There is a new book group among some of the women in my family and our first read was Emma. I’ve read Emma before - on many occasions actually - and I am always down with the classics, so I happily picked up Emma and, as expected, it proved a lovely read for the month.
Emma is not my favorite Austen novel but I enjoyed this reading a great deal. For starters, the characters - like all Austen books - are well-drawn and amusing. The narrator is an honest broker with a keen observation skills and a sarcastic sense of humor, also a durable feature of many an Austen novel. In the case of Emma, the narrator is nearly a character of her own and is a big part of the pleasure I get from reading the novel.
Emma herself is not the most sympathetic of Austen heroines but I even like that about her. She’s well-off and snobbish and Austen - and Emma herself - makes no apologies for that. Emma is happy in her world, circumspect though it is, and I admire that about her. Austen’s writings are deeply invested in the lives of the women. They live in the early 19th century and I am always struck by the ways in which meaning for women is relational - not about who they are for themselves but about whom they are for others. I’d like to think that in the 21st century, we are past this view of women. Experience tells me that we are not and that makes this 200 year old novel a rather timely read.
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