Northanger Abbey: “Once More, With Feeling”
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It's our traditional book wrap-up episode, where we reminisce, give advice, and get a little tipsy – now with some unplanned additional reading recommendations?
Show Notes
Dear listeners…we have somehow already come to the end of Northanger Abbey. We know, we’re in denial, too.
If you are too anxious to listen to this episode to discover our plans, fear not — we are coming back! We’ll be taking a short break in 2024 so that Emily can finish their dissertation with minimal distractions. It will also help us to focus on some general Life Things that will be a bit easier to accomplish without the hours we dedicate to the podcast each month. But we love this too much to give it up, and there’s still so much Austen content that we can cover. So while this episode means that we have officially completed the (published, official) Austen canon, it doesn’t mean that the podcast is over.
If you emailed or tweeted at us or asked in a comment what was next — thank you for asking, and thank you for caring. It means the world to us that people enjoy the podcast enough to want it to keep going.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been three years since we posted our first episode (and over three since we started the process of planning the podcast in the first place). We’re so incredibly proud of the little corner of the Austen community we’ve become a part of and hopefully, at least in part, helped to create.
But before we get too sappy…we still have one more episode to go before the break, and if you’ve been here awhile, you know it’s our crowd participation episode! If you’re reading this before January 7, 2024, you’re in luck. Submit your wildest topic for us to connect to Jane Austen in the comments of this post (wayyyy below the transcript) or on your social media of choice for a chance for us to connect it on the next “6 Degrees of Jane Austen” episode.
Until then…see ya next time, nerds.
Transcript
Emily Davis-Hale 0:05
This is Reclaiming Jane, an Austen podcast for fans on the margins.
Lauren Wethers 0:08
I'm Lauren Wethers.
Emily Davis-Hale 0:09
And I'm Emily Davis-Hale.
Lauren Wethers 0:11
And today, we're reflecting on Northanger Abbey and giving questionable advice to a few select characters.
Emily Davis-Hale 0:43
Folks, this is it, we have reached the final episode of our six novels.
Lauren Wethers 0:49
Oh my god.
Emily Davis-Hale 0:51
This is this is the end of what our original concept for Reclaiming Jane was.
Lauren Wethers 0:55
This was born out of pandemic boredom in 2020. And look how far we've come.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:00
But it all started with a text that said, "Hear me out. What if?" Look at us now.
Lauren Wethers 1:06
This has been a wild three year ride.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:08
It really has been.
Lauren Wethers 1:09
And almost exactly three years, like three years and two weeks, as of the date of recording, not the date of release, but still.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:15
But we're delighted to be here.
Lauren Wethers 1:17
Yes, thank you for coming with us on this journey. And no matter when you joined us on the path, we're glad that you're here and that you shared part of it with us because it's been really special.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:26
If this is the first episode you're listening to, then I have some questions about how you came to make that decision. But still welcome.
Lauren Wethers 1:34
Glad you're here.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:35
Thank you for being here. Buckle up. Yeah, it's gonna be a wild episode. So the the book wrap up episode is traditionally the one that we do a little bit tipsy. The tipsyness will increase throughout the episode because we're -- we're being really fancy today, we're drinking scotch.
Lauren Wethers 1:54
So we will have something to sip on so that by the time we get to questionable advice for the characters. We can be a little looser lipped than we may have been otherwise.
Emily Davis-Hale 2:04
Absolutely.
Lauren Wethers 2:05
Which makes it so much more fun.
Emily Davis-Hale 2:07
It really does. All right. Well, we're done with Northanger Abbey. I know now both of us have read all six of Jane Austen's completed novels.
Lauren Wethers 2:18
Multiple times, or just once, multiple times for Pride and Prejudice for both of us.
Emily Davis-Hale 2:23
Oh, yeah.
Lauren Wethers 2:23
And I'm curious if there are any of Austen's novels that you are eager to reread, or would like to reread now that you've now read all six?
Emily Davis-Hale 2:32
I think I mean, aside from the fact that obviously, I will continue reading Pride and Prejudice because the I think the ones I'm most eager to reread are Persuasion and Northanger Abbey.
Lauren Wethers 2:43
Ooh, okay. Why?
Emily Davis-Hale 2:45
They just like, they hit me the hardest in completely different ways. We talked a lot in our Persuasion finale about it being like the most mature of the novels. But Northanger just has such a different, like bubbly energy. And there's so much authorial personality coming through in it. It's so much fun. Plus, Catherine Morland is my daughter. I have adopted her officially, so I need to check in on her periodically.
Lauren Wethers 3:13
That is very fair. Yeah. No, that makes sense. I think Persuasion I would have guessed but not necessarily Northanger Abbey. But now hearing your explanation. I don't know why I wouldn't have guessed that in the first place.
Emily Davis-Hale 3:24
Yeah, I -- Northanger was one of the ones coming in that I had no expectations about because I didn't really know anything about this book. I had heard some vague flutterings about it being like, Jane Austen's gothic novel and was like, Okay, what? But yeah, it like gripped me in a way I didn't expect. Persuasion spoke to like who I am now, Northanger spoke to who I was when I was 17.
Lauren Wethers 3:50
Yeah, that's a beautiful way of putting it novels for different eras, I think.
Emily Davis-Hale 3:55
Absolutely. But that doesn't mean that I enjoyed it any less right now.
Lauren Wethers 3:59
And it's a gift to be able to return to books like that at different stages of your life and read them differently. And that was one of the things that I really loved about reading Persuasion again, this time again, because the first time I read it, I was 20. And so reading it at 30, with a decade of additional life experience is a totally different experience.
Emily Davis-Hale 4:16
Yeah, I know some people who like never go back to books once they've read them once. I am an inveterate re-reader. I'm currently reading a book that I've already read like three times this year. But I -- especially ones that I first read when I was a teenager, I love revisiting them. Actually, I it's probably time for me to reread 100 Years of Solitude and Lord of the Rings, come to think of it. So maybe my 2024 will be big rereading, and I'll come back to my my new favorite Austen novels for the first time.
Lauren Wethers 4:46
I like that theme. Yeah. What's the book that you've read three times this year?
Emily Davis-Hale 4:50
I'm trying to -- it's a series. The first one is The Hands of the Emperor. And the second one that I'm on right now is At the Feet Of the sun.
Lauren Wethers 4:57
Gotcha.
Emily Davis-Hale 4:58
Yeah, big ol chunky fantasy novel about a bureaucrat. Lauren's laughing so hard at me right now.
Lauren Wethers 5:06
I'm mostly laughing at 'I'm trying to remember.' As though you didn't just say 10 seconds ago, you read it three times this year.
Emily Davis-Hale 5:11
I just couldn't remember the title. I've also been very busy this week. So I just dive into the book and I don't think about what it is.
Lauren Wethers 5:20
That's the other benefit of rereading, I think, is that you can just dive back into it. And it's so familiar, that you don't need to use the extra mental energy of figuring out where the plot is going or thinking about character motivations. It's like a security blanket.
Emily Davis-Hale 5:34
Yeah, there's definitely some books that I wish I could go back and have the experience of reading for the first time again. But I think Northanger Abbey is going to be one of those that I will enjoy reading it again, because I know what happens. Sometimes it's fun to be spoiled because you just like seeing what the journey is on the way to get there.
Lauren Wethers 5:56
Yeah, that's, that's very true. Shall we recap our journey through Northanger Abbey?
Emily Davis-Hale 6:01
Oh, are we recapping?
Lauren Wethers 6:03
Not recapping in 30 seconds, but taking a look back at what it was like to reread or read Northanger Abbey?
Emily Davis-Hale 6:09
Yeah, I want to hear first from you about what it was like to reread Northanger since you've read it before?
Lauren Wethers 6:17
I will admit it was kind of like reading it for the first time because I had forgotten most of what happened in Northanger. I won't lie.
Emily Davis-Hale 6:24
Yeah, that's totally fair.
