My Head Is Full of Books: Weekly progress update on Emma and other musings

"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend, inside a dog it is too dark to read!" -Groucho Marx========="The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." -Jane Austen========="I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."-JK Rowling========"I spend a lot of time reading." -Bill Gates=========“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.” -Jacqueline Kelly=========

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Weekly progress update on Emma and other musings

Cover image by: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

After nearly a year of slowly creeping through the book Emma by Jane Austen I've decided that I'd best find a way to encourage myself to actually complete it. Thus, this weekly update is born. Once a week I shall report on my progress, pose a question or two, reflect on anything and everything Austen, and probably bore you to death, dear readers.

Weekly progress: pages 235-285.

50 page goal reached? Yes, but I only read 40 pages last week and I had hoped to get to page 300. The day is young and I have high hopes that this sub goal will also be met.

Current action: Frank Churchill has left Highbury to return to Enscombe and his Aunt who is (always) ill. Emma wonders if she is in love with him. Mrs. Elton, as the new bride of the vicar, is introduced to Highbury society and has befriended poor Jane Fairfax.

Surprises: Mrs Elton dislikes Emma as much as Emma dislikes her.

"In one respect Mrs. Elton grew even worse than she had appeared at first. Her feelings altered towards Emma. Offended, probably, by the little encouragement which her proposals of intimacy met with, she drew back, in her turn, and gradually became much more cold and distant." p. 252

I 'm also surprised how much attention Jane Austen gave to this minor character, Mrs. Elton. Many pages and chapters are devoted to her vain speeches and bragging about superior knowledge about everything and comparisons to her sister, Mrs. Suckling. (What a wry sense of humor Austen had. Suckling, ha!)

Questions:
1. Do you suppose that Mr. Elton ever told his wife that his first choice was Emma and he'd proposed to her first? I can't find any evidence in the book, but it would seem that Mrs. Elton's dislike of Emma is also fueled by jealousy.

2. Take a look at the Emma image I've chosen. This is the same image on the cover of the edition I am reading. Does her right arm look wrong to you? All week long it has bothered me. It looks like the arm either bends at the wrong place or is attached at her ribs not her shoulder. What do you think?