Ratings5
Average rating2.4
Beloved and bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith lends his delightful touch to Emma, the next book in The Austen Project. Prepare to meet a young woman who thinks she knows everything. Fresh from university, Emma Woodhouse triumphantly arrives home in Norfolk ready to embark on adult life with a splash. Not only has her sister, Isabella, been whisked away on a motorcycle up to London, but her astute governess, Miss Taylor is at a loose end, abandoned in the giant family pile, Hartfield, alongside Emma's anxiety-ridden father. Someone is needed to rule the roost and young Emma is more than happy to oblige. As she gets her fledging design business off the ground, there is plenty to delight her in the buzzing little village of Highbury. At the helm of her own dinner parties and instructing her new little protge, Harriet Smith, Emma reigns forth. But there is only one person who can play with Emma's indestructible confidence, her old friend and inscrutable neighbour George Knightly - this time has Emma finally met her match? You don't have to be in London to go to parties, find amusement or make trouble. Not if you're Emma, the very big fish in the rather small pond. But for a young woman who knows everything, Emma has a lot to learn about herself. Ever alive to the uproarious nuances of human behaviour, and both the pleasures and pitfalls of village life, beloved author Alexander McCall Smith's Emma is the busybody we all know and love, and a true modern delight.
Reviews with the most likes.
Reading this book really made me think about what is difficult about retellings: to me, they have to be faithful to the original material while also bringing something new. Unfortunately, this modern retelling of Emma didn't seem to do either for me. This version was essentially an imagining of what Emma would be like if set in modern times, so the only updates were to make that possible. But in modern times, nearly every aspect of this Emma are unlikeable. Moreover, I didn't enjoy the way that McCall Smith distributed the story. The first third of the book tells what is basically backstory in the original story, and the most compelling parts of the original are compressed into just a few pages at the end. George Knightley is barely present, and yet we are supposed to believe that he and Emma are not just fond of each other but in fact in love. Harriet is considered by Emma to be an airhead, although Harriet didn't come across that way to me on the page. This was just overall a miss.
So aptly updated.
I love Jane Austen and Alexander McCall Smith. I have seen several adaptions of Emma and I find this the best