Mrs. Radcliffe vs. JA - no contest!
Posted by Carolyn B on November 19, 1997 at 21:29:58:
In response to I know what you mean!, written by LauraN on November 19, 1997 at 20:25:42
] If you want to continue on Anne Radcliffe, I would suggest one of her shorter works
Thanks for the suggestions. I was at Border's Books today and noticed that they did have a surprisingly large selection of her works and Udolpho was definitely the thickest! (I was buying myself another copy of P&P because I can't find mine anywhere!) One thing I did get out of my attempt at reading Mrs. R was that Catherine Morland & co. had a lot of time on their hands to savor her voluminous prose (whereas I have maybe 15 minutes to read at lunch and a few more before I fall asleep at night). Different time, different attention span.
] After all, how much of "On the pleasant banks of the Garrone in the province of Gascony..." and Mrs. Radcliffe's excessive use of the comma can one take in one stting?! :-)
Some English department runs the Bulwer-Lytton contest for the worst opening sentence to an imaginary novel - maybe there ought to be a Mrs. Radcliffe contest for gothic literary excess.
Makes us appreciate JA's prose all the more! That's why Jane Austen's getting the movie treatments while Mrs. R rests in relative obscurity. I will admit that what few suspenseful plot points I did excavate out of Mrs. R's prose I did start imagining as a movie, but it was a made-for-TV movie possibly starring Tori Spelling or that chick from Party of Five.
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