Emma: Volume I, Chapters 1-3

Whenever a friend asks me if they should read one of Jane Austen's novels, I always warn them about the first few chapters. Generally these are the "setting up" chapters-- Mr. A married Miss B, neither of them of much fortune, and had five daughters and no sons. I tell them that if they can get past all of that, they'll get to the real story, the stories that I love so much. (On a related note, I suppose most books are like that, but sometimes I find it particularly difficult with Austen novels).

With Emma, however, Austen tricks you for a minute. Reading the first chapter I thought, "Wow. Is she really just going to throw the reader into the story with minimal history about the heroine's family?" But low and behold, I was wrong with the next chapter as she goes on to explain everyone else's history. I like to think that she did that on purpose. Maybe when her first books were published, people complained about the lengthy histories given at the beginning of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. I bet she wanted to pull one over on those people.

Backtracking a little though, I found the reason why I don't like Emma from the very first paragraph of the book. I'm sure that this observation has been made by many before, but Emma is drastically different from Austen's other heroines. The biggest difference is that she comes from money. She is not ultimately trying to find a rich man to marry because her family is penniless and has no brothers, which is probably the source of her meddling with other people's relationships by playing matchmaker. She's not an entirely likable character. Of course all of Austen's heroine's have their flaws, but Emma's shines the most and creates the most conflict (I feel that maybe Marianne Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility might also come close to being unlikable; her passion causes her to think of only herself, but I'm not sure if that makes her the same as Emma. Don't get me wrong, Marianne is one of my favorite characters, but I'm starting to rethink her a bit... Sorry to digress. I'll get back to that one when I read Sense and Sensibility). I wish I could just smack Emma most of the time.

But perhaps that is what makes Emma one of the more popular novels-- the main character is largely flawed, and she sees the error of her ways in the end (thanks, Mr. Knightley!) and makes amends.

I'm getting ahead of myself here. I should be talking just about the first three chapters.

There were two notable things that I marked as I was reading. I really love how Austen totally sets up the first clue of Emma and Mr. Knightley getting together in the end within the first ten pages: "Mr. Knightley, in fact, was one of the few people who could see faults in Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them; and though this was not particularly agreeable to Emma herself, she knew it would be so much less so to her father, that she would not have him really suspect such a circumstance as her not being thought perfect by any body." To me, that's major foreshadowing. Major foreshadowing. I do know how the book ends, so I'm not saying I'm clever for picking up on this; I just thought it was interesting.

This made me laugh: "There was a strange rumor in Highbury of all the little Perrys being seen with a slice of Mrs. Weston's wedding-cake in their hands; but Mr. Woodhouse would never believe it." I can just imagine the Westons wanting to be rid of their wedding cake and handing it out to the Perry children. More of Jane's wit; I love it.

So, yes, I didn't get too much read today, but I think it's better that I'm starting out slow since I've never read it entirely and it is the longest of the six. Hopefully I'll get a good chunk of it read tomorrow.