Lauren Wethers 6:25
So there were some things where I knew like the the basic beats of Northanger Abbey that much I could remember. But the finer plot points I had -- that had vanished from my brain completely. So in a lot of ways it was like reading it for the first time again, because I was rediscovering things that I had forgotten about. And so much of the plot had vanished from my brain that I could kind of read it as though I was reading it for the first time, because I truly -- it did not really stick in my head the first time I read it. So it was funny seeing the, the notes and comments that I had written in the margins the first time around, because I don't remember making them and it was interesting to see how my interpretations changed from reading it 10 years ago versus reading it now.
Lauren Wethers 7:07
So that was I think the the best part about rereading it, was reading it with super fresh eyes because I didn't remember much of the plot, and then being able to see how I had reacted in real time, a decade ago versus how I was reacting now. That was really fun. And I realized after the fact that I really should remember more of this plot than I did, because my term paper for the end of that class was comparing Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice. I think, I think my title was like Perception in Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice. And I really should have remembered more of Northanger than I did. But it just didn't stick.
Emily Davis-Hale 7:44
You know, it happens? Y'know, it was a while ago.
Lauren Wethers 7:47
It was a while ago and then I had a whole master's degree after that. So I crammed a lot of literature into my brain in a very short period of time.
Emily Davis-Hale 7:54
Alright, so recapping our Northanger Abbey experience.
Lauren Wethers 7:57
I think one of the first ways that we can start our recap is looking back at the different themes that we read through for this season. Your face tells me that you have written them down.
Emily Davis-Hale 8:06
All right, so we had 10 episodes with 10 different themes that guided our reading throughout Northanger Abbey. We began with love and then moved on to betrayal, material wealth, emotional regulation, temptation, adaptability, skill, hard work choice and wrapped up with anxiety.
Lauren Wethers 8:27
Okay, so of those 10 fantastic topics --
Emily Davis-Hale 8:31
incredible.
Lauren Wethers 8:32
-- which was your favorite?
Emily Davis-Hale 8:34
That's really, really hard. I think that might be harder than for previous books, really, because none of them like stood out as being miles above the rest where that's happened a few times in the past. They were, they were also fun. And I think for all of them. We had textual points to pull out and, and talk about. I think I'm gonna have to go with temptation.
Lauren Wethers 9:02
Oh, okay. Why?
Emily Davis-Hale 9:03
So I think I mean, like I said, temptation doesn't necessarily like stand out above all the others. But it was such a fun topic of discussion in the context of Northanger Abbey, because there's so many different avenues of temptation that Catherine faces throughout. You know, there's there's the temptation of framing everything as if it were a gothic novel. There's the temptations of being in Bath. There's the temptations of the Thorpes and the Tilneys and just having to muddle through all of that as like a 17 year old who's never really left her home is a fun thing to kind of pull on those threads.
Lauren Wethers 9:45
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.
Emily Davis-Hale 9:46
Did you have a favorite?
Lauren Wethers 9:49
I think in a similar vein, my favorite was love because I think I agree that I didn't know that any were head and shoulders above the rest except for maybe anxiety, just because it is so personally relatable to both of us. And I find it very funny that we ended our major, like, theme selections with a theme that personally shows up in both of our lives with an unsettling amount of regularity.
Emily Davis-Hale 10:15
Kinda hit the nail on the head with that one, it was a little too pointed.
Lauren Wethers 10:19
It was a little too pointed, and it was a little too perfect to end on anxiety. And so that one is tempting to choose, both due to recency bias, and the fact that it just like, personally fits us both so well. But I think love is my favorite because similar to like, how you explained that temptation is so prevalent throughout the book. I think love is such a perfect theme to start Northanger Abbey with and then also another one that permeates the entirety of the novel as well, because Catherine is the epitome of a lover girl, she just wants to love and to be in love. And there are so many different types of love that appear throughout the novel as well. So we see like, different types of familial love. So both between the Tilneys, the love that Catherine experiences with her parents, whatever passes for love in the Thorpe household. I don't know what their parents are doing. But I have several questions.
Emily Davis-Hale 11:11
Well, one of them is dead. So.
Lauren Wethers 11:14
...point. And there's also the love between friends as well, I really enjoy what Jane Austen does with female friendships and that type of platonic love. And I love that we get to see that more with with Eleanor and Catherine, when Catherine, of course thinks that first she's going to get that with Isabella, but then we see a true representation of like real platonic that transcends to sisterly love with Catherine and Eleanor. So I think that is my favorite. Both because it was a really perfect way to start off the book. And because it shows up in so many different ways throughout the plot as well.
Emily Davis-Hale 11:52
Yeah, I think that thread of friendship might have been one of my favorites to follow through the book, especially as I'm doing a podcast with my best friend about Jane Austen. It just, it was so perfect to get to kind of wrap this up with, to see those, you know, those friends who you think are going to be your best friend like, it's quick, and it's intense. And then it falls apart at the slightest suggestion because it wasn't built on a solid foundation. And then to see the person that you like, you're kind of, you know, tiptoeing around each other a little bit, you have to kind of feel each other out for a little while. And then they end up being like one of the rocks of your world. So that was fun to see explored throughout Northanger. We really did have some great topics this, this season.
Lauren Wethers 12:45
What were our historical topics that we looked at?
Emily Davis-Hale 12:48
All right, so we kicked it off with gothic fiction because obviously, that was kind of the only choice.
Lauren Wethers 12:53
Had to.
Emily Davis-Hale 12:54
Then we also talked about the pump room and Bath, how Regency shopping worked, the concept of the dandy, dictionaries, marriage settlements, window glass, domestic servants, foreign fashion influences, and instructive texts.
Lauren Wethers 13:12
So many good options. Yeah,
Emily Davis-Hale 13:13
I'm going to ask you first, what was your favorite?
Lauren Wethers 13:16
I have to say dictionaries. Yeah, because I'm that nerd.
Emily Davis-Hale 13:22
Shocking. You have a Jane Austen podcast.
Lauren Wethers 13:25
I know this may come as a surprise. But I really, I just really love learning about language and about words. And I don't know why I had never actually stopped to think about the origins of dictionaries, because for my lifespan they've just existed, you -- there simply just is a dictionary. And because that makes sense. There would be a repository of information about words and their origins and their definitions and their pronunciations. But I've taken that for granted, because why would there not be a dictionary? And I never actually stopped to think about all of the work that you would have to do to catalog the vast majority of words and language, because it is impossible to catalogue all of them, but to try and create like, some kind of comprehensive resource is insane. So I really, I really enjoyed learning about the origins of a dictionary of one specific one and the work that went into that.
Emily Davis-Hale 14:21
I'm glad you enjoyed that it was a lot of fun because I sort of casually -- because I'm that kind of nerd -- looked at you know, dictionary histories before but it was it was fun to do a little bit of a deeper dive into it.
Lauren Wethers 14:35
Yeah, I think that was, that was my favorite for sure. Because language nerds gonna language nerd. I mean, Babel was my favorite book this year. So there's, there's no shock that dictionary's my favorite historical topic.
Emily Davis-Hale 14:46
If we haven't said this yet, if you haven't read Babel, go read Babel.
Lauren Wethers 14:48
It was so good.
Emily Davis-Hale 14:50
unbelievably good.
Lauren Wethers 14:51
Five out of five stars.
Lauren Wethers 14:54
Emily, what was your favorite historical connection?
Emily Davis-Hale 14:56
So dictionaries was pretty close. But I think my favorite was window glass.
Lauren Wethers 15:01
okay.
Emily Davis-Hale 15:01
Just because I enjoy any opportunity to go and look at medieval stuff to like, my, my primary like, historical interest period at least for like, England is like, the Tudor era. So yeah, anytime I get an excuse to go and like, pull the history from even further back and tie it to the Regency just like yes, this is going to be it. But also just looking at different types of crafts that get overlooked really easily when we're talking about history like this, because you just kind of get presented with like the big grand buildings. Like okay, but like, look at the stonemasons, look at the glazers look at all of the people who had do like the quarrying and the preparation and getting all these things together. Like that's, you know, part of why I'm like an anthropologist at heart is because I want to look at what these everyday people are doing. And not just the grand edifices.
