Emma - Jane Austen (and inadvertantly Clueless)

Every now and again, I like to jump back into a book I've already read and loved, just to remind myself why I fell in love with it in the first place. All six Jane Austen novels are on that list, although not long ago I re-read Sense and Sensibility, and now I have reread Emma.

Emma centres around the life of Emma Woodhouse, a well-to-do young lady who has it in her mind that she's got a knack for matchmaking, despite her apparent lack of success. At the beginning of the novel, she takes young Harriet Smith, a young woman of unknown birth, under her wing, and declares that she should wed Mr Elton, a local vicar, and that Mr Elton is madly in love with Miss Smith. However, Emma has read the situation all wrong, and Mr Elton is actually in love with herself, and Emma must work her way out of the mess she's gotten herself in to. The novel follows on with various other romantic intrigues, comical errors, and  garden parties. The plot is actually hilarious, and relevant to today's courtship rituals, despite the clear differences.

And even, perhaps as a young man, you feel the plot a bit too fantastical, how can you go past Austen's marvelous and engaging prose?

"Mr Elton returning, a very happy man, He had gone away rejected and mortified - disappointed in a very sanguine hope, after a series of what had appeared to him strong encouragement; and not only losing the right lady, but finding himself debased to the level of a very wrong one. He had gone away deeply offended - he came back engaged to another - and to another as superior, of course, to the first, as under such circumstnaces what is gained always as to what is lost. He came back gay and self-satisfied, eager and busy, caring nothing for Miss Woodhouse, and defying Miss Smith."

Jane Austen's writing is simply marvellous. There's a reason why she has legions of fans the world over, why there are annual shindigs like the Jane Austen festival being held in Canberra this April (www.janeaustenfestival.com.au), and why everyone should give at least one (but preferably all) Austen novels a try.

Going to an all-girl's school, it was practically impossible to avoid Jane Austen, and most definitely impossible to avoid repeated viewings of the movie Clueless, starring Alicia Silverstone. For those who didn't realise at the time (and I am one of those few), Clueless is based around the plot of Emma, with Cher playing the high spirited matchmaker, Emma. Although the names are changed and part of the plot is slightly different, they're essentially the same story. And it was with much annoyance that, whilst reading Emma, both the first time around and then again over these last few days, I couldn't get Clueless out of my head. I constantly found myself making connections between the movie and the book, and how it was actually quite clever how they had managed to update the older novel into a modern film.

But, it got very annoying very quickly, because I found I was unable to enjoy Emma for Emma, and I fear, due to the fact I've seen Clueless at least 20 times, I'll never be able to. That being said, Emma read differently to me than the other Austen novels. It's hard to put my finger directly on what that difference is, but I think it has something to do with the use of dialogue, and perhaps strange punctuation. It just didn't flow for me as easily as the others did. Although, to be fair, that might not be all Austen, as I started a new job this week and so have been a bit distracted and tired while I've been reading. But anyway, at times I felt it difficult to keep going - things were moving too slowly, there was too much chatting going on, the absurd formality of their society really did seem absurd, rather than charming and quaint, as it does in most Austen novels. I occasionally even fell asleep whilst reading, a habit I thought I had trained myself out of over the summer.

Despite my pathetic grumblings, Emma is still a Jane Austen novel, and as such, amazing, and should most definitely be read by all young women at least once, and if they have any good sense, all young men too. And don't just take the easy way out and watch Clueless! You'll regret it forever!

As a young women who professes to love reading in all its forms, Jane Austen has, and always will, shaped my views about reading, and influenced the books I like to read. She was a genius both of her time, and before her time. Pick up a Jane Austen novel and you won't be disappointed.