Emma in Easley Library Bookworms

May 26, 2019 Werner rated it it was amazing

Shelves: general-fiction, classics

Note, Sept. 26, 2023: I've edited this review slightly just now to correct a typo.

My initial experience of this novel was through the medium of film adaptation, via the 1996 movie version starring Gwyneth Paltrow (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116191/ ), which I've seen twice. (Earlier, I'd watched part of the 1972 BBC miniseries on DVD, but couldn't get the technology to cooperate for the second half.) I'd highly recommend the former; and wrote this about it in a comment in one of my Goodreads Note, Sept. 26, 2023: I've edited this review slightly just now to correct a typo.

My initial experience of this novel was through the medium of film adaptation, via the 1996 movie version starring Gwyneth Paltrow (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116191/ ), which I've seen twice. (Earlier, I'd watched part of the 1972 BBC miniseries on DVD, but couldn't get the technology to cooperate for the second half.) I'd highly recommend the former; and wrote this about it in a comment in one of my Goodreads groups "...like all of Austen's work, this has much more depth than what the dismissals of it as "romance" or a "chick flick" might suggest. It has a perceptive critique of class snobbery; and it's also about the importance of character, about self-improvement and learning lessons, about how devastatingly we can hurt people by one thoughtless flip comment, but also about the value of penitence and forgiveness, about friendship (and love). And while I wouldn't call it a comedy --it's too serious for that-- Austen's sense of dry humor leavens it throughout." Although that referred, in the first instance, to the movie, what I said there applies to the book as well.

There are, to be sure, differences between the two, mostly occasioned by the different demands and possibilities of the respective art forms, though the film reproduces the characterizations and essential plot (part of which I'd forgotten by the time I read it, so the read did have some genuine suspense!) of the book. Some of my favorite scenes aren't actually in the book; the "flip comment" and its emotional effect is highlighted much more strongly in the movie, and my impression is that the film version treats the denouement in less rushed fashion, but takes less time with the wind-up. On the plus side for the book, Austen's wonderful prose provides a special part of the Austen experience that only the written format can.

Having now read the original, I would say that it merits the "romance" designation less than the other Austen works I've read so far. True, Emma's (misguided) attempts at matchmaking are a central focus of the plot. But although some readers who dislike Austen complain that her heroines are always over-interested in finding a husband, that's not the case here. Most 19th-century gentlewomen expected to marry, partly because a male provider was usually an economic necessity in their culture, and partly because they generally had a interest in the opposite sex that they expected to satisfy in committed marriage, and wanted to form a family (rather than regarding romantic commitment as a horrible bane that threatens absolute autonomy, and children as an expensive nuisance at best and at worst a curse). Emma, though, does not. She's quite open about having no intention of ever marrying herself (though she's energetic in trying to marry off other people!), and her financial circumstances are such that she doesn't really have to. So husband-hunting isn't an interest of hers, at least for much of the book. That doesn't mean she might not "form [or come to recognize] an attachment" eventually --but no spoilers here!

In a very real sense, rather than a romance, this is more of a character study; and to a significant degree, a coming of age story. Our heroine here is only 20 years old --a grown woman, certainly, and of an age when people in her era were expected to be adults, rather than entering the next phase of their adolescence; but a grown woman who's been somewhat indulged and spoiled, who has more vanity than is good for her and less perception than she imagines, and has some significant lessons to learn. (She's a more flawed protagonist in that sense than her sisters in the Austen sorority, Lizzie Bennett and Elinor Dashwood, both of whom have it much more together as responsible people than she does. But she has an essential good heart that allows you to like her and root for her to grow, rather than dislike her as you do some other characters who lack any essential goodness.) Some of her lessons will be social, because at the outset of the book she can definitely be a first-class snob at times, and a couple of parts here can be eye-rolling. (In the book, she also doesn't come as far as, IMO, she needs to --maybe because Austen's own class attitudes weren't completely enlightened-- but she does come a long way; so, credit where credit is due!)

I rated this at five stars; if I could deduct half-stars, I would have, partly for the above-mentioned eye-rolling moments. But in my estimation, it fully deserves to be rounded up rather than down! ...more

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