Janes Austen's "Emma"

- Spoiler alert: don't read if you haven't read the book first -

My view while reading 'Emma'

The first time I read Emma was two summers ago.  I was traveling in Spain, but got stuck in Bilbao because of a hurt ankle. As I had to wait for two days to have cheap transport home, and couldn't visit much of the town lumping about, I entered the nearest bookshop to be able to spend the coming two days reading. Spain is not known for its culture of foreign languages, and as my spanish is not much more extended than Ola!¿Qué tal? - Muy bien! (hoping I'm not making too much spelling mistakes), the large bookstore with hundred of books only gave me the choice between Emma and some book of Charles Dickens. I'm glad I chose Emma.

In fact, I hadn't read any of Jane Austen's novels before. Of course I had seen the movies of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, so I was expecting some mushy lovey-dovey story, but I was pleasantly surprised. Jane Austen's books are not about mawkish love stories, but about people, about characters, about social interaction and the important place this has in ordinary life. This is especially visible in Emma. The book has a small community of strong and well-developed characters, and is all about the interaction between them - the way they influence each other, the way their projects change because of the impact others have on them. Just think about how different Harriet's year would have been if she never had met Emma, how the mere fact that Jane Fairfax exists influences Emma, setting her a standard, how Highbury life would be different if Frank Churchill wouldn't have arrived, and so on. 

But when it comes to Emma's own love story, Jane Austen hastily finishes the novel: when Mr. Knightley makes her a marriage proposal, she writes about Emma's answer "What did she say? - Just what she ought, of course." The last chapters, where all love stories come out, are just there because the story has to be completed, but they are not the culminating point of the book at all. The culminating points are all the social interactions in between.

In a classical mawkish love story Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill would have been the leading characters: a beautiful, sweet but poor girl, an engaging, handsome and rich boy, a nasty aunt and a secret engagement - what more do you need? It sounds almost like a Disney movie. But Austen changes the focus: Emma is the focal point, a precocious girl, thinking very highly about herself. The imperfectness of the main characters makes this a perfect book.

Emma convinced me that a good book is not made by a good story. To have a good book, you need strong, interesting characters and that's about it. When you have the characters, you just let them meet each other, let them interact and write it down. That's where you'll have the perfect book.

You can find the book here.