Review: George Knightley, Esquire

I begin to think that the best way to understand one novel is to read all possible fictional variations on it. It's a much more hands-on method than reading essays about the novel, and much more entertaining. Reading Barbara Cornthwaite's Emma-variation, George Knightley, Esquire: Charity Envieth Not, has given me a much better understanding of the structure of Emma, especially as it compares to other Jane Austen novels. Fair warning: I can't imagine you're still reading my Emma musings if you haven't read Emma, but I'm going to assume knowledge of the plot, and spoil the ending.

Moving the point of view of a story such as Emma, where the point of view is so important to the conflict, necessarily changes the story. In Emma, the main source of conflict and suspense through the first third of the book is the misunderstanding between Emma, Harriet, and Mr. Elton. But if you're telling the story from Knightley's point of view, this becomes much less suspenseful--Knightley knows Elton wants to marry Emma. The conflict then has to come from Knightley watching the situation and wondering how it will all work out. In fact, the conflict throughout Emma comes from the interaction between Emma's assumptions and the realities. Emma's point of view is thoroughly tied to the way the story works. It's certainly worth doing to take a closer look at Knightley's part in the story--he's in the background a surprising amount during Emma--but it does make it a different kind of book. On the other hand, in Pride and Prejudice, for example, neither Elizabeth nor Darcy see everything clearly, and conflict more often comes from outside sources, so changing the POV has less effect on structure. Of course, with any retelling, you go into it knowing the story so there's less suspense no matter what.

This is something that is both highlighted by George Knightley, Esquire, and that must be kept in mind while reading it. Charity Envieth Not is book one of two, ending about the middle of Emma just after Frank Churchill is recalled to Yorkshire and the ball at the Crown is canceled. I was quite impressed by how well this stands as a single book, and this seems a very natural ending for the first half of Mr. Knightley's story, not long after he realizes he is in love with Emma. I thought the method of his realization was fabulous, set up well in advance. Emma is the sort of book that gives the reader a very satisfying "I know something you don't know" feeling, and this is preserved in Mr. Knightley's slow discovery of his love for Emma.

The trick of retelling a story from a different point of view is to make it different enough to be worth reading. We see so little of Mr. Knightley's time during Emma that this ought not to be difficult, though I'm sure it's a huge temptation to just retell the story without adding anything new. Amanda Grange's Mr. Knightley's Diary had a tendency to do this, probably made even worse by the diary format. Mr. Knightley, of course, is such an ordinary fellow, that it's hard to make many of his doings very interesting without changing what we know of his character. Knightley's previously unseen life is never very surprising, as I recall Darcy's being in Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman. I confess I sometimes wanted it to be, but then Emma is a very different book, much more confined. Knightley is perfectly satisfied with his country life, and so we must be too, but if that didn't bother us in Emma it ought not to bother us here.

Charity Envieth Not does add something new. It is not just a less-skillful repeat of Emma, as some such books are. Jane Austen helps by leaving out parts of conversations in the original, and Barbara Cornthwaite has stepped in to give us the conversations Jane Austen doesn't, skating over the conversations we already know. With the excellent addition of various new characters (Mr. Spencer was my favourite) and deeper exploration of already established relationships (with John Knightley, for example), this has become a new story without losing Emma or become absurd. I particularly liked how Emma's presence in this story parallels Knightley's presence in Emma. When I last reread Emma I was surprised by how unobtrusive Knightley is during the early parts of the book. Here Emma, if not unobtrusive (she's the sort of character who makes herself known), is at least not excessively present. Knightley has a life entirely separate from Hartfield, and we see it.

So this is a very good retelling. If you read one Emma spin-off (not counting Old Friends and New Fancies, which isn't really about Emma), read this one. I am very much looking forward to book two.

In the mailbox

Getting packages in the mail is way, way too exciting. Especially when said packages contain a book. Especially when they contain a book one particularly wanted to read. Especially when they come from said book's very kind author. (Thank you!)
Yes, I'm back to my Emma reading. I've already started the book, and I'm enjoying it, but I'll have more to say once I've finished. Some comparative musings on telling the story from the hero's point of view in all the other books are in the works too, I imagine.

Review: Amanda

I am beginning to despair of finding an Emma spin-off that's really good. Old Friends and New Fancies was wonderful, but Emma was a very minor character, and I didn't like what they'd done with her. Mr. Knightley's Diary was unmemorable, Perfect Happiness was rather ridiculous. Amanda is... far from perfect.

