50 Book Challenge #35: Emma by Jane Austen
I'd read this before, in high school, but it had been years since I'd picked this up.
Thoughts on the re-read: the plot seems much, much more heavy-handed on a second read. It's altogether too painfully obvious that Mr. Knightley is the "good" character who knows what's best for flighty Emma. (The age difference also felt creepier this time around.)
Austen also has an irritating tendency to show rather than tell, contrary to the advice of freshman year intro to creative writing profs everywhere. Take the letter from Robert Martin proposing to Harriet Smith early on in the novel -- we are told that it is a letter full of fine feeling that would credit the writer -- but we never see it. It would be oh so nice to be able to rely on my own judgment, rather than having only Mr. Knightley's say-so. See above about heavy-handedness.
Robert Martin himself is also the ultimate Nice Guy. We're made to feel sorry for Harriet, who presumed so much in dreaming first of Elton (albeit at Emma's urging) and then Knightley, before she finally wises up and settles down with Martin. In this regard, Harriet is close kin to the flighty Ruby Ruggles from Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers. Lori Gottlieb would be happy for both of them. I am not quite so. Emma gets to feel swept off her feet, after all: why not Harriet? Perhaps it's because the characters are trapped in an archaic class system, where the lovely Emmas gets to aspire to whomever they like, and the Harriets get to settle for good, steady and dependable farmers. Of course, that doesn't mean that equally pernicious hiearchies don't also exist today, also constraining women's choices.
Thoughts on the re-read: the plot seems much, much more heavy-handed on a second read. It's altogether too painfully obvious that Mr. Knightley is the "good" character who knows what's best for flighty Emma. (The age difference also felt creepier this time around.)
Austen also has an irritating tendency to show rather than tell, contrary to the advice of freshman year intro to creative writing profs everywhere. Take the letter from Robert Martin proposing to Harriet Smith early on in the novel -- we are told that it is a letter full of fine feeling that would credit the writer -- but we never see it. It would be oh so nice to be able to rely on my own judgment, rather than having only Mr. Knightley's say-so. See above about heavy-handedness.
Robert Martin himself is also the ultimate Nice Guy. We're made to feel sorry for Harriet, who presumed so much in dreaming first of Elton (albeit at Emma's urging) and then Knightley, before she finally wises up and settles down with Martin. In this regard, Harriet is close kin to the flighty Ruby Ruggles from Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers. Lori Gottlieb would be happy for both of them. I am not quite so. Emma gets to feel swept off her feet, after all: why not Harriet? Perhaps it's because the characters are trapped in an archaic class system, where the lovely Emmas gets to aspire to whomever they like, and the Harriets get to settle for good, steady and dependable farmers. Of course, that doesn't mean that equally pernicious hiearchies don't also exist today, also constraining women's choices.