described as "average", thinks he's so hot that he must dress that badly and behave that rudely in order to spare the world from the debilitating effects of his hotness (because how else could you possibly explain his awful clothes and manners?) DANG, Jane Austen.
Also, it will probably not surprise you to learn that, unless his carriage was being pulled by the horses of Apollo himself, he did not go ten miles an hour from anywhere to anywhere. He will prove to be, consistently and without remorse, full of...it. You know, beans. Baloney. Garbage. Ahem.
John Thorpe is the worst, Part 572: "'Ah, mother! how do you do?" said he, giving her a hearty shake of his the hand: 'where did you get that quiz of a hat, it makes you look like and old witch?'...On his two younger sisters he then bestowed an equal portion of his fraternal tenderness, for he asked each of them how they did, and observed that they both looked very ugly" (102-104.)
Ch. 8
Back to the running commentary on how this is NOT a typical rom-com: Catherine sees Mr. Tilney with a woman on his arm and does NOT freak out! (Seriously: this has never happened, before or since, in a story with a romance. The heroine always, always assumes that the Other Woman is a romantic one. Every. Time.)
My Takeaways:
Mr. John Thorpe: the man I love to hate! I can't get enough of Mr. Thorpe (ok, that's not true: a few chapters from now, I know from experience, I will wish he didn't exist) and the unending fountain of awfulness Austen draws on in her characterization of him. He's like Michael Scott meets Gilderoy Lockhart.
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Vocab/Clarifications:
Ch. 4
quizzes (p. 64)--strange or unusual people
Apparently the last paragraph of the chapter is a send-up of the way certain novels of the time took whole chapters to have characters talk about very specific moral lessons or political issues; while a lot of what Austen is parodying here (like Very Special Perfect Heroines or the over-the-top series of events that tend to befall them) still seems fairly relevant and recognizable, this is pretty specific to the time and I wouldn't have known what she was doing without the annotations in my book (66-67).
Ch. 5
Going to the theatre used to be a very different experience. People are always going to the theatre in Austen's books (and other books set around the same time and even a bit later) but they almost never pay any attention to what's onstage. Instead, they paid attention to the other audience members! (I'm sure some people went to the theatre to see the plays but that would make for fairly dull reading, so characters usually don't.)
Ch. 6
Udolpho (p. 78)--The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe. Here's the full text if you're curious, but I have it on good authority that it's quite a slog by modern standards. At the time, though, this was basically Twilight (in fact, there is a recent adaptation of Northanger Abbey in which the main character is a Twihard, so let's go with that.) It's creepy and gothic and fairly ridiculous, and a lot of adults were convinced it was the end of the world because it was those things and popular all at once.
Ch. 7
devoirs (p. 92)--respects (to "pay your respects" is to pay your devoirs") or duty to someone
Catherine accidentally indicates that she might like to go for a ride in John Thorpe's two-person carriage, and then finds herself "in some distress, from a doubt of the propriety of accepting such an offer" (100). She's right: this is a big no-no. A young, unmarried man and a young, unmarried woman had no business driving around by themselves. (Even in this day and age, it raises eyebrows: twice when I was in high school or college, I was in a car with a guy at night and had to interact with the police. The first time my friend got pulled over for driving like an idiot and the cop clearly thought I was being kidnapped or held against my will or something fishy because he questioned us for ages; the second time my friend and I parked in the airport observation lot to chat and watch the planes and an officer kicked us out because it was too late and the lot was closed but his knowing smirk even after he asked us, bizarrely, if we were an item, showed us exactly what he thought was going on.) But in a society where you basically needed a chaperone to go to the bathroom, this was right out.
While I haven't read Udolpho, I have read both Tom Jones and The Monk--John Thorpe's favorite novels. Tom Jones I kind of loved--it's actually really funny in parts (still!) and it's also surprisingly bawdy for the time (which is surely what Mr. Thorpe enjoys about it!). The Monk is hands-down the creepiest, most twisted book I've ever read. I don't remember a lot of the plot, I think because it melted my brain, but I know there was violence and incest involved. And...magic, maybe? Ghosts? The devil? I remember my overwhelming impression being "This is bananapants, how does this exist." What I think is most significant about this exchange between Catherine and Mr. Thorpe, though, is how jerky he is about her asking if he's read Udolpho. "Udolpho! Oh, Lord! not I; I never read novels; I have something else to do" (100). And then he goes on to make exceptions for novels that it's practically rude even to mention to a lady (although he's already cussed in front of her, so that ship has sailed.)
Ch. 8
The impenetrable world of Edwardian dance! Ok, so, Mr. Thorpe had asked Catherine in advance if she would dance with him. This is a pretty official agreement, like making plans to do something with someone (at least if you're a decent sort of person like Catherine is.) He blows her off by coming in late for the dancing, so Isabella (after a whole three minutes of holding out till Catherine has a partner) and James go up to dance without Catherine. This puts them in a different "set", or group of dancers, because the dances we're talking about are elaborate group dances rather than the couples-holding-onto-each-other ballroom dancing that came somewhat later. Then Mr. Tilney comes along and asks Catherine to dance--but since she's already given her word to Mr. Thorpe, she has to say no (well, at least according to the principles of polite behavior.) She rather regrets the decision to agree to dance with Mr. Thorpe, for all of these reasons and because he is a terrible conversationalist.
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