30 day book meme: Day 13
Jul. 9th, 2019 07:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoe13. Makes me laugh.
I was thinking of Jane Austen this morning, because the book I've just started reading (Our Village by Mary Russell Mitford, very good so far!) mentions her, highly correctly, as an example of enjoyable writing. All of her books are at least a little bit funny, of course, but I think Northanger Abbey makes me laugh the most, and in the most different ways: laughter at Austen's jokes, laughter at her satire on the current state of and attitudes towards literature (I'm not now, nor was I when I first read the book, very familiar with eighteenth-century Gothic novels, but the general points Austen is making are perfectly clear, and plenty applicable, even without that context), familiar 'oh yes, I know that feeling' laughter at the characters' thoughts on books, affectionate laughter at Catherine's overactive imagination, delighted laughter when the characters finally get their deserved happy ending, etc. It's not my favourite of Jane Austen's books (that's the much gloomier Mansfield Park), but I think it's the most enjoyable.
I was thinking of Jane Austen this morning, because the book I've just started reading (Our Village by Mary Russell Mitford, very good so far!) mentions her, highly correctly, as an example of enjoyable writing. All of her books are at least a little bit funny, of course, but I think Northanger Abbey makes me laugh the most, and in the most different ways: laughter at Austen's jokes, laughter at her satire on the current state of and attitudes towards literature (I'm not now, nor was I when I first read the book, very familiar with eighteenth-century Gothic novels, but the general points Austen is making are perfectly clear, and plenty applicable, even without that context), familiar 'oh yes, I know that feeling' laughter at the characters' thoughts on books, affectionate laughter at Catherine's overactive imagination, delighted laughter when the characters finally get their deserved happy ending, etc. It's not my favourite of Jane Austen's books (that's the much gloomier Mansfield Park), but I think it's the most enjoyable.