Amanda, by Debra White Smith, is a modernized Emma, set in Australia. They've changed all the names, sometimes quite unnecessarily and in silly ways--Emma Woodhouse has become Amanda Wood Priebe, Harriet Smith has become Haley Schmitz. I suppose I understand the desire to distance it from the original, but in some places it's just not necessary. Amanda is the CEO of her family's international travel agency, Haley is her secretary. Mr. Knightley, who has become Nate Knighton, is the heir of Knighton's department stores. Ms. Bates, here Betty Cates, is everyone's cleaning lady. Mr. Elton, become Mason Eldridge, is a music minister at a local church.

In some ways I thought this was quite a good modernization. Mind you, I only ever thought this when I wasn't thinking very hard. One thing that bothered me was that the whole thing was very religious. All the characters were church-going Christians, and the book made this very noticeable. I wouldn't have minded this so much if it struck me as plausible, but it never did. I find it unlikely that these people, many of whom are not at all connected except by proximity, should all happen to be so Christian. I find it out of character, even, for Emma. Or at least, the Emma we know. She's presented as being someone with not a lot of concentration--she never finishes her reading lists, never sticks to practising her music--and I know from my own personality that it takes a certain amount of concentration to be religious. Everyone in Jane Austen goes to church, of course, but that was a function of the era, and it says something very different if everyone goes to church in the present day. I suppose this is just like that movie version of a modern Pride and Prejudice that was made by the Mormons.

The other thing I disliked about this book was that it told the story from multiple viewpoints. Sometimes we see through Emma's eyes, but sometimes we see through Knightley's or Harriet's. What distinguishes Emma as a novel is the way Emma tells the story and interacts with the narrator. Everything Emma believes is true is fully plausible, and the unspoiled reader knows only as much as Emma does. When you give the reader the story through someone else's point of view--you let the reader know very early on without a doubt that Knightley is not in love with Jane Fairfax or Harriet, for example--you completely change the story. Emma gets the title for a reason--not only because she's the heroine, but because she's the storyteller. I'll admit, the author was probably not trying to echo Emma quite that closely. I doubt she put as much thought into modernizing the novel as she put into modernizing the plot. It's interesting, though, to examine how those two things interact in this process.

Reading this has reminded me once again of my opinions on professional publishing vs. the internet. I have read modern Emma stories online that I liked far better than I liked this one (try this), and I'm sure there are also better sequels and alternate POVs. Jane Austen-related fiction is kind of a great way to prove my point, as well. It's not like most fanfiction, where what's published in print is original, and what's online is not. Amanda is no more original than any Jane Austen fiction on fanfiction.net, and it is not necessarily better.

This is the last of these I'll read for a while, since the others aren't available from either of my libraries and I'll have to buy them if I really want them. I have to say I don't mind, as these books so far have been entertaining but not great, and I want to read other things. They have brought up some interesting thoughts, though, and I'm sure I'll come back to them.

Review: Perfect Happiness

Sequels have always made me sad. I've no problems with the kind of sequels that are planned from the beginning, that follow a story with loose ends to resolve. My problem is with books following the happily ever after. The only way to write more is to say it's not quite happily ever after yet. And it's worse when it's the sequel to a book I love as much as I love Emma.

Perfect Happiness, by Rachel Billington, is one such sequel. Also known as Emma and Knightley, it is sort of stuck with causing them a little bit of angst before the end. Much as I read a sequel because I want to read more about Emma and Knightley, the approach in Old Friends and New Fancies is perhaps more cheerful--cause the side characters angst and trouble, leave our heroes to their happiness. But it ends well, which is maybe all that matters.

Most of the way through this book I was exclaiming over the silliness of it. Much as I don't want to spoil anything, I have to give you a taste: Jane Fairfax dead in childbirth, Frank Churchill run away and increasingly disreputable, John Knightley bankrupt and in jail, Emma going to London to help Isabella through her pregnancy, a discussion of women's rights. Some of that might have served well enough; it's natural for a sequel to broaden its view a little. I like the idea of Emma reading Vindication of the Rights of Women. It's not that any of this was silly on its own terms, and if I forgot Emma for a while it was all perfectly reasonable. But the book had a tone closer to Bronte than Austen, and Emma and Knightley went through a lot of misunderstandings that I would hope they'd got past already. Let's just say, this is not how I'd have written a sequel.

