Stieg Larsson/Jane Austen/Harry Potter mashup

[fire_everything]

I spent the holiday weekend doing basically two things: listening to the new Lady Gaga and rereading Jane Austen’s Emma. The Emma urge had struck me, weirdly, just as I was reaching the gripping climax of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and I actually interrupted Larsson briefly to indulge it. I didn’t reread the whole novel straight, nor did I

Comments

[kellychambliss]

Yay! Emma-talk. Yes, indeed, I know my "Emma." Mr. Suckling's seat (both at Maple Grove and in the barouche-landau) is as familiar to me as Hogwarts.

I don't think I agree with Terry Castle that "Emma" is about "joy and well-being," though there are certainly parts that are joyous, and various forms of health are both enjoyed and desired. I might agree that it's about wanting joy and well-being, but we're constantly reminded of what a tiny, eternally-beseiged island those feelings actually inhabit

[fire_everything]

Oh, you have subverted my reading in SUCH intelligent ways! I see Emma as the one Austen novel that escapes that encroaching darkness and sadness, because it's the only one whose heroine genuinely has the choice not to get married and whose life is not in some way warped by the need to respond to that terrible ultimatum. (It's still warped by being female, probably, but of which of us is that NOT true, even now?) I like that she and Mr. Knightley are both loaded and thus there's no element of rescue in his proposal, although if you want to take a dark-side view of their union, it can be seen as a really terrifying consolidation of socioeconomic power, because Hartfield is practically the only thing in two parishes that Mr. Knightley DOESN'T already own

[kellychambliss]

More thoughts to come, but in the meantime, would you mind if I linked this post to my flist? There are several Jane Austen devotees among the horde.

[fire_everything]

Gulp. Am I ready to have my rose-colored little Emma fantasies dissected by a whole host of people who really know what they're talking about??

Sure, why not? I have gone too far already for concealment, as you might say. ;)

[brighty18]

This post is made of awesome. (FTR, my cat is named Emma, after the novel.)

And, yes, of course, Mr. Knightley has dark hair! That's how I see it. Honestly, though, fair-haired men were not terribly common and I think that would have deserved a mention.

I actually loved Clueless, too.

[brighty18]

This post is made of awesome. (FTR, my cat is named Emma, after the novel.)

And, yes, of course, Mr. Knightley has dark hair! That's how I see it. Honestly, though, fair-haired men were not terribly common and I think that would have deserved a mention.

I actually loved Clueless, too.

[fire_everything]

I'm glad we're on the same page about the dark hair thing, 'cause it's very important. That was a strike against Jonny Lee Miller going in, though it would have been a cinch to overcome had he not also been so mild-mannered and free of all authority. But Lord knows, dark hair did not help Mark Strong.

You could make a pretty tight case that Clueless is the best Emma adaptation of all, and that it has the most aesthetic integrity of any of them. Also, Paul Rudd is a total fox, and I do not at all object to Mr. Knightley being played by a total fox. The people who complain that Jeremy Northam is too good-looking for this role were clearly not reading the Crown ball scene very closely.