Catharine or the Bower is
an incomplete juvenilia novel by Jane Austen.
I read the incomplete novel probably twenty years ago. I was excited to read this version completed
by Leo Rockas as one of the March picks for the Northwoods JASNA Book Club.
Catharine is a young
orphan being raised in the country. Her
best friends are the four children of the vicar. After the vicar’s death, they have been sent
off to various locations to make their way in the world. Mr. and Mrs. Stanley come to visit Catharine
and her guardian aunt. They have a
daughter Camilla, and a handsome son Edward.
Camilla and Catharine become friends and Camilla is sure that Catharine
and Edward will become a couple. Catharine
is soon visiting London as well. Will
she reunite with her friends? Will
Catharine and Edward become a couple?
Unfortunately, this short
novel was hard to read through and took me longer than expected to finish. The sentences were very long, convoluted, and
hard to read. The characters are not
fully developed. Rockas tried to copy Austen’s style in this book and he
continued with this type of sentence style in his section of the book. This novel did give me an appreciation for
how well Austen’s fully developed novels are written. As she grew older and had time to edit her
works, it made a great difference. The
first part that was written by Austen did show hints of her wit, and Camilla and
Catharine reminded me of Isabella Thorpe and Catherine Morland from Northanger
Abbey. I loved that Lady Susan from
another Austen juvenilia also was mentioned in the later part finished by
Rockas. Lady Susan is my favorite Austen
juvenilia piece. I would like to see
this work fully developed by another writer to see what they do with it.
Favorite Quotes:
“She professed a love of
books without reading, was lively without wit, and generally good humored
without merit.”
“To suppose that a young man
would be seriously attached in the course of four and twenty hours, to a girl
who has nothing to recommend her but a good pair of eyes!”
Overall, Catharine or the Bower, was interesting to see how Austen developed her style over time but falls flat as a work on its own.
Book Source: Purchased from Amazon.com
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