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Summary: Emma! What more can I say?
Review: Emma is a touching, comeing of age story. It is about a young girl who is close to becoming spoiled and conceited, but through many experiences both good and bad she slowly turns into a caring considerate woman. I have read all of Jane Austen's novels and Emma is definately my favorite. It contains more humor than most of Jane Austen's stories and is fun to read. I would recomend this for a first time Austen reader, because it is such a fun book that is somewhat lighter and easier to read than some of Austen's other novels.
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Summary: A Classic For The World
Review: Maybe it was the way Jane Austen drew the reader into the story, or possibly the twists and turns of the plot, but whatever it was to add the extra flavor it worked. The book demonstrates a perspective on love that can only be seen through the eyes of a person who involves themselves as a whole in the book. It has a way of making it an impossible task to put it down. This story stands the tests of time and will surely work it's way into the hearts of millions more. As Jane Austen said,"imagination is everything".
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Summary: A Witty and Imaginative Classic!
Review: I loved Emma by Jane Austen. I think that the best aspect of Austen's writing is her witty irony that is featured in all of her books. I thought that Emma was a touching and funny story about a young woman whose lot in life is to play the matchmaker. She tries to fix the world to her own liking, but it does not work. Finally, she stops being so critical and realizes what is standing right in front of her. If you enjoy the book (which I think you will), buy or rent the movie starring Gywneth Paltrow. It is just as funny as the book. If that is not your fancied genre, check out Clueless, starring Alicia Silverstone. It is loosely based on the novel and also very funny, with a modern twist.
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Summary: To New Readers in the 21st Century:
Review: If you have not yet read this book, and are not a regular reader of literary fiction, be forewarned. Though Jane Austen has skyrocketed in popularity these days (what with all her novels being made into movies) do not think that what you have seen on the screen is what you will get between the book covers. Emma Thompson did not get the Oscar for BEST ADAPTATION for a screenplay for nothing (Sense and Sensibility). Contemporary readers are used to being drawn immediately into a story and kept interested by a novel's action. Emma does neither. Emma was written at a time in history when there was no film industry, television, or radio to compete with a leisurely journey through a book. For those of us born in the 20th Century, Emma is boring at times. Emma is confusing at times (did she say that or did Frank Churchill?). And Emma is sometimes too subtle for the backwoods American public to pick up on (I'm being cute, not derogatory). I personally will admit to liking the movie (with Gweneth Paltrow) better than the novel. Emma is the third Jane Austen novel I have read, and I oh, so long to feel like Meg Ryan does in "You've Got Mail" wondering if Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy will get together each time she reads Pride and Prejudice. But I don't. I just want to know when I'm going to be finished. And this is coming from someone who studied Shakespeare in college and found it so frustrating that I couldn't share his hilarious jokes with my roommates because they never understood them. So I'm not as uncultured as I seem (to all you Jane Austen fans). Historically, however, Jane Austen deserves to be read. Her rhythm and her magical way of putting together a sentence are things to be experienced. She deserves the place she holds in Literary History. However, a Jane Austen virgin must come to the table with that understanding. You must read for the experience, read for the erudition, and expect to push through some dialogue that runs longer than one page. As for what the book is about-- Well, read everyone else's review! :)
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Summary: such a simple
Review: This book tell us such a simple story. But I guarantee that its simple story would make you not to be bored to read this book more and more.
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Summary: A Specifically Universal Story
Review: How could Jane Austen have thought that the character of Emma would please no one but the author? I was charmed to enter Emma's world, amused by her wit, stunned by her complacency, sympathetic when she made her mistakes. I finished the book with a real affection for this character, drawn so finely and so lovingly by a truly masterful writer. I had seen the movie version starring Gywneth Paltrow before reading the book. I expected to read the entire book with Paltrow's raspy laugh and swanlike neck in mind. Yet Austen transported me away from my cinematic preconceptions. There is so much more to "Emma" than a movie can capture: the incisive social commentary, the near perfect grasp of human nature, which hasn't changed much since Austen's time, in all its ugliness and sublimity. There has been much discussion over why Austen remains so popular with readers today. After all, her characters are geographically and socially isolated, immensely concerned with money, and (with a few exceptions) have no discernible occupations other than hunting for mates. It is hard to find similarities between these lives and those of modern Americans. What Austen does so well is to depict her particular place and time with astonishing clarity. Through Austen's (and Emma's) eyes, we see the commonalties that exist among all people, no matter the time or place.
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Summary: Hated Everyone Except John Knightley
Review: Emma by Jane Austen is the story of a wealthy, privileged girl by the name of Emma Woodhouse. She lives in the town of Highbury, England with her eccentric father at the family estate of Hartfield. The story mostly follows Emma as she attempts to connect her friend Harriet Smith with potential husbands who are above her station in life. The problem is that Emma is the only one who believes Harriet deserving in these connections. "Emma" really deals with the idea of English society's rigid class structure. Regardless of how two people may think of each other, it is unthinkable that they should marry if they are not very close in social status. Unfortunately, English society hasn't changed much from the days when Jane Austen wrote this story. It is difficult to like any of the characters in this story because of their disdainment for the lower classes. Not once did anyone from this story ever have to go to a hard day's labor or to actually exert any effort to earn the money that they appear to have been born into. "Society" like this is the best possible reason why we should continue with estate or "death" taxes. Austen appears to have the first use of stock characters. Miss Bates and Mr. Woodhouse in particular are nothing more than cardboard cutouts who have no other function in the story but to annoy the reader. They have no sense of their own defects and those around them are too "polite" to let them in on their knowing them. I would have to compare this novel to so many hack love stories of today. It seems to me that Jane Austen's contemporary would have to be Danielle Steel. I can think of no greater insult than maybe to compare her to Michael Crichton. But even he seems to be a better writer than her.
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Summary: Painfull...
Review: Emma Is a bad book, fact. The only thing that gives it any value is the quality of the writing. The book is unbelievably drawn out. I fell asleep many times whilst trying to finish this book. Don't think that i don't understand the plot or that or don't appreciate good litrature. In fact i read the book twice and was forced to study it for two years. Anybody who likes this book is very sad because it is just the unremarkable section of some unremarkable people's lives. As a result your life would have to be extremely tedious and boring for you to enjoy this waste of good paper.
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Summary: A beautiful story about relationships
Review: I definitely recommend this book to first time Jane Austen readers, and especially to young girls, for it is so cute and so amusing. I wish I were "forced" to read this in High School for I would have surely written good papers on it. I can't see how anyone can dislike this classic. Jane Austen's character "Emma" has her faults of course, be she is a true character that is amusing and utterly charming, unlike those characters in Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, which by no doubt are wonderful books, but Emma truly has to be my favorite Austen work. It is predictable, even without having seen the movie that was based on this work (that mind some of you was written over 200 years before Alicia Silverstone existed...gosh!) but the predictability of it made it all the more enjoyable, like a sort of mystery in romance. I definitely recommend this book to anyone over the age of 11 or 12. I know I'll make my kids read it some day. It is superb!
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Summary: One of the great classics!
Review: "Emma" is definitely Jane Austen's best and most humorous book. The quirky characters, comic faux pas, and Emma's adventures in matchmaking keep you very entertained. Although it's funny, the vocabulary can be challenging. (Austen had an astounding vocabulary for never even having gone to a secondary school!) If you need a classic and want some laughs along the way, "Emma" is the book for you.
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