Jane Austen will always remind me of my high school AP English class. Not only did we read Pride and Prejudice along with every other high school in the US, we read Mansfield Park as summer reading. My love for Austen began then, and I promised myself I'd read all of her novels in my lifetime. Eventually I got around to Sense and Sensibility, which is easily my favorite. A couple weeks ago I stumbled across a pretty copy of Emma at Piccolo's Books, and decided to start number four!
Emma seemed extremely familiar to me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. A couple chapters in my friend saw me reading, and spilled, "that's the book Clueless is based on!" Bingo. My favorite movie as a pre-teen reflected in early 19th century lit. LOL. I must admit that this kept me reading. The first 100 pages I found rather dull, but now that I could visualize the characters as a young Paul Rudd and a bleach blonde Alicia Silverstone, the novel brought a little smile to my face. "AS IF!"
As the charm of the Clueless ties faded, I found myself a bit perplexed. I wanted to love Emma, because I love Austen. But... hmm... I thought it was a bit silly. Well, silly for Austen, not silly for nowadays.
1. Emma - One of the things I enjoy most about Austen's novels is her ability to write strong, intelligent, logical main characters. Austen's leading ladies may have a moment of poor judgement, or misjudge someone's character (ahem... Darcy), but overall they are level-headed and good. Emma does not fit this bill. She may have a sweet nature about her, but she is judgmental and meddles in other's lives. Sure, she learns her lesson in the end, but she annoyed me the entire book!
2. Predictable? - Maybe I'm just seeing patterns as this is my fourth Austen, but I found this plot much more predictable than the others. Especially everything revolving around Mr. Elton and Mr. Knightley... so obvious!
3. Too much down time - I greatly enjoy how carefully and subtly Austen's plots develop and reveal themselves. The gradual nature of her novels makes them more realistic, and also makes the climax much more heartfelt and grand. This said, I think Emma had too much down time. I wanted more, and never got it.
Now that I got this out of my system, who am I to critique Austen? Even though I didn't particularly like Emma, it's leaps and bounds better than a lot of what you'll read. I mean, come on! It's a classic.
NEXT UP: I needed a major change of pace, so I picked The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. It's been on my To Read list for way too long. BUT I realized it's the second book in the series..?? Do I need to read Angels and Demons first?
prguitarman
origamiaround
2087
gamechangershow
gracieabrams
stormborns
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
vaporwave
ellievsbear
