Reading Emma ~ Jane Austen

"Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich." 

Jane Austen

A while ago my husband recommended Jane Austen's novels to become my new companion for the next few weeks. My approval was instant, as one of my favorable movies "Pride and Prejudice" is originally a novel of hers [s].

Jane Austen was a British writer borne in 1775 and lived to be 42 years old. She wrote six novels and one incomplete during her writing period, which spanned from her teenage years until she was about thirty-five years old and before she fell to illness. During her life time she gained some fame as a writer but not untile after her death was she regarded to be part of the English literature. It is thought that Jane fell in love twice, and was proposed to by a third, but was never wedded. "Emma", one of her novels, was published in her life in 1815. Before she began the novel, Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like.",  and she was right. After 89 pages i have retracted from admiring Emma to disliking her, and sharply criticizing her behavior [s].


However, "Emma" is a 448 page novel, and i'm still scratching the surface. During my initial reading i have been distracted by many vocabulary and sentences structures i believe to have departed from the modern English. The novel's events took time in the end of the eighteenth century and reflects an elite society where everyones keeps repeating the phrase "Oh! dear, yes dear" to express enthusiasm about such silly things if put in the context of the twenty-first century. But until i abandon the novel to lake of interest or complementation, i will hold my other thoughts and leave them to be redefined by further chapters in the book.