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A review by katykelly
Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid
4.0
I've never read a Val McDermid. I have though, read every Jane Austen. The Austen Project fascinates me, as I've loved many of the cinematic adaptations created from her novels (Clueless being my favourite) and love seeing how contemporary writers/directors use her words and stories. Without any knowledge of McDermid's work though, if her fans are expecting her usual voice and style to shine through, I think you may be disappointed. It's not a McDermid book.
By that, I don't mean that this book is disappointing. Far from it. Simply that it's written in the style of Austen as far as possible in a modern context and follows the plot of the original exceptionally closely (with contemporary adaptations. More on those shortly).
And anyone reading this who's not a fan of Jane Austen, don't stop now thinking this isn't for you. It's a well-told story with humour, romance and a (small) touch of mystery.
I decided to read the original directly before starting this, so it was fresh in my mind as I sped through the new version. Northanger Abbey was never in my mind one of Austen's most accomplished novels, with a slightly too naive heroine, but with wit evident and a nice romantic element.
McDermid has clearly thought hard on how to update every element and I think she did a marvellous job in making this 200-year-old book accessible and fresh, while keeping so closely to the original.
To summarise, Catherine Morland, daughter of a working-class vicar and his wife is invited to the Edinburgh festival by wealthy family friends. Feeling lost among strangers, she indulges in imaginative bouts, enjoying outlandish vampire stories. She is befriended by the charming Bella Thorpe and her overpowering brother Johnny, who both try and commandeer Cat away from another pair of siblings, the much more likeable Ellie Tilney and her witty brother Henry. Eventually, Cat is invited to the Tilney home, the gothic abbey of the title, where her imagination runs riot with vampiric plots revolving around the Tilneys' dead mother and their brusque and cold father, General Tilney.
All of this could be straight out of a contemporary Young Adult story. Which just goes to show how applicable some of our classic authors are.
I found Cat herself more likeable than in the original, she's less annoyingly innocent (though still slow to catch on at times). Henry makes a wonderful (if still underused) love interest. He's not meant to be Darcy - he's younger, and a second son with an overbearing father, but still someone you can develop a crush on. Bella and Ellie are very much as they are in Austen's writing, one all sweetness and the other all hypocrisy. Minor characters that are there to turn the plot. My favourite is still Johnny - deliciously arrogant and someone you want to punch. Very well updated - the love for his horse replaced by a love of fast sports cars.
In the original, Cat is a gothic fiction obsessive, so to make her equivalent a vampire/horror fan seemed appropriate, though still of course very silly in a 17-year-old!
I liked the substitution of Edinburgh for Bath. Bath has less cultural significance today, and McDermid has managed to get a lot of comedy out of the shows and setting of this Scottish city.
Austen's language and words are cleverly woven into the book, closely enough that conversations are the same in direction and content, though this does leave the current author's voice absent. But if this considered a piece of fan fiction it's very well done.
I think I caught an authorial 'dig' or two though, a short rant against poets: "the more obscure their verse, the more praise they appear to garner" as well as other snippets of her own thoughts popping out. Enjoyed those.
Where McDermid changes something vital for me is in making Austen's subtlety vanish - telling us explicitly things we can infer, telling us what Cat hasn't noticed. Not letting us spot these things ourselves. Didn't like that aspect. It's part of Austen's dig at characters' flaws that I really like.
I also wasn't happy with the reason for Cat's sudden departure from one location (no spoilers here!) - while I can see that a change had to be made to the original to make sense today, this change shocked me somewhat and felt wrong. See if you agree with me.
The contemporary references to wi-fi, 'selfies' and Twitter will help readers feel at home in this story. Harry Potter, Julia Donaldson and Jane Austen herself are all referenced. Some readers won't understand the joke about Mrs Danvers though. She's made it feel very current.
All-in-all, I loved it. Very well constructed out of the bones of Austen's original. Faithful to the tone, character and message. For students studying Northanger Abbey, reading this alongside it will bring up a wealth of discussion points on modernising classics and the differences in society that have taken place. For those of us reading for pure pleasure, you'll find a lot of that here, and I hope if you've never tried Austen that Val encourages you to do so.
