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Tag: Emma

Ten (well, six) Books for Which My Feelings Have Changed

Happy Tuesday, friends! The Broke and the Bookish are, as ever, hosting a Top Ten Tuesday, and I love the question for this week: Ten Books I Feel Differently About After Time Has Passed (less love, more love, complicated feelings, indifference, thought it was great in a genre until you became more well read in that genre etc.) I couldn’t think of ten — my initial responses to most of the books I read continue to hold true on rereads — but here are six, anyway! 1. Emma, by Jane Austen – I think the problem here is that I…

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Reading the End Bookcast, Ep.44: Reworking Classic Novels, Alexander McCall Smith’s Emma, and a Return to Polar Explorers

Happy Wednesday! This week, we’re talking about adaptations of classic novels and reviewing Alexander McCall Smith’s updating of Jane Austen’s Emma. We’re also getting back to our roots with a polar explorer update! You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 44 Books discussed in this podcast are listed, in order, below. If any book is an adaptation of another book, the source material is listed in parentheses. Wicked, Gregory Maguire (The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum) Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Gregory…

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Emma Readalong part three

The third volume of Emma is best understood as the volume in which all the terrible people are terribling everything up, and even the nice people aren’t at their radiant best. The particular nightmare of volume three is the dreaded Mrs. Elton. State Senator Scumbag Elton’s new wife is unburdened by social graces and makes everyone monumentally uncomfortable in a hundred small ways: overfamiliarity with people she barely knows (Emma is annoyed with her for calling Mr. Knightley “Knightley”, and Frank notices with evident irritation that she calls Jane Fairfax “Jane”); talking about her lofty place in the social structure…

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Emma Readalong! Part Two: Frank Churchill is the worst

Ah, Frank Churchill. If I were forced to voice an area of dissatisfaction with Clueless (which, why would I ever be?), it would be that some of the characters in Emma who delight me with their dreadfulness are not adequately represented in Clueless. So much of Emma’s character in the books is informed by her trying to avoid being bored. She’s not as attentive to the Bates ladies as she ought to be because of how DAMN BORING they are: “Thank you. You are very kind. Yes, next week. Every body is so surprized; and every body says the same…

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Emma Readalong!: Part One

I have seen Clueless … a few times. It’s not germane to know exactly how many, and also I’ve lost count. In my defense, Clueless is amazing. I’ve seen it so many times, in fact, that I can’t read Emma–even for a readalong where Emma Approved is the adaptation to discuss — without a thick overlay of Clueless: When Emma first starts spending time with Harriet, all I can think of is this: Occasionally I worry that I’m not addressing the novel on its own terms, but mostly I feel glad that Alicia Silverstone’s fundamental adorability and goodness makes it…

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