Lauren Wethers 15:59
It's another thing that isn't, like you said, it's not thought of or given a lot of light jn conversations. So I think that was a really cool topic to be able to bring in and to me was so random.
Emily Davis-Hale 16:12
It was a little random.
Lauren Wethers 16:13
But it was great. I remember I was like, window glass? Okay, cool. Great.
Emily Davis-Hale 16:19
I had I think I may have said this during the episode, I had already kind of been thinking that I wanted to talk about like Gothic windows. And then they actually pointed that out in the section, I was like, 'This is my chance. I must seize it.'
Lauren Wethers 16:29
This is my moment!
Emily Davis-Hale 16:31
All right, so that was our jaunt through history. Now let's bring it back to the present. Would you remind us what our pop culture topics were?
Lauren Wethers 16:38
I would love to, excellent segue.
Emily Davis-Hale 16:41
Thank you.
Lauren Wethers 16:41
It's like you do this for like, a hobby or something?
Emily Davis-Hale 16:44
Like I'm the one who has to edit the episode.
Lauren Wethers 16:48
We had 10 Pop Culture connections, shocker, for 10 episodes. So we went through the topics of internet speak, betrayals in romance, Burning Man, that was random. The essay "How to be Friends With Another Woman" by Roxane Gay from her book Bad Feminist, Temptations song lyrics, Skins UK, the Enchanted movie from 2007, main character syndrome, love triangles, and then we ended with Nelly and Ashanti. So I will turn it back on you, of those 10, which pop culture connection was your favorite?
Emily Davis-Hale 17:26
I think, unsurprisingly, it's going to have to be internet speak. Just the confluence of cultural influences that had to happen to create what we know today as being internet speak, which comes from so many different places is just, it's really fascinating to me. It's the anthropology coming through.
Lauren Wethers 17:48
I did feel like I was kind of stepping into into Emily's territory by choosing internet speak. But it equally fascinates me even though it's just not my level of expertise. I mean, Emily probably knows, actual scholars, but I just want to have fun.
Emily Davis-Hale 18:00
I do, but also I love that you brought up the topic.
Lauren Wethers 18:04
I'm glad that you enjoyed that one. I had a feeling you would when I picked it.
Emily Davis-Hale 18:07
Absolutely. I kind of, you know I'm on the one hand glad that we don't like, film our recording sessions, on the other. I wish I could have seen my face when you said that.
Lauren Wethers 18:17
That would have been really fun to replay.
Emily Davis-Hale 18:19
Yeah. What was your favorite of those to present?
Lauren Wethers 18:23
I don't know. That's really hard. I think my favorite one to present may have been the Enchanted movie. I was thinking about main character syndrome, but I actually don't know if I like the way that I presented it. I liked the topic a lot. But I feel like I could have presented the topic itself better than I did. So I'm like, I don't actually know that it's my favorite but I really love the movie connection to Enchanted and thinking about Giselle and Catherine as two people who are heroines in a story, not the story that they think that they're in, but they're certainly heroines in a story! And I really still love that connection and the comparison between those two characters and it just makes me happy to think about happy go lucky Giselle and happy go lucky Catherine in conversation with one another in some way shape or form, so I think that's my favorite.
Emily Davis-Hale 19:19
Yeah, I like that very much. And I do very much relate to that idea of liking a topic and not necessarily liking your presentation of it. That's like, not even just for the podcast, but I feel like it's so many things I do. I just like, I enjoy going down the rabbit hole. I don't know if I like the way I talked about that.
Lauren Wethers 19:36
I'm nothing if not self-critical. Alright, so now that we have gone through our themes, historical connections, and pop culture connections, I would love to hear your overall thoughts and takeaways from Northanger Abbey.
Emily Davis-Hale 19:51
I really love Northanger Abbey, as we've said, it was such a fun book in a completely different way that like Emma was, which is the other fun Austen novel, I think. And I think partly, it's because it does have that very youthful feel to, like the narration. You know, she lets herself go on these little tangents about novels and things like that. So it was it was a very enjoyable read. And it also makes you think.
Lauren Wethers 20:27
For me, I also I agree that Northanger is one of the other fun Austen novels, very similar to Emma. I think Catherine is kind of taught to remove some of her childlike wonder from the world. But as she's trying to be more mature in her understanding of things, it's also been reminding me to add more childlike wonder into my interpretation of things, which I'm very grateful for, because I think sometimes we overcomplicate things or we get too cynical because we've been burned by adulthood and its many trials and tribulations. And it's nice to return to a character and to a book where the protagonist has not learned any of that yet, and you get to see the world again through the eyes of someone who just finds everything to be so wonderful. And I really enjoyed that. That was really great.
Emily Davis-Hale 21:16
Yeah, it's definitely a call back to you know, I wasn't into gothic novels as a teen, but to feel, again, the equivalent of looking at the world through eyes that have only seen it through fiction that way, and trying to slot everything into something that you've read. And, you know, it's, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with looking at the world around and saying, "Wow, it's just like this story," because that is very much a way that humans process things. You know, Catherine took it a little to the extreme, because she didn't have any external experiences at that point. But yeah, just being reminded of that feeling of looking around in awe, as you see, things reflected that you've only known through fiction before.
Lauren Wethers 22:02
It reminds me of teenage fan girl years where you just clung on to the thing that you loved so very tightly. I don't, I don't know that I'll ever really like, leave my fan girl years. But I also don't know that I'll relate to media the same way that I did as a teenager where I was using it so heavily to process the world the way that Catherine was, and relating everything to oh, this is like when this happened, and XYZ because those are your reference points, because you basically just got here on this earth, and you have no real life reference points, because you're like, 16.
Emily Davis-Hale 22:35
Yeah, like these days as a silly little thing, sometimes, we're like, "oh, I'm doing this, just like this character." But I'm still very, very much aware that like, I'm doing this within my own context, as an adult, with very different responsibilities for whatever fictional character I'm layer on top of myself. Sometimes you just need to pretend to be a wizard, is what I'm saying.
Lauren Wethers 22:56
If it gets you through the day, yeah, who is anyone to judge you.
Emily Davis-Hale 22:59
But then you have to feed the cat and make dinner and like, you have to leave that behind at a certain point. But there's nothing wrong with slipping into that sometimes just for the fun of it.
Lauren Wethers 23:08
And sometimes when you go and you need to make dinner and feed the cat, I see some people say, oh, yeah, I pretend to be one of my Sims, because that's how I get through my silly little household chores. I pretend I'm a Sim in a video game, because that's the only thing that brings me enough joy to get up and go do the stupid things that I need to do around my house.
Emily Davis-Hale 23:24
Yeah, and you know, if pretending that it's something else brings you joy through that activity. Go for it. Absolutely. We all need more joy in our lives.
Lauren Wethers 23:34
Just don't pretend to the point where you're accidentally accusing your friend's parent of murder or kidnapping.
Emily Davis-Hale 23:41
Oh, Catherine.
Lauren Wethers 23:43
Rein it in before you get to that point.
Emily Davis-Hale 23:45
Yeah, yeah. At the end of the book, though, I do 100% stand by the Catherine Morland is autistic argument.
Lauren Wethers 23:54
I think you should, as you should.
Emily Davis-Hale 23:56
Okay, good.
Lauren Wethers 23:57
Ooh, another question that we've not asked before, but that I think we can now that we've reached the end of the six Austen novels, where do you rank the love interests of the six Austen novels?
Emily Davis-Hale 24:07
Oh, the love interests!
Lauren Wethers 24:08
The love interests, of which we have more than six because there were a couple with more than one.
Emily Davis-Hale 24:12
Very true. Obviously John Thorpe is at the very bottom.
Lauren Wethers 24:18
As he should be.
Emily Davis-Hale 24:19
Yeah.
Lauren Wethers 24:19
Yes. Well -- would he rank below Wickham or Willoughby?
Emily Davis-Hale 24:26
Recency bias, man. Oh, okay. I'm going to have to go bottom to top because I will be rearranging the top tiers as we go.
