Northanger Abbey - My thoughts on Catherine Morland

Oh dear... here I go again.

So, although I enjoy Jane Austen (most of the time), Northanger Abbey is one of those books that I can't read without wanting to rip out pages.

Reason?

Catherine!!!

She is such a...a...NINNY!

Her actions have my emotions swinging from embarrassment to mortification at some of the stuff she gets up to and even anger at her stupidity.

I know that Jane Austen wrote Northanger Abbey as a way to poke some fun at the stereotypical gothic-horror-romance of the day but I cannnot help but wonder if she was trying to poke fingers at the irritatingly naive character of Catherine at the same time - I suppose I will have to read some of the novels mentioned in by Catherine and Isabelle to see if the female leads are like that in them. Or maybe she was saying that if you let your kid read these novels they will loose the ability to think with anything but their imagination and their brains will turn to mush...?

I haven't read any studies on Jane Austen's work (I will have to work on that) so I do not know exactly what the common thought is for what she was trying to say... (answers on a postcard if you know)

Anyway, back to Catherine.

Who goes nosying around someone else house? Especially when this someone isn't exactly someone who you have know for an extended period of time. Seriously, who in their right mind does that!!!! Some who is very rude I think! (Or if you are going to do that at least  wait until everyone else has been abducted by aliens and are too bust being experimented on to try and find you. Don't get yourself caught!)

I also find her to be quite insensitive in the way that she needs to know everything about EVERYTHING that is going on.

She is definitely not one of my favourite Austen heroines.

In fact, this is another Austen book where the supporting character are my favourite.

Mr and Mrs Allen are at the top of my 'people I like' list for this book.