Bevis wrote:
"Yes, you're right. My A-level English Lit teacher persuaded me to read it after i said I thought Austen had no sense of humour (or at least the most dismal one I had ever encountered in a writer), no sense of drama and wrote the most irritating characters in the world. Northanger Abbey was supposed to show to me her amazing sense of humour and the sparkling parody of gothic novels.
Only it sucks. really, *really* badly. Her heroines always make me want to scream and the fact that nothing, but nothing, happens in any of her books that are worth talking about was only made all the clearer by Northanger Abbey. She may just as well have been writing a self-parody.
Worst Jane Austen novel though is... oooh, I forget even which on it is. Pride and Prejudice I think. The one where the dramatic highpoint is a wet bint falling off a wall and hurting her ankle. Yuk. Give me Thomas Hardy or one of the Brontes any day over Austen. They all tend to go a little bit melodramtic at times (and Hardy has the most convoluted but obvious plots in the world) but at least the books are fun to read and even the really nasty characters are great."
