Reading: Emma
Jan. 13th, 2011 04:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scribblemynameSo it was Pat Foley that put me on to this lovely Jane Austen novel and my desktop nook software (not eReader :shudders: ). I don't think she has the powerful Holography trilogy posted here, but her website addy hasn't been working for me recently, so I'll just talk about it.
The Catalyst features Spock (yes, Star Trek: The Original Series and all that jazz) arriving home to announce to his father that he has enrolled in Starfleet and is fully prepared to be disowned. An excellent story, but not where things get interesting as regards Emma.
The Starling's Lament is an incredible piece on Amanda and Sarek: a very well-read Amanda who loves the classics. This is the most intense, deeply developed story I've read on the worst possibilities in their relationship, but it is awesome. And she loves Emma, quotes her, intrigues me.
As a Reminder and a Promise is the best part of all, a climax to the series wrapped up in the beginning of the Amanda/Sarek story in the Holography universe. And this beginning is where I fell in love with Emma.
Flashforward two years. I finally read the thing! Having completed the classic story this morning, let me just say that it is fully worthy of being a classic. Emma herself is delightful, intelligent, and utterly human.
The story opens with a wedding: that of the new Mrs. Weston (and Emma's former governess) and Mr. Weston (father of the elsewise adopted, and thus MIA, Frank Churchill). This could not be a more appropriate opening, though it is by no means obvious until the very last chapter just how perfectly fit it is.
At first, I viewed the book as a social novel, dealing with the particular social relationships of Emma and her circle of friends: a father with a rather delicate constitution; her brother-in-law, the eminently sensible and gentlemanly Mr. Knightley; the former Miss Taylor, now Mrs. Weston, and her husband; Harriet Smith, a delightful friend (who was truthfully more friend to Emma than the other way around, though they were both filled with affection); and the neighbors, less well-loved, Miss Bates and her niece, Jane Fairfax.
The true catalyst in this story is perhaps the wedding, but only insomuch as it allowed Emma to make the acquaintance of one, Harriet Smith, a girl with little social respectability but enough amiability to commend her to her friends and introduce her to a closer acquaintance with the main character. That and the arrival of Jane Fairfax, followed closely by the long-anticipated visit of Frank Churchill, sets off an interesting set of interactions that is most enjoyable, but hardly indicative of the whole journey to be made by the book.
Indeed, following volumes increase the delicate interactions, the calculating secrets, and the potentialities until it became almost certain to this reader that quite more was afoot than at first suspected. In truth, this novel considers the values of self-honesty, compassion, and true character and grace with beautiful constructed comparisons, some showed most plainly, others more subtly, and when at last, Emma's blindness falls away and she sees truly what she had refused herself clear vision, she is wholly a changed person (though with all her delightful qualities of before). In short, the book is not slight, but deals with strong ideas of character and self-evaluation. It is excellent.
And I could finally see why Amanda Grayson said, "Emma was almost always wrong."
Rating: Lovely
Recommended: Yes
The Catalyst features Spock (yes, Star Trek: The Original Series and all that jazz) arriving home to announce to his father that he has enrolled in Starfleet and is fully prepared to be disowned. An excellent story, but not where things get interesting as regards Emma.
The Starling's Lament is an incredible piece on Amanda and Sarek: a very well-read Amanda who loves the classics. This is the most intense, deeply developed story I've read on the worst possibilities in their relationship, but it is awesome. And she loves Emma, quotes her, intrigues me.
As a Reminder and a Promise is the best part of all, a climax to the series wrapped up in the beginning of the Amanda/Sarek story in the Holography universe. And this beginning is where I fell in love with Emma.
Flashforward two years. I finally read the thing! Having completed the classic story this morning, let me just say that it is fully worthy of being a classic. Emma herself is delightful, intelligent, and utterly human.
The story opens with a wedding: that of the new Mrs. Weston (and Emma's former governess) and Mr. Weston (father of the elsewise adopted, and thus MIA, Frank Churchill). This could not be a more appropriate opening, though it is by no means obvious until the very last chapter just how perfectly fit it is.
At first, I viewed the book as a social novel, dealing with the particular social relationships of Emma and her circle of friends: a father with a rather delicate constitution; her brother-in-law, the eminently sensible and gentlemanly Mr. Knightley; the former Miss Taylor, now Mrs. Weston, and her husband; Harriet Smith, a delightful friend (who was truthfully more friend to Emma than the other way around, though they were both filled with affection); and the neighbors, less well-loved, Miss Bates and her niece, Jane Fairfax.
The true catalyst in this story is perhaps the wedding, but only insomuch as it allowed Emma to make the acquaintance of one, Harriet Smith, a girl with little social respectability but enough amiability to commend her to her friends and introduce her to a closer acquaintance with the main character. That and the arrival of Jane Fairfax, followed closely by the long-anticipated visit of Frank Churchill, sets off an interesting set of interactions that is most enjoyable, but hardly indicative of the whole journey to be made by the book.
Indeed, following volumes increase the delicate interactions, the calculating secrets, and the potentialities until it became almost certain to this reader that quite more was afoot than at first suspected. In truth, this novel considers the values of self-honesty, compassion, and true character and grace with beautiful constructed comparisons, some showed most plainly, others more subtly, and when at last, Emma's blindness falls away and she sees truly what she had refused herself clear vision, she is wholly a changed person (though with all her delightful qualities of before). In short, the book is not slight, but deals with strong ideas of character and self-evaluation. It is excellent.
And I could finally see why Amanda Grayson said, "Emma was almost always wrong."
Rating: Lovely
Recommended: Yes
