I reread each of Jane Austen’s six novels about once in ten years. This is the fourth time I have featured her here in this blog which has been running just over five years. It means that I have read each of these novels at least five or six times. And she never fails me.
The really interesting thing is the way that I, and presumably most other Austen-inclined folk, tend to react differently at each rereading. Well, as I used to point out to students, the books don’t change. It’s the reader who brings different experience and shifting cultural attitudes each time he or she opens the covers.
It was certainly the case with Emma which I have just reread for three reasons. First, it’s a novel I have always enjoyed. Second, I thought it would be an interesting title to write about here. Third, I am developing a short story predicated on one of the minor characters.
So what, at surface level, is this novel about? Emma, not quite 21, lives with her widowed, neurasthenic father in Surrey. She has a certain amount of local status and likes to organise other people’s lives. Thus we meet villagers and others, especially her younger, easily-led, less privileged friend Harriet Smith. Also in mix are her London-based married sister and her family along with her former, just married governess who lives nearby. Then there’s the avuncular Mr Knightley, a near neighbour and close family friend. All these groups are interlinked and immaculately, often amusingly observed. And her characterisation is startlingly acute – this is Jane Austen after all.
Beneath the surface simmer issues about social class and changes to perceptions: Mr Knightley’s farming tenant, Robert Martin is well educated and respectable. He is almost gentry and his children probably will be. And of course, marriage is a burning question, Marriages aren’t arranged in this world but they tend to fall into place – or not. Moreover, with that go all the questions about inheritance and legacy.
Austen famously said that in Emma, she had created a character whom nobody would like except her creator. Well that’s disingenuous. Emma is full of herself and very keen on manipulating others but when she eventually realises her folly and its consequences, she is genuinely contrite. Surely she’s just a very young and arguably immature, woman with a lot to learn? She is rude to Miss Bates too – well I think most young people would be, actually. Miss Bates is one of those marvellous Austenian characters whom we’ve all met: garrulous, self effacing, well-meaning and you certainly don’t want to get stuck with her at a party. No I don’t dislike Emma. She’s learning fast, after all.
What struck me forcibly this time is that I don’t care for Mr Knightley. Did Austen expect me to? He is 16 years older than Emma and has apparently, it eventually turns out, had his eye on her as wife material, almost ever since she was born. When he was 21 and, presumably out sowing wild oats, Emma was a child of five. It makes me feel a bit queasy. That’s why, though, despite his prosperity as a landowner he is still single in his late thirties. To the version of me rereading this in 2026, it feels uncomfortably and unhealthily inappropriate given the age difference and his fraternal relationship with her
Meanwhile Mr Knightley constantly corrects Emma and tells her how to behave. It’s benign and fairly light-hearted but who on earth does he think he is? Eventually when the inevitable Austen happy ending hoves into view he apologises to Emma for his former bossiness. Is he now going to stop being an overbearing quasi older brother and respect her as an equal? Well he might try to but patronising old habits die hard so I’m not holding my breath.
Of course the plot runs on all the usual Austen misunderstandings. A very old friend of mine is an antiquarian book dealer and I honestly thought that he had read every book on the planet. To my astonishment he told me recently that he had never read Austen. “She wasn’t taught in boys’ schools” he said. Then came the pandemic when my friend read them all in a row. His comment was that if you consume them en bloc the novels begin to feel formulaic. And I suppose that’s what I mean by the usual misunderstandings. Emma is mildly drawn to Frank Churchill who’s a bit of a charmer but the reader knows immediately that he’s not quite what he seems – we’ve been here before in the other novels. We can also see that Mr Elton (Austen’s awfully good at clergymen on the make) is simply looking for a wife and doesn’t much mind who she is. And that’s a familiar plotline too.
Not that it matters. It’s all done with such rapier wit that whatever the plot details are you are swept happily along, Or at least I am. I think it will be Sense and Sensibility next. Give me a few months.
Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: With the End in Mind by Kathryn Mannix