Review of a Netgalley advance copy.
By that, I don't mean that this book is disappointing. Far from it. Simply that it's written in the style of Austen as far as possible in a modern context and follows the plot of the original exceptionally closely (with contemporary adaptations. More on those shortly).
And anyone reading this who's not a fan of Jane Austen, don't stop now thinking this isn't for you. It's a well-told story with humour, romance and a (small) touch of mystery.
I decided to read the original directly before starting this, so it was fresh in my mind as I sped through the new version. Northanger Abbey was never in my mind one of Austen's most accomplished novels, with a slightly too naive heroine, but with wit evident and a nice romantic element.
McDermid has clearly thought hard on how to update every element and I think she did a marvellous job in making this 200-year-old book accessible and fresh, while keeping so closely to the original.
To summarise, Catherine Morland, daughter of a working-class vicar and his wife is invited to the Edinburgh festival by wealthy family friends. Feeling lost among strangers, she indulges in imaginative bouts, enjoying outlandish vampire stories. She is befriended by the charming Bella Thorpe and her overpowering brother Johnny, who both try and commandeer Cat away from another pair of siblings, the much more likeable Ellie Tilney and her witty brother Henry. Eventually, Cat is invited to the Tilney home, the gothic abbey of the title, where her imagination runs riot with vampiric plots revolving around the Tilneys' dead mother and their brusque and cold father, General Tilney.
All of this could be straight out of a contemporary Young Adult story. Which just goes to show how applicable some of our classic authors are.
I found Cat herself more likeable than in the original, she's less annoyingly innocent (though still slow to catch on at times). Henry makes a wonderful (if still underused) love interest. He's not meant to be Darcy - he's younger, and a second son with an overbearing father, but still someone you can develop a crush on. Bella and Ellie are very much as they are in Austen's writing, one all sweetness and the other all hypocrisy. Minor characters that are there to turn the plot. My favourite is still Johnny - deliciously arrogant and someone you want to punch. Very well updated - the love for his horse replaced by a love of fast sports cars.
In the original, Cat is a gothic fiction obsessive, so to make her equivalent a vampire/horror fan seemed appropriate, though still of course very silly in a 17-year-old!
I liked the substitution of Edinburgh for Bath. Bath has less cultural significance today, and McDermid has managed to get a lot of comedy out of the shows and setting of this Scottish city.
Austen's language and words are cleverly woven into the book, closely enough that conversations are the same in direction and content, though this does leave the current author's voice absent. But if this considered a piece of fan fiction it's very well done.
I think I caught an authorial 'dig' or two though, a short rant against poets: "the more obscure their verse, the more praise they appear to garner" as well as other snippets of her own thoughts popping out. Enjoyed those.
Where McDermid changes something vital for me is in making Austen's subtlety vanish - telling us explicitly things we can infer, telling us what Cat hasn't noticed. Not letting us spot these things ourselves. Didn't like that aspect. It's part of Austen's dig at characters' flaws that I really like.
I also wasn't happy with the reason for Cat's sudden departure from one location (no spoilers here!) - while I can see that a change had to be made to the original to make sense today, this change shocked me somewhat and felt wrong. See if you agree with me.
The contemporary references to wi-fi, 'selfies' and Twitter will help readers feel at home in this story. Harry Potter, Julia Donaldson and Jane Austen herself are all referenced. Some readers won't understand the joke about Mrs Danvers though. She's made it feel very current.
All-in-all, I loved it. Very well constructed out of the bones of Austen's original. Faithful to the tone, character and message. For students studying Northanger Abbey, reading this alongside it will bring up a wealth of discussion points on modernising classics and the differences in society that have taken place. For those of us reading for pure pleasure, you'll find a lot of that here, and I hope if you've never tried Austen that Val encourages you to do so.
Review of a Netgalley advance copy.