Lauren Wethers 24:35
That is fair.
Emily Davis-Hale 24:36
Willoughby's at the bottom because he completely ruined people. Wickham is next because he very nearly ruined people. Then John Thorpe. Okay, yeah. I'm also going to have to desperately try and remember people's names. Edmund Bertram next because he just -- come on, really? Like she could have done so much better. She could have had Henry Crawford who was also not great, but he was better than frickin' Edmund.
Lauren Wethers 25:07
The wet blanket.
Emily Davis-Hale 25:10
Blanket in which case I think yeah, Henry Crawford has to go right above Edmund Bertram and then Dan Stevens. Edward Ferrars, that's his name.
Lauren Wethers 25:28
No, Dan Stevens!
Emily Davis-Hale 25:29
Dan Stevens. Yeah, him next because he was also very much a wet blanket. And then people are going to be mad about this, but I think Darcy is next.
Lauren Wethers 25:41
Really?
Emily Davis-Hale 25:42
Yeah.
Lauren Wethers 25:43
Hot take, okay.
Emily Davis-Hale 25:44
As, as a love interest, okay, taking the entirety of the novel into account. Because although we find out later that he's a good person, et cetera, et cetera. He's a dick at first. And Mr. Knightley, we know he's a good person. And he's not a dick. Yeah, so yeah, sorry, it has to go Darcy and then Knightley. I guess Tilney can go in there. Because he's, he's never a dick. He's just kind of like he's, I don't want to accuse him of being spineless because his father sucks. So I think Tilney, you can go on there because he's, he's a nice young man. And then I think Wentworth tops the charts.
Lauren Wethers 26:26
It's a good ranking.
Emily Davis-Hale 26:28
Thanks. It's gonna be controversial, I know. Do I need to turn it back around on you?
Lauren Wethers 26:33
You can.
Emily Davis-Hale 26:34
All right, Lauren. What's -- how would you rank all the love interests, or as many as you can remember, because I feel like there's a couple of side people in there that I forgot.
Lauren Wethers 26:42
This is very true. I think my bottom two are identical to yours. I think I would rank Willoughby at the bottom, because he's out here willy nilly impregnating people and just dipping. So you need to be at the bottom of the list.
Emily Davis-Hale 26:55
Put it away and go home.
Lauren Wethers 26:56
Just -- dude, wrap it up. What are you doing? And then I would also put Wickham, just barely above Willoughby. And for again, the same reason because he's just out here either attempting to or fully ruining people's lives. So. You suck. I don't think I would count John Thorpe as a love interest because he's just kind of forcing himself into the romantic conversation. But if I did, I think I would also put him as a bottom three. As it is, I think, yes, because I would do Edmund Bertram below Edward Ferrars, because both of them like we said before the similar kind of wet blanket -- I think my rankings are gonna be very similar to yours until we get to the top because I think we can be unified in our dislike of most of these other people.
Emily Davis-Hale 27:39
Yeah, there's more controversy in the top.
Lauren Wethers 27:41
Yeah, yeah.
Emily Davis-Hale 27:42
Because the the people who suck just suck.
Lauren Wethers 27:44
They just suck. So from the bottom right now it's, Willoughby and then Wickham and then Edmund Bertram. And then Edward Ferrars. If we're going to ascribe the spineless label to anyone, I think it would be Edward Ferrars.
Emily Davis-Hale 27:57
Oh, yes.
Lauren Wethers 27:57
He just lied for like four years. And just he never actually grows a spine to do anything about it. Everything just happens around him. He's so annoying.
Emily Davis-Hale 28:06
We read this book three years ago, and we're still mad about it.
Lauren Wethers 28:09
Just because for what? No reason, no reason, whatsoever. Anyway, I think that I would put, I think I put Henry Tilney above Edward Ferrars.
Emily Davis-Hale 28:24
And to be fair, I didn't mean to write Henry Tilney so high, I could have put him back down there. But then I would have had to go back up.
Lauren Wethers 28:30
So this is fair.
Emily Davis-Hale 28:31
Ultimately, I probably agree with your placement of him. Yes. He's just like, he's, he's nice. Yeah. And that's what you can say for him.
Lauren Wethers 28:37
He's nice. He has a good knowledge of modern literature at the time. He has a good sense of fashion. And he stands up to his dad when it counts. Ish. So I put him there, he's very sweet. He gives off first love vibes.
Emily Davis-Hale 28:56
Yes.
Lauren Wethers 28:56
Which is exactly what he is because Catherine is 17. And then you outgrow that person and you go and you fall in love with somebody else. So he's going to be also like right in the middle of the pack right there. And then above Henry Tilney, I think I would put Mr. Knightley and I like him. I like him and Emma's relationship. I again, wish that it hadn't started when he was like, I've loved you since you were 15 or 13, or whatever the age was, can we not? I also think that... it is not my favorite when a dynamic starts off as like one person scolding the other and like, slightly parental authority figures. Which again, is colored by me being in 2023 versus the late 18th, early 19th century, but it's still just not my favorite thing. So I'm gonna put him there. And then I think above Knightley I would then put... now I'm getting, now it's getting difficult.
Emily Davis-Hale 29:54
I'm also revising my rankings. As we go through this. We could have a whole episode just hashing out our rankings.
Lauren Wethers 30:02
Okay, I think I'm going to put Colonel Brandon above Knightley, because I -- and I'm torn because it could go between Colonel Brandon and Mr. Darcy to be honest. And so either one of them could flip flop into that spot, I think. But I'm putting Colonel Brandon there first, I think just because we get less of his personality. And there's also an age gap between him and Marianne, but it's not as problematic to me because he meets her when she's like, practically an adult by Regency standards. And so it's not as weird. I think even though we get less personality, the personality that we do see is that of this very, like, thoughtful, introspective, just caring, man. Fantastic. Love that for Marianne, you go get your emotionally mature, thoughtful, semi-healed, man, that's about as good as it's gonna get.
Lauren Wethers 30:51
And then I would rank Darcy just above him, I think. I think the entire point is that he is a dick at the beginning of the book. And I think like, beneath that he is a good person. But I think the point is also he becomes better. Like, and not necessarily that he was like, a wonderful person the entire time. But like, no, he actually did like legitimately actively changed, actively changed, because he was god-awful at the start of the book. So put Darcy there, and Wentworth is my top. I -- Yyou can't, "I have loved none but you?!" Please, please.
Emily Davis-Hale 31:26
You can't beat half agony, half hope.
Lauren Wethers 31:28
You can't! It is impossible.
Emily Davis-Hale 31:29
Yeah.
Lauren Wethers 31:30
Am I forgetting anybody?
Emily Davis-Hale 31:32
I forgot Brandon. So I'm not the person to ask. But yeah, now I'm revising because yeah, the Darcy changing is such a good. Now I want to just like go off on a whole rant about how like, people are like, oh, he only changed because he wanted to get this girl. No, he changed because of Elizabeth, not for Elizabeth, etcetera, etcetera. But I'll just, you know, I've already put my ranking out there. So I'll abide by the consequences.
Lauren Wethers 31:58
We're preaching to the choir.
Emily Davis-Hale 31:59
I've made my bed. I'll lie in it.
Lauren Wethers 32:02
Thank you for indulging that random off the cuff question, because I just realized that we can ask it with the entirety of the Austen canon behind us. And that was fun to think about.
Emily Davis-Hale 32:12
Okay, so we've, we've ranked the love interests that we can remember if we forgot anyone crucial, just hush.
Lauren Wethers 32:18
Just blame it on the Scotch.
Emily Davis-Hale 32:20
Blame it on the scotch, yeah. So I would like to know, Lauren, how your rankings of the books themselves stand. And we can start from the bottom to the top again, if you want to.
Lauren Wethers 32:33
Okay.
Emily Davis-Hale 32:33
Because I know, I was litigating with myself up until I mean, I'm still litigating with myself about love interests.
Lauren Wethers 32:40
Oh no. This is so hard. Just like choosing between your children!
Emily Davis-Hale 32:47
Yeah. But do it!
