Not to be the autocrat at the kitchen table but I hope at least some of you will watch the PBS production of Northanger Abbey this Sunday night. I’ll be on the couch, in my cardigan with the Kleenex-stuffed sleeves, and it’d be nice to think there are others out there doing the same, like a thousand points of cat ladies. If they managed to make something so interestingly loopy out of a source as quiet and bittersweet as Persuasion I can’t wait to see what gets done with Northanger Abbey, which is already a little schizophrenic as novels go.
Also on the decree front: Last night I was rattling around the house looking for a vampire novel. (We raged a little hard for Mr. Tingle’s birthday on Wednesday night and I spent most of yesterday feeling like Charles Bukowski. Like, my kingdom for a fried-egg sandwich.) No hidden caches of vampire novels revealed itself, so I picked up To The North by Elizabeth Bowen instead. I’m not all that far in but I already want to order everyone in the world to read it too. I had some misguided idea that I wouldn’t like Bowen’s novels, that they’d be too glassy or formal. But they’re not, or at least this one isn’t. Just beautiful.
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
