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At the risk of gaining a lot of enemies I would like to take a moment to discuss my reaction to the revered Jane Austen's Emma. I didn't technically decide decide to read Emma, rather I pulled the title out of my jar of books to read. I've read Mansfield Park and Persuasion so I felt prepared to wade through the social commentaries Ms. Austen saturates her novels with. I was mistaken. A book that should have taken me a few days to read took me weeks because I could could not stay interested in it for more than a few pages at a time. Besides Knightley, who takes on the Mr. Darcy "I'm cold and opinionated but still lovable" role, the characters were annoying, inconsistent and vain. I found no charm in Emmy's manipulation of Harriet and I wasn't happy for her when she suddenly decides marry after renouncing marriage for 250 pages. I discussed this book with people at work who reacted with shock when I said I didn't enjoy a Jane Austen book. Am I the only one who wasn't impressed with the themes and characters of Emma?

I found the characters so silly as well, but that is what made me love it. It is more of a comedy when you look at it. I did find I got mad at Emma whenever she spoke of the poor Miss Bates. Some of the things she said I found inexcusable. It showed how childish she was, like wanting to marry off her friends and getting in their personal business. I think she had been secretly wanting marriage all throughout the book, but she was afraid of change. I think she got that from her father. The only reason she probably agreed to Mr. Knightley was because marrying him would have not been so big of a change.
Emma can be a very opinionated book, either you love it or you hate it. This book does not compare to Pride and Prejudice at all. It is a comedy whilst Pride and Prejudice is a romance.

I find many of the characters in Jane Austen novels to be annoying and vain, and also a bit one-dimensional. I felt her later books were a bit less entertaining to get through, and I think Emma fell into this category as well.

I loved all of Austin books and especially her "pride and prejudice" which is her best in my opinion. Emma has many deep flaws, but she is really a deeply caring person and means well. I think one either likes her or hates her.

Emma is my least favorite book by Jane Austen. I love Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion, but Emma just wasn't for me :S

I really like Austen but think Emma suffers from a flaw that also afflicts Pride and Prejudice in that the characters who serve as ciphers for Austen (Emma, Elizabeth Bennett etc.) can be quite cruel, and perhaps the author imbues them with her own distaste for the immature, or the superficial which in turn makes the characters a little hard to like.

I'm a Jane Austin fan. To me it is Emma's flaws that make her real. She's annoying but we love her because she does eventually learn from her mistakes and she is humble enough in the end to admit that she is wrong. It is also funny to see how deep she gets herself into scrapes. I especially like when the Mr Elton proposes and she is so horrified to think that he would. She is naively smug and it bites her in the end. Yes, Emma is a piece of work. That's sort of the point.

Norma_Rudolph wrote:Yes, Emma is a piece of work. That's sort of the point.

Actually, fair enough, my point above works far better for Pride and Prejudice than for Emma, where Emma is being clearly skewered by Austen.

I think these characters can seem silly , and perhaps that is fair to say. But their lives were so restricted, and their belief system so different from that of most people today.

I've been told that Emma was autobiographical, and that surprised me. But she is just one who grew up slowly, and not having gone to public school, she learned from her indulgent father to value her own opinions too highly.

Norma_Rudolph wrote:….To me it is Emma's flaws that make her real. She's annoying but we love her because she does eventually learn from her mistakes and she is humble enough in the end to admit that she is wrong….

I agree with you completely, and this is why I love Emma. This is one of my favorite Jane Austen stories and I think it is because of how "silly" the characters are and how Emma thinks she knows best. I like how she grows and her "true friends" forgive her. It has happened in my lift when I was trying to help a friends relationship, and she forgave me when I admitted I was wrong. It was a very Emma moment to both of us!

I have read all of Jane Austen's novels, and I loved them all except for Emma. I didn't like anything about her character, so it was just really hard to get through the book. I read her as being shallow, selfish, and manipulative. Since reading the book, I've watched the movie Clueless, which is loosely based on Emma. While the main character is like Emma in all of those ways, the movie became one of my favorites. Maybe it was the '90s setting and lingo or the way the part was written, but the main character didn't bother me like Emma did. This makes me want to read Emma again and see if it was just the way I took it. Maybe it was supposed to be funny in the same way that Clueless is and I took it more seriously than it was intended to be taken.

When I first read Emma (which was my first Jane Austen novel) it was so hard for me to keep reading it that I only got through maybe two chapters. I gave up, put it down and didn't look back until about a year went by. For some reason I became determined to give it a second chance at some point so I picked it up again and focused on getting through it. The second time around it was much easier for me to read. I have no idea why, but I found it much more likable once I gave it another try. It was very humorous to me, I found myself laughing out loud and found the ridiculous characters to be part of the charm. Emma, however, has always been a disappointment to me. I found her very rude, snobbish, spoiled, selfish and manipulative. I loved Knightley but it never seemed right that he would want to be with her. It was very hard for me to see how she was even likable, her faults so outwieghed her good qualities. Come to think of it I don't even really know if I ever figured out what her good qualities were supposed to be, despite what anyone in the book seemed to like about her, her actions spoke against her. At the end of the story it really felt to me like she was only sorry that people were thinking bad of her, not that she was actually sorry for her actions. And it always seemed wrong to me that she decides she'd be heartbroken without Mr. Knightley once she sees that someone else might have him instead of her.

Wow, I'm pretty different I think. First time I read it for a college class, I enjoyed it, but second time I read it, I couldn't stand it.

I don't think Emma is my favorite Jane Austen book, although the movie version with Gwyneth Paltrow is pretty fantastic. Those who aren't crazy about the book - what do you think about that film adaptation?

Sott9 wrote:I don't think Emma is my favorite Jane Austen book, although the movie version with Gwyneth Paltrow is pretty fantastic. Those who aren't crazy about the book - what do you think about that film adaptation?

I think both it and the TV version released the same year (with Kate Beckinsale) as the title character are decent adaptations without being incredible works in their own right. But for me the Beckinsale version edges it for having Mark Strong in a romantic leader before he became a go to Hollywood villain...