Lauren Wethers 32:51
Okay, I'm so sorry. Coming in last is Mansfield Park, that was the easiest decision. And I know, that's going to upset people. But it's just my least favorite. It's not that it is a bad book. I just don't love it as much as I love the other books. It's a very good book. And it is the one that I will reread the least. I think Sense and Sensibility is fifth. And again, this is hard, because I really enjoy all of these books. This is not me saying like, "Oh, this book was bad," because obviously all of them are good. We have an entire podcast dedicated to dissecting them. And I really love all these books. And I think Sense and Sensibility would come in at number five. And then I think I would put Northanger at number four, Emma at three, Persuasion at two and Pride and Prejudice at one. And I will explain the top two.
Lauren Wethers 33:42
Because I think as far as like enjoyment of the novels goes, it flip flops between those two so frequently, because those are my top two like dearly held Austen novels in my heart. But I think Pride and Prejudice will edge it out to take the top one because it was my introduction to Austen. And it's also the book of hers of which I own the most copies. I think I may have six copies of Pride and Prejudice in my house.
Emily Davis-Hale 34:08
Wow.
Lauren Wethers 34:10
It's really bad. So I think Pride and Prejudice will edge it out as number one for the sentimental value. And because it's the one that I like, go back to the most. But if it were the book that makes me feel most deeply, it would be Persuasion, because I just love that book so much. I did not expect this question to be so hard!
Emily Davis-Hale 34:35
Right? That's why I've been thinking about it all day.
Lauren Wethers 34:37
Okay, what would your ranking be?
Emily Davis-Hale 34:39
Okay, so similarly, Mansfield Park is at the bottom. I, Fanny just, Fanny doesn't compel me as a heroine. And I'm not a huge fan of the story. So yeah, sorry, but Mansfield Park is my least favorite. Sense and Sensibility is also my number five, because it's, it compels me less than the others as well. Um, but I think I have to put Emma next. And then Northanger.
Lauren Wethers 35:03
Okay.
Emily Davis-Hale 35:04
Because I just felt immediately such a strong connection to Catherine as a protagonist. And Emma is deliciously fun. I know that I'm going to enjoy rereading it when I get back to it, but Northanger I already am, like, I need to reread this book. And then I am going to come out a little bit and say that tied for number one--
Lauren Wethers 35:25
No, you can't do that!
Emily Davis-Hale 35:26
--are Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice.
Lauren Wethers 35:29
I had to choose! You have to choose!
Emily Davis-Hale 35:30
No, I don't want to!
Lauren Wethers 35:34
You introduced the ranking question.
Emily Davis-Hale 35:38
Booo. okay. So got Mansfield, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Northanger. Okay, I do think, I do think that Persuasion is the best. But as we've talked about before, I think Pride and Prejudice still has to win, because it's just it has such a weight on my heart from being the first that I had read and from just grabbing me so hard when I was like 14 or 15, or whatever. Yeah, but it's it's very close. They're, they're tied, except for the purposes of this ranking.
Lauren Wethers 36:16
That is the answer I also would have given but I didn't try and cop out first, I actually gave an answer.
Emily Davis-Hale 36:21
Okay, whatever.
Lauren Wethers 36:23
Just so everyone is aware.
Emily Davis-Hale 36:26
Well, with that. I think we've been through our themes. We've been through our history topics. We've been through our pop culture topics, we have ranked both love interests and novels. Shall we move on to questionable advice?
Lauren Wethers 36:43
So yes, we should give questionable advice to characters but I feel like we would be remiss if we rank love interests, and we don't rank the heroines of the novels.
Emily Davis-Hale 36:43
Oh, we should have done heroines before we did novels, but too late now. Let's go on with heroine.
Lauren Wethers 36:55
No worries.
Emily Davis-Hale 36:56
Okay. Fanny's at the bottom.
Lauren Wethers 36:59
Oh, my God. Why?
Emily Davis-Hale 37:01
Because I don't like Fanny. I think she's boring. And she just doesn't change. Like it's-- Yeah.
Lauren Wethers 37:09
Okay.
Emily Davis-Hale 37:09
Sorry, Fanny. But, boo. Oh, god. Okay, this is so hard. Because you have to have to also have to think about it in the context of like, are we talking about like, how much I like this character as a person? Or how much do I like them within the context of like, the narrative?
Lauren Wethers 37:25
I think you can decide as long as you give your rationale for why you're choosing them.
Emily Davis-Hale 37:29
Oh, god. Okay.
Lauren Wethers 37:32
I'm not gonna put the way you have to rank them on you.
Emily Davis-Hale 37:35
It would be easier if you did.
Lauren Wethers 37:37
Okay, which one do you want?
Emily Davis-Hale 37:38
No, I don't have a preference, I just need to choose one!
Lauren Wethers 37:42
Okay, rank them according to how much you like them.
Emily Davis-Hale 37:45
According to how much I liked them. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Um, like if I had to be in a room with them?
Lauren Wethers 37:51
Yeah. Not literary merit.
Emily Davis-Hale 37:52
Yeah. Okay. Fanny. Emma. Emma would drive me up a wall immediately. Catherine, because as much as I love her, I think she would annoy me.
Lauren Wethers 38:04
Oh no!
Emily Davis-Hale 38:06
If I had, if I were like, is trapped in a room with her. If we were trapped in an elevator, I think it would be like, get me out. Please. She won't stop talking about gothic novels. I can't get a word of advice. Okay. Then I think Lizzie, because I think she would also be obnoxious in her own way. Very similar to the way I am, unfortunately. So I don't think we would get along particularly well in person. And then I think, Anne and then Elinor maybe, which is wildly different from my, my, like novel rankings. I know.
Lauren Wethers 38:44
Yeah. Okay. Wait, why Anne and then Elinor.
Emily Davis-Hale 38:47
Those are, those are hard because I think that they're very similar as protagonists, they kind of defer to the people around them. Well, man, now I don't know. I think it might actually be Elinor, and then Anne because Anne at least is like... Shit, I don't know. rethinking everything. All right, I'm just gonna have to talk through my rationale for each of them. And then from there, decide which one. Okay, because Anne does have particular passion in reading and in reading widely, and in seeking new knowledge and is easily conversational on that topic. Elinor also has her passions in music, things like that. So okay. Yeah, I think, I think it'd be Elinor and then Anne would be my my top choice.
Lauren Wethers 39:37
Nice.
Emily Davis-Hale 39:38
Yeah.
Lauren Wethers 39:38
Okay.
Emily Davis-Hale 39:39
That was incredibly difficult.
Lauren Wethers 39:41
Yeah. I'm not really looking forward to having to answer this question.
Emily Davis-Hale 39:44
Lauren. It's your turn.
Lauren Wethers 39:45
No.
Emily Davis-Hale 39:49
This is a no pass game.
Lauren Wethers 39:51
Sorry, Fanny, darling, but you're, you're going to be at the bottom again. It's not your fault. It is your fault. But-- and I, I would like to preface this by saying, I am aware that Fanny has so many merits as a character, I get it. I have also read the defenses of Fanny. We have also been defenders of Fanny Price on this podcast. However, if we are ranking according to how much we would like the characters, which is the criteria that I gave to you, I also feel like in real life, I would be frustrated by Fanny.
Emily Davis-Hale 40:24
Yeah, we have to specify in real life because the amount that I enjoy these characters on the page is very different.
Lauren Wethers 40:30
Yes, yeah, it is. This is not like, enjoying reading about them, or their strengths as a literary character, the growth in the narrative --
Emily Davis-Hale 40:37
If we were at a party with them,
Lauren Wethers 40:38
Who are we hanging out with?
Emily Davis-Hale 40:39
Exactly.
Lauren Wethers 40:40
yes. And I'm not hanging out with Fanny. Directly above, Fanny, I think can also put Emma, because if we're putting it into a real life setting, she reminds me negatively of like, the most annoying people from college.
Emily Davis-Hale 40:56
The ones who have to be the center of attention all the time.
