If you’re new to this Substack, one of the things I’m offering subscribers in 2023 is A Year with Jane. We’re reading through Austen’s six novels this year and Emma is our read for March and April.
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Early in the week, I usually post a book club email and then on Friday’s I write up This Week’s Miscellany, but I was traveling over the weekend and my entire family has been ill with the latest circulating bug. I’ll spare you the details, but I didn’t have the energy to get up early to write before work like I usually do. (Go an entire week without someone getting sick challenge!) I have been reading Emma, though, and I didn’t want to miss a weekly book club email so here it is a few days late. We’ll save TWM for next week.
Emma Woodhouse
Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.
So begins what I think is one of Austen’s two most perfect novels (the other being Persuasion) regarding the story’s almost universally disliked heroine. While Elizabeth Bennet has flaws, Emma’s vices are obnoxious and irritating. I was sharing the 2009 miniseries starring Romola Garai with my sick kids in the evenings this week and my eleven-year-old daughter remarked in a fury, “She’s so….annoying!” It’s true.
And yet, I find Emma very relatable. (This says nothing good about me.) In fact, I find her the most relatable of all of Austen’s heroines. Her flaws are my flaws. And it all comes back to the very first lines of the novel. Like Emma, I had very little to distress or vex me for the first two decades of my life. I was the youngest child of two, the light of my parents’ life. While I didn’t grow up affluent living on a family estate with extensive grounds, I had everything I needed. My home life was stable and secure. Until my first pregnancy at 22 there were simply no extraordinary challenges to form my character. Like Emma, I was an affectionate, happy, and often self-centered person who thought a little too highly of her own intellect. I had not been shaped by suffering in any substantial way and it showed.
Motherhood gave me a run for my money. The months of debilitating vomiting and nausea (which I now know was hyperemesis gravidarum) to the sleep-deprivation of caring for a colicky newborn to raising a high-needs neurodiverse toddler. . . well, it broke me open. It expanded my heart, made me more compassionate, helped me practice selflessness, knocked the smugness right out of me. It changed me utterly.
So as I re-read Emma, I remember the girl I was. I don’t despise Emma, although, reflecting on this novel definitely motivates self-reflection of my own flawed tendencies to selfishness. I have great affection for our heroine and I think to read this novel well, you have to be rooting for her. You have to desire the growth that she’s capable of. As I’ve explained, as a recovering Emma, I’m a bit biased. But Emma just needs the opportunity to grow in humility and that requires some suffering. There’s no avoiding it.
One obstacle to Emma’s growth is that she is surrounded by people who indulge and flatter her. Her father, Mrs. Weston, and Harriet Smith never challenge her. Their inability to find any fault with Emma warps her perception of herself. While affectionate and well-intentioned, these relationships forming Emma’s life are preventing her from gaining self-awareness. The only person who is truly clear-sighted about Emma is Mr. Knightley who is able to envision the woman Emma is capable of becoming and acknowledge how far she still is from becoming that woman when we meet her at the beginning of the novel.
So for our discussion questions this week: What do you think of Emma as a heroine? What do you think are her primary flaws? How have her father and Mrs. Weston shielded her from addressing them?
If a Janeite friend just urged you to join our Emma book club, welcome! I’m an author of books for both children and grown-ups, a Florida native who spent 13 years in Texas, mom of four kids ages 4-14, and wife to a whisky distiller. I’m the Editor of Word on Fire Spark so I like to think of my work as literary midwifery—helping bring new beautiful creations into the world. And for the purposes of this post about Austen, it might be good to know that I wrote a book called Jane Austen’s Genius Guide to Life: On Love, Friendship, and Becoming the Person God Created You to Be.
Reading schedule:
Week of March 5th:
Gather your books. There are many editions out there, so just grab what’s on your shelf or at the local library. And if you enjoy audiobooks, this is an excellent novel to enjoy with a great narrator. My favorite for this novel is Juliet Stevenson’s audiobook version. Grab Jane Austen’s Genius Guide to Life from Ave Maria Press (use STEWART20 for 20% off) or from Amazon.
If you didn’t start reading with us in January, you may want to catch up by reading the Introduction and Chapters 1-2 of Jane Austen’s Genius Guide to Life to set the stage.
Week of March 12th:
Chapters 1-9 of Emma
Week of March 19th:
Chapters 10-18 of Emma
Week of March 26th:
Chapters 19-27 of Emma
Week of April 2nd:
Chapters 28-36 of Emma
Week of April 9th:
Chapters 37-45 of Emma
Week of April 16th:
Chapters 46-54 of Emma
Week of April 23rd:
Chapter 3 of Jane Austen’s Genius Guide to Life
TBA: Zoom Discussion with special guests, Marcia Lane-McGee and Shannon Wimp Schmidt.
If you know someone who would enjoy reading Austen with us for our Year of Jane, please share this post with him/her!
And coming soon (as soon as I figure out how to embed a video) I’ll share the recording of our live Zoom discussion of Pride & Prejudice with Dr.
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Looking forward to discussion Emma with you!
Haley
(Editor of Word on Fire Spark, Author, Former Podcaster)
Haley’s Children’s Mystery Series about Mouse Nuns
Haley’s Book on Jane Austen’s Novels
Haley’s Book about Radical Simplicity
Not sure what's wrong with me but my two favorite Austen heroines are Emma and Fanny. I connect most to Fanny but love the development of Emma. I think I like Emma because I feel like she is kind at heart. She just doesn't understand what she is doing at all!
I love Emma as a heroine, and always have - despite being an introverted guy, and Emma being a more extroverted gal, I completely agree that her flaws are very often my flaws, and her virtues and aspirational virtues the ones I hope to develop. Those flaws, for me, are her laziness or willingness to coast on considerable talent in a small pool instead of challenging herself. Her father and Mrs. Weston both fail to challenge Emma to work harder, though Mrs. Weston at least does both model and encourage kindness to others which Emma does try to take to heart.