Emma by Jane Austen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Jane Austen is a great writer, and Emma contains all her trademark wit, humor and sardonic commentary. The protagonist, however, is difficult to like. And that a 20-year-old woman could behave this way strains credulity; she seems like she just turned 14. But maybe the point of the character is that she’s particularly immature. And she does grow up a little over the course of the book.
There’s a flaw in the plot construction, too, that’s linked with Emma’s character: the only thing preventing the happy ending from happening on the first page is Emma’s ignorance of her own feelings. She’s constantly talking about how Mr. Knightly is so much better than every other man, and he’s so rich and well-mannered and handsome and smart, and he’s the only living person whose good opinion she cares about, but no, she’s not going to get married.
If Emma had listened to herself talk for ten minutes on page 1, the book would have been over by page 20. It’s true that there’s some plot development connected with Emma’s realization that she loves Mr. Knightly, but that realization could have come about in any number of ways, and the only reason it didn’t happen sooner, or later, was the author’s whim. You feel a little cheated when the story ends that way. There should be more of an element of necessity to it.
I almost think that the actual story here is Jane Fairfax’s, and the marriage of Anne Taylor as the inciting incident, and Emma’s marriage as the happy ending, are just convenient bookends to kick things off and shut them down again.
View all my reviews