The Sensationalist

N.B. I’m against classifying made-for-TV movies as “TV”—are there episodes? What’s going on in people’s heads that this is called “TV”? 

Okay. 

…………………

Well, I’m on the wrong side of the Ethnic Miracle for Irish nationalism in the USA, and the wrong generation for it—some people stay very set in their ways until the end, at least in petty ways: the old Irish man in America might vote for reactionary I-am-the-Man politics, but he’d never watch a Jane Austen movie—and the wrong age, too. Oftentimes growing up we live in the world, the headspace, that our parents returned to when they nested, that of their youth, and then we grow up and think, The hell was that all about right? 

Which is a long-winded way of saying that I’m sure Morgues (my pet name for the Morrigan) won’t shake a pitchfork at me for playing the shoneen, you know…. You can’t tell an Aquarius what not to do. You really can’t. They’ll clear their whole schedule to do those things, you know. 

Perhaps that’s an exaggeration. 

But anyway, I forgot how C.S. Lewis-y Northanger is; it’s like a moral mystery: there’s the Tilney kids and the Thorpe kids and one set is good and one set is bad, and blimey if I’ve forgotten which is which…. Largely because it’s not, thrilling, you know. A little formulaic…. Like halfway between Narnia, a veritable fairy-tale Bible, and a proper-pop-romance, you know…. 

Anyway, I do kinda think that to a certain extent, Northanger actually works better on the screen than on the page—Jane’s rational prose and stylistic sheen to everything disguises the fact that she’s talking about a sensationalist, basically, really. (The historicists always say ‘gothic’, hoping that you don’t know what they mean, so that they can go away giggling, having won the game.) Just showing the absurd fantasies of a weak woman—for lack of a better term—visually: bandits come and whisk her away to some mountain fortress for some secret purpose that everyone knows…. In a sense that works better, from a certain point of view, than educating people about names of book titles and authors, amounting to thousands upon thousands of pages of now antiquarian literature that interests relatively few, and which is probably no more of note, really, than say Victoria Holt, to speak only of the 20th century dead, you know. I don’t know who writes “gothic” stuff now. I suppose some of it is more sensationalist than others. Well, I suppose “Twilight” vaguely fits the bill, you know. (dodges tomato) “Get out of here, bum! This is civilization—not some damn little girl show!” 

(tomato emoji)

I suppose there’s no fighting THAT sentiment, right. The anti-sensationalist sentiment! 

…. Yes, now I remember who is the ‘good’ family and which the ‘bad’, although the good kid’s dad or whatever is a little dodgy, in an over-proper way…. Very C.S. Lewis-y, kinda moral romancing, Old Sagittarius, you know…. 

It is funny how you couldn’t go on a date without a chaperone (you’d get assassinated), but you could lie and twist people’s arms to be a pliable chaperone to serve your purpose…. 

…. Anyway, be that as it may. 

Movies are short, but I do think it’s a simple story, maybe even for Jane, and I really do think it benefits from the quotes from the ‘bad’ books, you know. 

And as hemmed-in as Jane’s stories are, there are real benefits to its being a comedy, and a non-adventure, since the ‘bad’ people really do not deserve to die, you know, as they might well die in a sci-fi show, or even in Shakespeare. 

…. Although while there’s no sword fighting in Jane’s stories, even in Northanger, Jane’s men tend to come off as being rather strong—wise, calm…. Strong, basically: warriors at peace. Jane’s girls on the other hand often come off as being rather foolish, although you could take that in different ways as to what was in her head, you know. Journalists flatter themselves that they do and novelists do not, but maybe it is the other way round, or else maybe they are the same, you know. Who writes a character that doesn’t exist? But yeah, the Northanger girl and the Mansfield girl both come off as rather foolish, you know: good-because-lacking-the-power-to-do-wrong. It obviously has an unfortunate layer, but on this plane of consciousness, having the power to do wrong is preferable to the alternative. 

…. It’s a very simple story, very dualistic. I suppose children are often so, and I suppose in the old hat way it is an excellent story for children—feminine children, anyway. I wonder if there are any adaptations with talking animals or animated versions…. Though perhaps children are not quite like that anymore. I do know that masculine and Yankee Doodle kids wouldn’t like it, since there’s no fighting, they’re British, and two of the worst characters are the two main military men! I suppose it’s a classic feminine story, in that way.