Thoughts on: Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Hey folks,

Long time, no blog.  This is in no small due part due to three things:

1) My laziness and general malaise when it comes to finishing what I start
2) I just took a massive road trip all over the USA.  Farthest point south, Tucson AZ USA.
3) The book that I chose to read was 874 PAGES long.  I can't believe I actually finished.


So without further ado, here are my thoughts on Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe.

 

Published in 1794, Mysteries of Udolpho was Ann Radcliffe's 4th novel.  I've read Gothic novels before, but never before have I read one so sweeping in scope, and so drawn out.  As aforementioned, it weighs in at 874 pages, not for the faint of heart or for those with a fear of commitment.  The heroine (if you can call a fainting, weeping, sensitive, idiotic and naive woman a heroine) is Emily St. Aubert.  She has a happy home life, living in Languedoc (that's in France...), until her mom dies.  Her father's health never really recovers, and during a romantic and fateful trip to the Italian countryside, Mr. St. Aubert's life stops altogether.  Orphaned, Emily is thrown at the mercy of a cruel and simpering Aunt who swiftly marries (for money... ironically) the penniless and cruel Monsieur Montoni, Italian landowner and generally evil dude.  What follows is a journey to and eventually an escape from Montoni's haunted castle, Udolpho.

Although the book did drag (because I mean it just was so long, too long for my modern youtube sensibilities), it was full of everything that is great about fiction.  There was true love, sword fights, banditti, apparitions, horror, nuns, gambling, mistaken identity and more.  I can absolutely see why it was such a popular novel in its time.  Ann Radcliffe creates a landscape like no other.  You feel like you are riding next to Emily in the coach.  As my name is Emily, I liked to pretend that Radcliffe was writing about me, especially during the romantic stuff.  *sigh* 

FYI, the book is interspersed with poetry, some of it original, some of it quoted from various other sources including contemporary writers and canonical ones.  Some of the poems are pages long.  They're alright.  They don't anything a lot to the plot and I stopped reading them after page 300.  Some sacrifices have to be made for the sake of sanity.

Ta ta for now.  I need to choose what to read next.  My guess is that you'll hear from me soon because whatever I pick, it will be relatively short.

ET