Despite this, the resolution of the book was extremely satisfactory, even if I did want to beat everybody over the head for all the stupid things they'd been believing of the others. Perfect Happiness held my attention extremely well, and if it was sometimes far-fetched it was, at least, never dull.

Review: Emma spin-off reading

I've been reading madly, as I'm a bit ill and there isn't much else I'm up to doing. I shall dedicate this post to two of my Emma novels, Mr. Knightley's Diary and Old Friends and New Fancies.

The first of these is, as the title suggests, a retelling of the story in Mr. Knightley's words, by Amanda Grange. I don't have much to say about it--anything about the story would be repeating anything I've ever said about Emma. I did find Mr. Knightley's voice very true. It didn't sound like a diary, particularly, but few diary novels do, and that didn't much harm it. It also did not feel like reading Emma all over again, as some such novels do, but managed to add something new.

Old Friends and New Fancies, by Sybil G. Brinton, is quite a different story. It has the distinction of being the first Jane Austen-inspired fan novel ever published, written in 1913. Supposedly it is the sequel to all six Jane Austen novels, which is why I counted it among my Emma reading (though I've also meant to read it for a long time apart from this particular quest), but Emma is probably the least relevant to the story. In a way this makes sense--it is probably the most confined of the novels, since we see everything from Emma's view and Emma never travels. There are also fewer side characters in Emma, especially young unmarried ones. For the purposes of this book, however, it would have been easy to use secondary characters like Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill who are more likely to travel and meet the characters from the other books. Brinton very cleverly and deftly intertwines the characters from different stories, in a way that makes it seem perfect natural that they should know each other. Pride and Prejudice provides the most characters, and the setting for a lot of the book. All the main romances that take place in the course of the story include a character from Pride and Prejudice.

Several characters from Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, and Sense and Sensibility are also central, though none of the characters most important to this novel were so central in their own novels. The Wentworths and Sir Walter and Miss Elliott also show up out of Persuasion, and Emma and Mr. Knightley are there, though their presence is the furthest stretch. Emma has apparently taken a liking to London and moved there, which seems to me wholly improbable. The entire cast is impressive and sometimes takes a bit of work to follow, but it is very evenly handled. The title of the book describes the approach to the notion of a Jane Austen sequel rather well--we meet all our old friends, but it is more secondary characters who now come to the forefront. This was a very satisfying book, long and dense and with twisting plotlines. Though Emma herself does not make much of an appearance, she is still (to my mild irritation) matchmaking, and many of the misunderstandings which occur in the course of the book are very like the sorts of difficulties found in Emma. I thoroughly enjoyed this, and must say for it that it never struck me as being noticeably written now, in 1913, or in Jane Austen's time; any of these could have been possible. The melding of Miss Austen's six books is seamless, natural, and lovely.

My Emma Project

So, I must admit I've sort of come back to Jane Austen. I've decided I'm going to read every Emma sequel, retelling, or modernization ever published. There aren't so many of these as there are spin-offs of Pride and Prejudice, so it doesn't seem too unreasonable a venture. I confess some of my motive in this is to prolong my enjoyment of the romance, but I also want to see how many ways it is possible to spin Emma. It's a story I love thinking critically about, so it's interesting to see how other people have thought about it, what they've highlighted, and so on.

So far my reading list for this project includes these books:

• Mr. Knightley's Diary by Amanda Grange - A retelling of the book from Mr. Knightley's point of view.
• Old Friends and New Fancies by Sybil Brinton - A sequel to all six Jane Austen novels, including Emma, the very first Jane Austen fanfiction, written in 1913.
• Perfect Happiness by Rachel Billington - A sequel.
• Amanda by Debra White Smith - A modernized retelling.
• George Knightley, Esquire: Charity Envieth Not by Barbara Cornthwaite - The first of what I assume is a trilogy, Emma retold from Mr. Knightley's point of view. These are associated with the Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman books, which were wonderful, though not by the same author.
• The Importance of Being Emma by Juliet Archer - Another modern retelling.

I've got rather a nice even collection, having two alternate POV retellings, two modern retellings, and two sequels. I imagine there must be more such books out there which I've not heard of, so if you know any please do tell me.