Emma

Well it certainly took a long time to read this one… I even had to watch the movie as I was having a hard time getting through it… but after watching the movie, which was pretty good (most books to movies are awful, e.g. Time Traveler’s Wife, The DaVinci Code.. enough said!),  I had a renewed energy to finish it off – Kindle style!  Emma, By Jane Austen, was the story of the matchmaker in the age of time where it was the logical thing for a woman of means and time on her hands to make matches for women in her town.  Emma and her matching worked once and then she was “off her game.”  The movie portrayed Emma as a young, rich, and clever young woman but she was likable.  In the book, I found Emma not the same type of heroine.  She lacked sympathy and seemingly uses her friend Harriet by changing her mind from agreeing to the marriage proposal of one suitor (Mr. Martin) to a person who is above her intellectual and economic means, Mr. Elton.  Emma meets her match in her sister’s brother-in-law, Mr. Knightley, who challenges Emma to stop playing “God” and be more focused on living the values a young woman of her background should be demonstrating rather than how she is currently behaving.   Like all “oldie but goodie” books, in the end the heroine is faced with her own faults (seeing how her matchmaking backfired) and loses out on the man she has grown to love.  Funny thing, her presumed suitor thinks that she in fact will not accept his proposal and he almost leaves town.  In the end, all for naught, Emma and her suitor clear the misunderstandings, which again center around her dear friend Harriet who seems to be thwarted in love once again, and guess what happens?  Emma and her suitor find love in each other.  And guess who the marriage proposal is from?  A mystery of sorts, but in the end everyone seems to get the matches they deserve –Mr. Elton and Miss Hawkins, Jane Fairfax and Mr. Churchill, and yes, Harriet too gets a match!  It is hard at first to keep all of these individuals straight.  Again, a hard read for me at first, but this classic is probably one worth reading, though I wouldn’t put it at the top of the read list.