Lauren Wethers 40:59
And I don't want to deal with that. So I'm putting her above Fanny. And then I think I would put, and this is now getting hard, because I feel like I enjoy the rest of the characters. Are we also ranking Marianne, in addition to Elinor?
Emily Davis-Hale 41:14
Oh, sorry, I always forget about Marianne. I forgot about Colonel Brandon, like, I'm leaving her out of mine, but you can include her if you want to.
Lauren Wethers 41:24
Okay. I think I would actually put Elinor above Emma. Just because I think again, if it's like, who we're drawn to hang out with actually, no, I take that back. Because I would put Marianne and Catherine on a joint raking above Emma, because I love them. And they're so sweet.
Emily Davis-Hale 41:42
Now we can do joint rankings, fine.
Lauren Wethers 41:46
I -- Okay, I would put Marianne and then Catherine, because both of them remind me of my students. And they are so sweet. And I want to hear everything they have to say, for a short period of time. And then I need you to get out of my office. So I have some peace and quiet. I think I would put them there. Because you guys are so sweet. You're adorable. I do -- I really am interested to hear your opinions on this latest piece of poetry --
Emily Davis-Hale 42:14
I love you, please go away.
Lauren Wethers 42:14
Please get out of my office. I know I said that you can come and hang out anytime. And I'm now regretting the invitation because you've been sitting here for two hours.
Emily Davis-Hale 42:21
Yeah.
Lauren Wethers 42:21
Like, that's, that's what it reminds me of. So I think I'm going to put them. So it'd be Fanny. And then Emma. And then Marianne, and then Catherine, I think. And above Catherine, I would put Elinor, I think, because we would get along. But I think I would be finding conversation with Elinor. And I don't like being the one to drive conversation. I do it when forced and Elinor would force me. So I'm putting her there.
Lauren Wethers 42:50
And then after that, I think I would put Anne because I think Anne and I would get along for similar reasons. Like you said, she's very well read. She enjoys having intellectual conversations. That is my bread and butter. I think we'd get along like a house on fire. And then I think I have the opposite interpretation of you. In that I think, Lizzie Bennet and I are similar in a way we would get along really well. I think because it's like that rapid Quick Fire where you like you have fun bouncing off of the other person. I think we would get along really well. But we might like flame out and get sick of one another. So we would just have to like have small doses because --
Emily Davis-Hale 43:31
but but for this one hypothetical party, we're just hanging out for an evening.
Lauren Wethers 43:35
Yeah, fantastic. Perfect. It's like, we both can't be the main character, but in our conversation we can be, and so it's fine.
Emily Davis-Hale 43:40
Yeah, no, of course, in hindsight, I'm like, I feel like, like to me, you're most similar to Lizzie and you're literally my best friend. So now I'm like, I shouldn't have put Lizzie below.
Lauren Wethers 43:54
When you said that you didn't think that you and Lizzie would get along, I was like, Huh.
Emily Davis-Hale 43:58
Don't psychoanalyze me right now.
Lauren Wethers 44:02
But that is my ranking. If I forgot anybody. I'm blaming the scotch.
Emily Davis-Hale 44:05
I'm going to immediately redact my ranking, but I'm not gonna worry about it. Fanny and Emma are still my bottom two.
Lauren Wethers 44:13
Yeah, but those are the easiest to to rank and then because we would get along with them the least. That was fun. That was really hard.
Emily Davis-Hale 44:20
That was so hard. I never want to do it again.
Lauren Wethers 44:23
We don't have to.
Emily Davis-Hale 44:23
We don't have to, because we're done. All right. We've refilled our Scotch, we're feeling ready to read some fictional characters, I think.
Lauren Wethers 44:34
Read in the sense of read them for filth.
Emily Davis-Hale 44:36
Exactly. Lauren, you traditionally take up the task of compiling our list of characters to be advised. So where would you like to begin?
Lauren Wethers 44:45
Let's begin with a man we all love to hate. John Thorpe.
Emily Davis-Hale 44:51
Leave. That's my advice for him. Just get out.
Lauren Wethers 44:55
Okay, Jojo.
Emily Davis-Hale 44:56
I don't want to see you darken a doorway in this world again.
Lauren Wethers 45:01
Okay, so other than leave, get out, right now. What is your advice for John Thorpe?
Emily Davis-Hale 45:06
Oh, he, he needs to get himself together and realize that other people are people.
Lauren Wethers 45:12
Quoi? people? I don't understand, that doesn't compute.
Emily Davis-Hale 45:17
Because, he just has, he has absolutely no respect for anyone around him, ever, he thinks that they're just going to bow to his will. And that's disgusting.
Lauren Wethers 45:27
Fair enough. My advice to John Thorpe... yeah, think outside of yourself for more than like, half of a second. And also maybe just, I don't know, have a shred of consideration for anyone else. Even your family members, he speaks of everyone as though they're just the dirt beneath his foot. And it's extremely unattractive. So if you'd like a woman to marry you, who does not look at you with thinly veiled disgust every time you enter the room, maybe try practicing something like empathy, some thinking of any kind.
Emily Davis-Hale 46:06
You know, John Thorpe is on pickup artist forums online.
Lauren Wethers 46:10
Oh, he's Andrew Tate bro.
Emily Davis-Hale 46:12
God, I hate him so much. He and Fanny Dashwood can just go...I don't know.
Lauren Wethers 46:19
Into the sun.
Emily Davis-Hale 46:20
Into the sun with you! Throw them into the sun. All right, we've washed our hands of John Thorpe, who's next. Hopefully someone who would actually take advice.
Lauren Wethers 46:32
Okay, if we would like somebody who would actually take advice, let's have a palate cleanser of Eleanor Tilney.
Emily Davis-Hale 46:38
Eleanor Tilney? Oh, I don't know if there's any advice that I can give to her because she's, she's such a lovely person and just kind of doing what she can with the resources at hand. Oh, what advice would I give Eleanor... seek more outside interactions.
Lauren Wethers 46:56
With whom?
Emily Davis-Hale 46:56
With anyone beyond her own family. Fanny -- oh, not Fanny, Jesus. Catherine was a good start. But I feel like Eleanor needs more friends.
Lauren Wethers 47:07
Yeah, I agree. Eleanor definitely needs more friends. So I feel like it's odd when Catherine gets to Bath and she has no one to socialize with. But it seems like Eleanor isn't socializing with anyone until Catherine enters her orbit.
Emily Davis-Hale 47:19
But yeah, like with Catherine. It makes sense because she's just kind of the temporary ward of these people and doesn't know anyone and is not in society like that. But Eleanor very much is. Where are her friends?
Lauren Wethers 47:33
I wonder if it's that General Tilney didn't deem anyone good enough to be her friend.
Emily Davis-Hale 47:37
That seems very likely considering the way he reacted to Catherine.
Lauren Wethers 47:41
And then he hears the inflated notions of Catherine's wealth and is saying, 'Oh, sure. This one you can be friends with, the rest of them cannot darken my doorstep.'
Emily Davis-Hale 47:50
I hope her marriage to this lovely man affords her a little more freedom to socialize with people that she likes. Maybe? We'll see. I guess we won't see, the book is done. Jane Austen's been --
Lauren Wethers 47:50
We can imagine.
Emily Davis-Hale 47:54
Jane Austen has been dead for 200 years, we might not get a follow up on that one.
Lauren Wethers 48:10
Moldering in the ground.
Emily Davis-Hale 48:12
Oh, this does become a very different podcast when we're drunk.
Lauren Wethers 48:16
That's the whole point.
Emily Davis-Hale 48:19
All right, Eleanor. Not so much advice, but a wish for you to make more friends.
Lauren Wethers 48:26
Yeah, I think my advice would be I know, I know what I want it to be. And I'm trying to think of the best way to articulate it, maybe to trust Catherine more. And I was specifically thinking of the beginning of the novel when Catherine is trying to explain that she really was trying to wait for the Tilneys to come and pick her up and she was stolen away by the Thorpes.
Emily Davis-Hale 48:51
But I also completely understand Eleanor's caution there.
