Emma; Jane Austen

This has been on my shelf for so long.  SO LONG.  And I didn't read it, because as much as I enjoyed the Gwyneth Paltrow rendition (?) of the story, it also sort of bores me and I was afraid.  Afraid of trying to get into it and being bored by trifles.

Please don't think too poorly of me for that fear.

The back of the book explains it quite well, and helps me understand why I did end up enjoying it so much.

"Jane Austen's intimate study of a complex young lady of twenty, whose egotism, snobbishness, malice, and zeal for arranging the affairs of others leads her into errors of judgement which she must eventually face."  (There's another sentence to that part, but again, it gives away the ending and it still horrifies me that the back-of-book summarizers don't have some sort of taboo against it.  And by "gives away" I mean tells you the ending.)

There's only one word in that summary that I disagree with, and am puzzled by.  "Malice."  I thought I had a pretty good understanding of that word so I looked to Webster to make sure: "desire to cause pain, injury, or distress to another".  Yes.  That's what I thought.  I do not find it permissible for that word to be included in a description of Emma Woodhouse's character.  I wonder why it was allowed and I wish to strike it from the record.

This book is a wonderful character study.  As far as I'm concerned it is on par with a work of Dickens - but like a mini Dickens, because I haven't read one of his this short yet.

This is what the rest of the back of the book has to say:

"Although Jane Austen is reported to have described Emma as "a heroine whom no one but myself will much like", many readers have thought the novel her greatest.  Mark Schorer, in his introduction, also places it at the head of her achievements."

Okay.  I'm not sure I'd go that far.  I have to read the rest of her works, I suppose.  But ... I mean, it is a Jane Austen.  You have to expect certain things, and most certainly not expect others.  Like... don't expect a plethora of action sequences, but do expect witty conversation, and inevitable embarrassments for the main character.  You get that.  But I liked this book.  I think it is a great "setting-down" of a person's thoughts, situations and growth-- and has a lot of interesting insight.

"The first error, and the worst, lay at her door.  It was foolish, it was wrong, to take so active a part in bringing any two people together.  It was adventuring too far, assuming too much, making light of what ought to be serious -- a trick of what ought to be simple.  She was quite concerned and ashamed, and resolved to do such things no more."