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I was skimming an article on the gothic novels referenced in Northanger Abbey, which mentions the reading list that Isabella gives Catherine for their book club: “I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my pocketbook. Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries. Those will last us some time.”
...and suddently I went, what other book have I read which includes lists of books recommended to the protagonist by a friend? And is also about a young woman coming of age and learning to distinguish between truth and sentimental drivel, with some guidance from an older man who has been living under the shadow of an abusive family?
Which is to say, Fire and Hemlock is totally riffing on Northanger Abbey! Only it's genre, so instead of Catherine learning to outgrow her adolescent fantasies, Polly gets to learn how to let fantasy and reality coexist, to see No Where and Now Here at the same time, and that allows her to be more actively heroic in the final act.
(Note also the first sentence of Northanger Abbey: "No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine.", though as Polly notes being a heroine is culturally not the same thing.)
...and suddently I went, what other book have I read which includes lists of books recommended to the protagonist by a friend? And is also about a young woman coming of age and learning to distinguish between truth and sentimental drivel, with some guidance from an older man who has been living under the shadow of an abusive family?
Which is to say, Fire and Hemlock is totally riffing on Northanger Abbey! Only it's genre, so instead of Catherine learning to outgrow her adolescent fantasies, Polly gets to learn how to let fantasy and reality coexist, to see No Where and Now Here at the same time, and that allows her to be more actively heroic in the final act.
(Note also the first sentence of Northanger Abbey: "No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine.", though as Polly notes being a heroine is culturally not the same thing.)
