Emma by Jane Austen

 

Title:  Emma

Author: Jane Austen

Read by:  Alison Larkin

Publisher: Alison Larkin Presents

Length: Approximately 16 hours and 46 minutes

Source: Purchased from Audible.

 

Emma is a Jane Austen classic that I have enjoyed since I was a teenager.  My gateway into Emma was the movie Clueless and the 1996 movie starring Emma Paltrow.  I remember taking my new college friends our freshmen year to see Emma in the theatre.  My last Emma movie experience was taking my daughter Penelope to it in March 2020.  Little did we know that everything would be shut down a week later and it would be the last movie we would see in a theatre for a long time.

I’ve reviewed this novel several times on this blog, so I won’t go into a detailed review here.  I do love listening to it as an audiobook.  Austen was meant to be read out loud as it was in her original time to her family.    This time I listened to the audiobook in preparation for a JASNA Wisconsin Section Virtual Book Club Meeting. Every time I reread Austen; I always get different points out of it.  It was enhanced this time with our book club discussion. My random thoughts along with book club thoughts this time were as follows:

• -        Mr. Knightley was discussed at book club as being kind of an uncle figure being sixteen years older.  He is constantly reprimanding her and treating her in a way that seems more intimate than a neighbor should.  We all agreed that was true, but that we didn’t want to think of him as an uncle as he ends up being her love interest!!
• -        Mr. Knightly is Emma’s intellectual equal, but the difference in age does make it seem creepy looking at it now.
• -        It’s interesting that the novel Emma deals with a lot of loss.  Emma, Frank Churchill, Jane Fairfax, and Harriet are all missing parents
• -        Emma has both realistic restrained society as well as a parody of society.
• -        What is the line between parody and reality?  Is Austen writing for comic effect with Miss Bates and Mrs. Elton?  Or is it a well-drawn portrait of a real type of person that we can still recognize now?  Emma starts to understand that as an adult we need to really get to know people and their circumstances before you judge them.  We agreed that Miss Bates seemed like a real type of person that was well drawn, but that Mrs. Elton was unlikeable.  Jane was living like Miss Bates at this time and her real story paralleled Miss Bates.  It’s interesting to think about.
• -        What are your thoughts about Mr. Woodhouse?  He makes a lot of demands of Emma and is a tedious character.  He loves Emma, but he is a hypochondriac that spends a lot of time talking about his perceived illnesses.  He gets his way all of the time, only thinks of himself, and everyone has to do what he wants or find ways to get around him. 
• -        As we discussed this book at book club, it was interesting to see the great depths for each character.  We could discuss each character and their layers for quite a while.  Austen was so clever writing her characters, her society, and her plots.  Emma is a perfectly written novel.
• -        Emma is a strong female character.  She does have great personal growth throughout this novel and its enjoyable to see it every time I read this book.
• -        I was struck by the side characters in this story.  There was perhaps one paragraph that discussed Jane Fairfax’s parents and how her mother had married a military man.  They both died.  I really want a book on her parents fleshing this story out.  I felt the same way about Frank Churchill’s parents.  Mr. Weston discusses how Mrs. Churchill had risen from nothing when she married into the Churchill family, and she was the most against Mr. Weston’s marriage to Frank’s Mom.  Why?  I wanted to know more about their marriage as well.
• -        I wish we knew more about Mr. Robert Martin.  I love that he loves Harriet and sticks by her and asks again even after her silly proposal.  He allows her the time to know herself.
• -        Why does Jane Austen always write such despicable clergymen?  Mr. Elton thinks a lot about himself and has a vindictive streak.  He is not a nice man.
• -        Would you have been friends with Jane Fairfax?  She has a lack of openness.
• -        It is so fun reading this when you know how it ends.  I missed so many details or misinterpreted them like Emma the first time through the novel.  When you reread it, you can see how there were so many clues for the ending.

 Alison Larkin is a wonderful narrator.  I enjoy her light British accent and soothing tones.  Her mannerisms and voices for the characters are wonderful.  I always look for her as a narrator now when I’m searching for audiobooks.

Overall, Emma by Jane Austen is a wonderful book to treasure and the audiobook by Alison Larkin is excellent.  It’s even more fun to discuss this in a book club setting than reading it on my own.  Next up for the club is Persuasion.