As with the first part of our Udolpho episode, this is full of spoilers, so don’t listen if you are up for reading about 300 pages (approximately half) of this Ann Radcliffe novel. However, if you are seeking a lively summary that will allow you to chat confidently about THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO at your next cocktail party, do push play.
When you do, you will find yourself waist deep in banditti and pirates (which might seem like the same thing, but you’d be wrong). The story leaves the fabled Castle of Udolpho, but the intrigue does not end as Emily winds her way back, by road and by sea, to her homeland of France, and the patriarchal real estate hustle continues, while Radcliffe makes sure that every, single imaginable moment of mystery that we’ve encountered in the novel is tidily and rationally explained.
Then, we turn to the question of whether you should go ahead and read this novel yourself. What will you gain? What is there that we have not captured in our summary? The answer might surprise you.
Along the way, Sonja finds handy travel cash under a horse’s saddle, Vanessa does some “performative sighing” after summarizing this brick of a novel, and both Sonja and Vanessa agree that wallowing in melancholy does have its undeniable charms.
REFERENCES:
After recording about 50 episodes, itt’s hard not to refer back to books we’ve read for the pod, and you can find all of it in our previous seasons: check out our episode on Samuel Richardson’s 1740 Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded; for the reference on Mrs. Ramsey and Lily Brisco, here is a link to our To the Lighthouse episode; in the discussion about metaphorical windows, you might like these episodes: Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Madeline Miller’s Circe, Federico Garcia Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and our 3-part analysis of Juliet in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
If you are interested in our spicy episode on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” you’ll have to go to our Patreon–but we promise it’s worth it.
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