The Mysteries of Udolpho

It's October 31st :D

Happy Halloween! I hope you have a good day, stay safe and eat lots and lots of candy.

I'm so glad I got this one done, and I'm glad it's my "Halloween Post". There are a few more stories I have to go through, but really this is the best. 

So...Trick or Treat!:

  

by Ann Radcliff

Published: 1790 

Link: https://librivox.org/mysteries-of-udolpho-by-ann-radcliffe/

Listening Time: 32 hours (It's actually a set of four books)

Quote: “A well-informed mind is the best security against the contagion of folly and vice. The vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief, and ready to plunge into error, to escape from the languor of idleness. Store it with ideas, teach it the pleasure of thinking; and the temptations of the world without, will be counteracted by the gratifications derived from the world within.”

Theme: discipline

Of the first-wave gothic stories, this one is my favorite. I can see why Catherine Moreland (and Jane Austen) thought so highly of it. For someone like me, who prefers short stories to long ones, it took a bit of adjustment but it was actually really absorbing. There are these beautiful descriptions of various landscapes and travels. 

It was also really suspenseful: there's a couple of really great mysteries going on. Some of them center around what's happening in the Castle Udolpho and some of them have to do with the St Albert family history. 

But my very favorite part was the characters. When I read the last Harry Potter book, I was really impressed with how Mrs Rowling wrote Harry. Throughout his childhood, Harry has these role models who he looks up to, and kind of idolizes: Hagrid, Sirius, Dumbledore and Lupin. As the story progresses, and in the last book particularly, Harry has to develop his own fortitude and become his own individual. 

I remember reading The Deathly Hallows right after it came out and being so proud of Harry standing up to Lupin when he was wrong. Hermione couldn't do that, Ron wouldn't have done that. Harry is not just a man, he is THE Man. 

That's pretty much how I felt about Emily's coming of age in these books. She's just a kid at the start and she goes through a lot of terrifying stuff. But instead of making her a damsel in distress character, she becomes her own person. She becomes THE Woman. 

Emily St Albert-

(This is how I see her as a kid, also my face for Arwen as an elfling.)

A part of what makes Emily such a resilient character is the way she was raised. Both of Emily's parents were born to wealthy but semi-dysfunctional families and decided they didn't want that for their own lives. They're kind of like the hippie-homeschooler family of the 1600's.

So Emily is raised as a naturalist. Then, while she is still young, the family suffers a tragedy. Her two brothers die and her Mom and Dad get sick. Although they recover, her parent's comes to the realization that they won't always be there to protect their daughter. And because of the way they've chosen to live their lives, their respective families can't be fully relied on to provide that support and protection. If they die, Emily will be on her own and she'll have to deal on her own. 

The term disciplining sometimes has a negative connotation today; people associate it with things like a parent/child power struggle or abuse, but for Emily it means that she was given responsibilities and expectations at an early age. 

In society, particularly back then, girls were given different expectations than boys. Girls could be temperamental or flamboyant and it wasn't as big a deal to control their behavior because they're not going to be the ones to own property or make their own living, and they're typically going to have a father or husband to protect them from consequences of this behavior. Emily's parents know this isn't going to be the case for her: she's already their primary heir and they both have poor health so she's given less lenience in her behavior. She learns what's acceptable, and what's not acceptable, how to compromise but most importantly she learns about her inherent worth, something that no one, no matter what they say or how they treat her, can ever take away. 


Valancourt Duvarney-

When Emily and Mr St Albert meet Valancourt, they strike up a friendship really easily. Mr St Albert sees Valancourt as a vision of what he was like at a younger age. He's generous, sincere, and a genuinely good-hearted person, but also naive and inexperienced...As Mr St Albert likes to think, "This young man has never been at Paris."

When he falls in love with Emily, he thinks he can fix all of her problems for her. I find it surprising that a lot of readers think she should have just married him instead of going into her Aunt's custody until she came of age. That would have been a disaster for both of them. He's so clearly ill-prepared to be a husband at the start. Emily needed to grow up and become her own woman, and Valancourt had to go to Paris.

Singor Montoni-

This is Emily's uncle by marriage. He can put on a charming and affectionate face but he's really a thug and  he's dangerous. Emily going toe-to-toe with him was one of my favorite parts of the story, this was when I realized she'd grown up into the woman.  She figures out that there are times to be a Griffindor, and there are times where it's better to be a Ravenclaw. 





Note:

I really liked the librivox recording, but there are a few readers who have pretty thick accents. This didn't become a problem until the very end when there's this really, really really BIG reveal (what's behind that curtain...huh?!?!) and I couldn't figure out what the word was so I had to listen to that little segment several times...

Then I laughed.

I'd really love to own a print copy of this series. Not a paperback, but hardcover and preferably in the full four volumes. That would be awesome!