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I recently finished
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe. I have read her
Romance of the Forest, and
Udolpho had been on my list for awhile. It was most famously lampooned in Jane Austen’s
Northanger Abbey. In my freshman year of college, I took a course on gothic literature and we actually read excerpts from
The Mysteries of Udolpho. Our teaching fellow explained that it even though it was one of the formative (and genre-defining) gothic texts, it had been so thoroughly panned in the course feedback that they decided to drop it from the course. One of my classmates said that she had read it on her own and it was a waste of time, and that she felt very disappointed in the mysterious “reveal.”
So I certainly had a good deal of forewarning, but I still wanted to read it myself.
Udolpho’s heroine is the young, beautiful and virtuous Emily St. Aubert. She is a Frenchwoman and a good deal of the novel is her traversing the ‘sublime’ landscapes of France, Italy, the Alps and the Pyrenees. After the death of her parents, she is spirited away by her aunt and new, villainous step-uncle Count Montoni to Italy. They first travel to Venice, and then to Montoni’s ancestral pile-the Udolpho Castle of the title. There, Emily becomes a prisoner, and realistically becomes concerned that Montoni will sell her to the highest bidder. Radcliffe is also famous for creating the “explained supernatural”-a trope probably most exploited by (and familiar to viewers of)
the Scooby Doo series.
Terry Castle is an academic who wrote the introduction to my Oxford edition, and she makes a very good case for
The Mysteries of Udolpho‘s contributions to our current understanding of death and memory. However, if you’re a general interest reader, I’d probably advise you to skip it. If you’re interested in an early gothic story, I’d recommend
The Monk by Matthew Lewis. It’s much juicier, and a good deal shorter than 672 pages!
Has anyone else read
The Mysteries of Udolpho? What do you think?
Like the title of this post explains, this whole summer (year, really) has been all about Bill Bryson for me, and continues to get better as I dive deeper into his collection of works. As an internationally-known travel writer, Bryson is both informative and hilarious, a combination of qualities that aren’t usually seen in his colleagues. I started off my obsession by reading his book on Australia titled “In A Sunburned Country.” He traveled from the city of Perth on Oz’s west coast all the way over to Queensland in the east. He was very funny, and yet scared me to death with his stories about saltwater crocs and his enthusiastic emphasis on the fact that the top ten deadliest snakes and spiders in the world all reside down under.
Recently I finished his most famous book, “A Walk in the Woods,” about his adventures hiking the Appalachian Trail. Bryson was probably at his funniest while writing this book, and I would recommend it to anyone who would like to know more about why he has achieved such a state of celebrity in the writing world.
I’m currently reading his book about returning to America after living in England for two decades, “I’m a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away.” Instead of one cohesive piece, it’s a collection of columns he wrote for a New Hampshire-based newspaper, so there’s no plot. I still think he’s hilarious but I like it better when he tells a story.
I recommend Bill Bryson to anyone who enjoys traveling, has any semblance of a sense of humor, and doesn’t feel like leafing through a fat reference book in order to learn something about the rest of the planet.