I went back to the Wikipedia article on gothic fiction today and Daniel Radcliffe is no longer Ann Radcliffe’s brother. It was fun while it lasted!
I’m reading Mysteries of Udolpho on my kindle and am about 20% of the way through. Our heroine Emily is about to be whisked away to Italy with her aunt. Of the first 20% of the book I’d say three quarters of it is spent on Emily and her father traveling through the Pyrenees, making the acquaintance of Valancourt, and wandering some more always admiring the sublime scenery. There is so much scenery that I had to wonder what the heck is going on?
Well, it turns out that the book was published just about the time Romantic ideals were starting to percolate. Ah, sublime nature! If one can be moved by it then one is brought closer to the Creator. So Emily, her father and Valancourt are being shown as good people who understand and appreciate the important spiritual, intellectual and authentic life. They are what we should aspire to be.
Then Emily is cast out from this little paradise by the death of her father. She is forced to go live with her aunt in Toulouse. Madame Cheron, soon to be Montoni, presents a tidy contrast. Her life and those with whom she associates is all about money, ostentatious displays of wealth, and artifice. And it is about to become very dangerous for our poor heroine.
Will Emily’s authentic self survive? Oh but this is a gothic novel. She will pass through perils, shed so many more tears that the river she has already created with them will flood, but no doubt she will survive and have a happy ending. I just have a lot of pages before Emily will get there. But it is fun in spite of the river of Emily’s tears, all the sublime scenery, and not much else happening. Though it is beginning to get interesting because of the jealous cruelty of Madame Cheron/Montoni and hints of secrets. It is even starting to feel a bit Wilkie Collins-y.
So it appears that Mysteries of Udolpho has wormed its way into being my wild card RIP book. I am going to save The Others for October. I want it to be cool and gloomy and the leaves off the trees. I want some goosebumps. Until then Udolpho should keep me tripping along.
I would suggest going backwards rather than forwards. The text you want is Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757). Hugely influential on our thinking and language about beauty even today. I will bet Radcliffe can be matched point for point against Burke. I did that exercise with Little House on the Prairie, which surprisingly is largely about a young girl’s developing sense of the sublime.
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Those gothic novels of the late 18th/early 19th century seem a little clunky to read and yet the best of them are worth reading – books like Udolpho and Frankenstein or Godwin’s powerful anarchist pursuit novel Caleb Williams. Clunky compared to Fielding or Richardson (commentators at the time often seemed to think that the novel was already in a state of decline) – but books that still have a lot of life in them.
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Ian, oh yes, we make fun them, at least I do, but ultimately they have something to say about the culture and beliefs of the time as well as putting forth an argument for what is the proper way to live/think/conduct oneself in the world all wrapped up in a romance and melodrama. I think Frankenstein steps the genre up a few notches. I’ve not read Caleb Williams but now you have me interested! It seems sort of a political thriller. Emily in Udolpho has made me think a time or two of Richardson’s Clarissa and Radcliffe’s story is far more interesting even if only reading it for instruction on how a lady should conduct herself.
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William Hazlitt was a great admirer of Caleb Williams and it is very much a political/philosophical thriller that thrills despite Godwin’s very heavy style. I would rate it alongside Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed as a fictional examination of Anarchism
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Ian, since I love LeGuin’s The Dispossessed you have totally sold me on Caleb Williams!
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Tom, as I was wondering about this I thought, I bet this is something Tom knows about! And I was right 🙂 So thank you for the recommendation. My public library has failed in having a copy of Burke which is very sad and makes me glad I work at a university where I can get a copy. If all else fails it is online but books are so much easier to page through with something like this.
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Oh yes, there is a lot of nature in gothic novels of the period. So much so that for me it stops being sublime and starts to be rather creepy. I have ‘Udolpho’ sitting on a shelf somewhere but I don’t think I ever got even as far as you have. Maybe I should give it a second go.
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Alex, LOL, that nature gets creepy is all part and parcel of gothic fiction so I guess it works! 🙂
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Exactly, Alex, exactly. The sublime causes fear.
Our use of the word has shifted a bit since the 18th century.
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When I was reading NA, I was curious to check out Mysteries of Udolpho. But never did. Thanks for reading and reviewing it for me. Also, my ‘Is this a Library?’ post is up. 😉
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Arti, Udolpho is turning out to be an interesting book. I’m not done with it yet but it is going along well. Didn’t get a chance to stop by your blog this weekend but I will be shortly!
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Looks like you are doing great on your R.I.P. challenge! I still need to put my list together. Looking forward to reading more of your thoughts on this one – I’ve sort of had this one on my list for ages and should just go for it one day.
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Iliana, don’t wait too long for RIP, September is almost over and October is sure to fly by! Udolpho is turning out to be much more interesting than I thought it would be.
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I really like Radcliffe! Somehow, even though her books are so long, they are engaging and interesting, even when nothing happens. The 18th and 19th centuries are great for long books where not a whole lot happens per page, but that keep your interest anyway.
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Rebecca, I am enjoying Radcliffe very much. You are right, I noticed today that I am about a third of way through the book and while there have been some shocking things that happen for the most part nothing happens but I am still enjoying it! I am not sure why or what is holding my interest but it is.
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I really enjoyed this when I read it a few years back and should really reread it–or pick something else by her. By now you are probably nearly or maybe even are finished! (I”m behind in reading…..). The Germany fairy tales I read last year would actually fit in well with this book/RIP reading!
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Danielle, hahahahaha! Nearly finished? I am only about a third of the way through. But I am enjoying it very much.
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