Lauren Wethers 48:53
I totally get it. And I think maybe then my advice would be assume that Catherine has the best intentions. Maybe not trust everyone. But you can trust in Catherine because she is a sweet baby and she has no ill will towards you.
Emily Davis-Hale 49:10
All right. So we've advised John Thorpe, boo, and Eleanor Tilney, who do we take on next?
Lauren Wethers 49:19
I'm bouncing back to the Thorpes and saying Isabella.
Emily Davis-Hale 49:23
Similar advice to her brother, what we worked around to. Isabella doesn't necessarily need to leave immediately. But she also needs to think about other people beyond herself because Catherine isn't an accessory. Your friends are not just someone to sit on your arm and help you socialize and enhance your status. They are real people with real feelings and you can't just play around with them.
Lauren Wethers 49:50
I would second that and I would also say sometimes the most attractive men are the most dangerous ones.
Emily Davis-Hale 49:58
No kidding.
Lauren Wethers 49:59
Be careful of a pretty face. Just because he's pretty and he's being nice to you doesn't mean that he will remain nice to you.
Emily Davis-Hale 50:08
What is the substance underneath?
Lauren Wethers 50:10
It also doesn't mean that he'll remain pretty because some people just really age like milk. But that's neither here nor there.
Emily Davis-Hale 50:15
Not everyone can be a Sir Walter Elliot.
Lauren Wethers 50:17
Not everyone can be a Sir Walter Elliot admiring himself in the mirror after decades. You know, some people just aren't that lucky. But the main, the main point is not that there's a possibility that--
Emily Davis-Hale 50:30
that was tangential.
Lauren Wethers 50:32
That's, that's tangential. The main point is that I think Isabella needs the girls' girl advice of do not ditch your friends for a man who does not care about you.
Emily Davis-Hale 50:43
Girls support girls.
Lauren Wethers 50:44
Girls support girls!
Emily Davis-Hale 50:45
Hoes before bros!
Lauren Wethers 50:47
Hoes before bros, man, and you broke that rule. And you face the consequences?
Emily Davis-Hale 50:51
Does she not know girl code?
Lauren Wethers 50:52
Clearly not. But this is this is sometimes how we learn the hard way that not every man is actually the love interest of your life. Sometimes you do find the ones who are kind to you. And it's out of a true kindness and not out of an ulterior motive. But you have to kiss a few frogs to find the prince sometimes and you unfortunately kissed a frog. He's not the love of your life. Hit him with your car!
Lauren Wethers 51:18
He's literally just a guy! Hit him with your car.
Emily Davis-Hale 51:21
All right. All right. So we have the two Thorpe siblings. We have Eleanor Tilney down, who's up next.
Lauren Wethers 51:27
Henry Tilney, of course.
Emily Davis-Hale 51:29
Henry Tilney. Stand up to your father more, because he can clearly see what General Tilney is like and clearly is avoiding him except for Eleanor's sake. So as we have told many, many love interests in the past, grow a spine.
Lauren Wethers 51:46
You're literally the middle son, what do you have to lose?
Emily Davis-Hale 51:48
Yeah, honestly.
Lauren Wethers 51:48
Not Northanger. It's not going to you anyway.
Emily Davis-Hale 51:51
You've got a job. Like your sister will clearly find a way to keep corresponding with you regardless. So yeah, stand up to him. Come on.
Lauren Wethers 51:59
Be the terror middle child that you were born to be!
Emily Davis-Hale 52:02
Do it. Do it, do it, do it. Come on, Henry we believe in you.
Lauren Wethers 52:08
Be rebellious!
Emily Davis-Hale 52:09
Yeah.
Lauren Wethers 52:10
Break the rules.
Emily Davis-Hale 52:10
But also be good to Catherine.
Lauren Wethers 52:12
Yeah. Only be rebellious when it comes to her. What would my advice to Henry be? Oh, can you actually pay attention to the people for whom you're supposed to be their priest?
Emily Davis-Hale 52:22
Oh, my God, seriously, you have a job. Do your job.
Lauren Wethers 52:25
You have a job.
Emily Davis-Hale 52:25
You have one job.
Lauren Wethers 52:27
And you're supposed to be a man of God.
Emily Davis-Hale 52:30
He's always at Northanger. Like, come on.
Lauren Wethers 52:33
Tend to your flock, Henry, what are you doing.
Emily Davis-Hale 52:35
Invite your sister to come and stay with you. And then like, Yeah,
Lauren Wethers 52:39
I think there's a difference between being an Edmund Bertram and a Henry Tilney, like, don't go the Edmund route. But you could you could pay a bit more attention to the living that you have.
Emily Davis-Hale 52:53
Yeah, just a tad.
Lauren Wethers 52:54
Just just a tad. Because unlike Mary Crawford, you know, Catherine's gonna love you regardless.
Emily Davis-Hale 53:03
Yeah, she fully supports you.
Lauren Wethers 53:04
She fully supports you. So she's not going to be upset that you don't want to ditch your living and go do a profession that she finds more respectable. She's just happy to be here. So you can actually pay attention to your flock, it's gonna be fine. Yeah. And yeah. They're like, they're looking to you to be some kind of a role model. Can you like go be the role model? I don't know why. Because you're like a 25 year old man who knows nothing, but.
Emily Davis-Hale 53:31
I know.
Lauren Wethers 53:32
Nbd it's fine. Okay, I have one more character. But is there anybody else who you would like to give advice to?
Emily Davis-Hale 53:39
Yeah, I'd tell the general shut up.
Lauren Wethers 53:41
I was going to ask if you want to include General Tilney, too.
Emily Davis-Hale 53:43
Just stop talking, leave your children be. They have good heads on their shoulders despite you. So just stop.
Lauren Wethers 53:51
Yeah, I'm wondering what his background is, if he's in the army, he may have had like some kind of a come up through the rankings of the army in some way, shape, or form, even if he didn't have like a drastic change of material wealth. But I still feel like he had a little bit of elevation through serving in the military. And so I would simply say, don't forget, wherever it is that you came from, because as quickly as you can earn wealth, it can be taken away and fixating so strongly on that, to the exclusion of all else, is not a way to live a well fulfilled life and is bound to disappoint you, or at the very least estrange you from your children.
Emily Davis-Hale 54:37
Hmm, yeah, he has such a such a fixation on the material wealth, and forget that he also has, you know, a family around him and could have friends, presumably, if you wanted.
Lauren Wethers 54:51
It's like the study that says after a certain dollar amount, making more money doesn't actually make you happier and he's intent on hyper focusing on the quality of the napkins at his table and all the renovations he's done to his house and the things he's able to do.
Emily Davis-Hale 55:10
Which also kind of well, I don't know, it simultaneously suggests that he could have come from a lower station and been elevated to this kind of wealth, or that he had this kind of wealth all along and wants everyone to know, it could go either way.
Lauren Wethers 55:22
I feel like being very showy, is new money. It's that like, money talks, wealth whispers type of thing. If you grew up with this, and you're used to it, you're not hyper fixated on making sure everyone knows how expensive it was.
Emily Davis-Hale 55:35
So even if he did grow up at this level, he was probably very aware that his family was not always at that level.
Lauren Wethers 55:43
Yeah, I just I think he's focusing on wealth so much that he's not enjoying it.
Emily Davis-Hale 55:49
Yeah, he definitely doesn't seem to be enjoying it.
Lauren Wethers 55:52
So I think that would be my advice, to actually live your life instead of focusing on the dollar amount that you can attach to it. You seem miserable.
Emily Davis-Hale 56:01
Just doesn't seem like a happy guy. Like, aside from the fact that his wife is dead. Like, that's another issue.
Lauren Wethers 56:07
That's a whole nother thing entirely.
Emily Davis-Hale 56:08
We're not gonna get into that. Right? You said, before we had our aside, and just General Tilney, there was only one character left, which I can only assume was Catherine.
Lauren Wethers 56:17
Our sweet Baby Catherine.
Emily Davis-Hale 56:19
Baby Catherine, she just really, she just needs to grow up. She's only 17. She just needs to learn that you can't do exactly what we were saying before. You can't frame everything through the lens of your favorite piece of fiction, like you're gonna have to enter the real world at a certain point. And it's okay to still cling to that fiction. God knows I still do. But you have to recognize that the people around you are real people and things happening around you are not part of a tiny little plotline. They're just events that happen in the world. Yeah.
Lauren Wethers 56:58
She'll learn eventually.
Emily Davis-Hale 57:00
Yeah, this feels extremely ironic given that she's literally a character in a book, however --
Lauren Wethers 57:06
stop reading your life like it's a book. I think -- usually advice that I like to give to people is trust your instincts, but Catherine's instincts are terrible.
Emily Davis-Hale 57:16
Girl does not have instincts.
Lauren Wethers 57:17
She has none. So I can't give advice of like, Oh, listen to your intuition, because your intuition is steering her wrong.
Emily Davis-Hale 57:24
Yeah. Her intuition, "Is there something mysterious in this castle?" Her intuition is entirely formed on gothic novels. It's bad.
Lauren Wethers 57:34
It's really bad.
Emily Davis-Hale 57:36
Don't trust your intuition. Think about it a little bit.
Lauren Wethers 57:39
I think. Actually, yeah. Now. So I mentioned earlier that the term paper I wrote was about Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice. And it was perception in Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice and how we're meant to trust reason, in addition to our intuition, so I think my advice to Catherine would be to introduce a little bit more reason into your life, in addition to acting based off of intuition and feeling, because intuition alone, not really helping you. Intuition alone also didn't really help Elizabeth Bennet. Yeah, both of them had to use some kind of reason. And now I'm rediscovering the argument I made when I was 20.
Emily Davis-Hale 58:12
Good job, it was clearly a very good argument.
Lauren Wethers 58:15
Good enough that I forgot half the plot on Northanger Abbey. But I remember that thesis, even though I have not looked at that paper, in God knows how long.
Emily Davis-Hale 58:23
Yeah, I mean, we even see Catherine, in the novel, override her own reason, when she fabricates this story about General Tilney, either murdering or hiding his wife, because she has those thoughts that like, 'that's not reasonable,' and then she leans into it anyway. Listen to the reason.
Lauren Wethers 58:44
Yeah, please. For the love of all that's good and holy.
Emily Davis-Hale 58:48
Gut feelings can be very valuable. But sometimes they're incorrect. That wasn't even a gut feeling. That was her explicitly being like, oh, but what if this was a gothic novel? Like, look where I am? That was very much a fancy.
Lauren Wethers 59:01
Yeah.
Emily Davis-Hale 59:04
Oh, honey. Oh, Catherine. I love you so much. Please get your shit together.
Lauren Wethers 59:09
sweet angel, baby child.
Emily Davis-Hale 59:10
Sweet baby.
Lauren Wethers 59:12
Those are all the characters I wrote down for us to give advice to.
Emily Davis-Hale 59:15
I think that brings us to our final final takeaway.
Lauren Wethers 59:19
I think it does.
Emily Davis-Hale 59:21
Lauren, what is your final final takeaway from Northanger Abbey?
Lauren Wethers 59:25
I think my takeaway. And this is a similar thing that I've said before, where it's not necessarily the lesson that the book is trying to teach me. But the emotional lesson or the personal takeaway that I will bring from it, which is the entire point anyway, I just feel like I need to clarify that. But it's to seek out more joy and adventure in my life. Because I think even as Catherine is kind of like making a mess of her entire life by overindulging in joy and adventure, reading her also reminds me how to look at the world with that kind of childlike wonder and just to find joy in things. And sometimes, in moderation, it's fun to make a mystery out of the mundane. And so I think my takeaway is that I want to do that more often. And like finding joy and theatricality in really just mundane things in my life.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:00:21
I really love that.
Lauren Wethers 1:00:22
Thank you.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:00:22
That's so nice.
Lauren Wethers 1:00:24
What is your final takeaway?
Emily Davis-Hale 1:00:25
I think my final takeaway is on paying attention to the people around you and what their intentions are towards you and towards other people in their surroundings. Because, you know, we saw that vast difference between the Thorpes and the Tilnes. Just yeah. Keep an eye out for the Thorpes and maybe avoid them.
Lauren Wethers 1:00:50
Know who the Thorpes are in your life and go find the Tilneys?
Emily Davis-Hale 1:00:53
Definitely.
Lauren Wethers 1:00:55
I like it.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:00:55
Good.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:00:57
So that, that wraps up Northanger Abbey for us.
Lauren Wethers 1:00:59
Which means, if you have been with us for this entire ride, you know that coming up next is our favorite Six Degrees of Jane Austen segment.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:01:08
I can't wait to do this. So as usual, leave your suggestions of wild topics in the comments of whatever social media we post for this episode.
Lauren Wethers 1:01:19
We are on X aka Twitter. We are on Instagram and we are on Facebook. Find us on your social media platform of choice. And let us know what you want us to talk about.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:01:29
Yeah, so those suggestions will be open for a couple of days. And then we will compile them and throw them out to our patrons to vote on. So if you want to be involved in choosing which topics we have to connect to Jane Austen. Go ahead and join our Patreon. You get to choose our misery. You get to choose whatever the top six choices are. Those are what we will have to connect to Jane Austen in some way or another in the next episode.
Lauren Wethers 1:01:54
And in our six degrees of Jane Austen episode, we will also share more about what our plans are for post six novels of Jane Austen. And you will just have to stay tuned to find out more.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:02:05
But thank you so much for joining us, not just for Northanger Abbey, but for all the previous five novels, it has been a delight to read so many of them for the first time for me, but to share this experience with all of you has been a truly unique and an excellent experience.
Lauren Wethers 1:02:24
I'm just very happy and grateful and thankful that you all have joined us for this ride for, as we said before, either just this one episode or for all the episodes we've released.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:02:34
Hopefully not this one episode because that would be really weird for you guys.
Lauren Wethers 1:02:39
Maybe they just found us on a whim and they heard one of the most entertaining Jane Austen Northanger Abbey recaps they've ever heard. And now they're hooked. You know, who knows?
Emily Davis-Hale 1:02:48
We did talk about all of the novels.
Lauren Wethers 1:02:51
This is a great encapsulation of Reclaiming Jane -- it's not, please go listen to the rest of the episodes. We do more things, very sober.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:03:02
But for now, we'll go ahead and sign off on this and we'll see you for six degrees and hopefully some news in the next episode.
Lauren Wethers 1:03:51
Thank you for joining us in this episode of Reclaiming Jane, next time we'll be connecting your outlandish topics to Jane Austen in our six degrees of Jane Austen segment.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:03:59
To read our show notes and a transcript of this episode, check out our website reclaimingjanepod.com. You can also find the full back catalogue and links to our social media.
Lauren Wethers 1:04:06
If you'd like to support us and gain access to exclusive content, you can join our Patreon @ReclaimingJanePod.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:04:11
Reclaiming Jane is produced and co hosted by Lauren Wethers and Emily Davis-Hale. Our music is by LaTasha Bundy and our show art is by Emily Davis-Hale.
Lauren Wethers 1:04:18
We'll see you next time nerds.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:04:27
Yeah, when you're reading that many books, it makes sense that some of them fell through the cracks.
Lauren Wethers 1:04:32
Yeah, at a certain point. I think it was like five books a week or something like that.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:04:36
Wow.
Lauren Wethers 1:04:37
It was a lot. I don't recommend doing a master's degree in a year. It was, it was hard.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:04:44
I mean, I don't even have a Literature degree and still I'll pick up a book sometimes and get a few pages in or a few chapters in sometimes, be like "have I read this before? I think I've read this."
Lauren Wethers 1:04:54
Wait a second.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:04:56
There's, there was at least one time and I cannot remember now what the book was, I got like halfway through before I was like, "these plot points are really familiar I think I actually read this as a teenager."
Lauren Wethers 1:05:06
Been there. yep.
Emily Davis-Hale 1:05:07
It happens.