Customer Reviews

Emma in Love: Jane Austen's Emma Continued

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1 star:		(9)

 

 

I was so excited when i saw this book; imagine, more of my beloved friend, Emma! However, I was dismayed to find that Emma Tennant, the author, could distort and trivialize these characters I had grown to love. Please! Emma kissing a chick, even if she was really a man, is unthinkable. Please do not read this if you want to think of Highbury the same way.

I have heard many fellow online Pemberlians speak with loathing of Emma Tennant and her novels....but naturally I was curious to check things out for myself.

I must admit, it is as bad and far more than everything I have heard. Nearly every aspect of this novel is atrocious, and a true Jane Austen fan will detest every page of it. If you are not an avid reader of Austen novels, you may tolerate it, or at least not feel such a revulsion; but in that case, the plot and characters will simply be confusing, not to mention completely uninteresing.

Tennant takes the delicious, intriguing characters in Jane Austen's "Emma" and turns them into horribly twisted, shallow, misguided, and unappealing cardboard cutouts. The motivations and representations of our dear Emma, Mr. Knightley, etc., as mentioned in other reviews, is skewed as far as is humanly possible; if this were a parody, perhaps this could be acceptable, but it is not, and the novel takes itself far too seriously and inaccurately to be enjoyable in any way, shape, or form, either as an Austen sequel or parody.

Plotwise, "Emma in Love" is hackneyed and boring, taking liberties with events that certainly would never have happened in a lifetime of Austen stories. The writing is equally bad - about on par with ... romance novels that come a dime a dozen. This is certainly no kin whatsoever to the Jane Austen I know, and the witty and engaging Regency author does not deserve such a degrading and trashy "sequel." Far from being adventurous, "Emma in Love" treads overtrodden ground as simply a twisted romance novel, and comes close to desecrating a classic author's grave (to use a melodramatization worthy of the Austen heroine Catherine Morland). Rereading the original will do you a world of good, especially to cleanse the mind from dreck such as this.

This book deserves NO stars. I love Jane Austen, and have been reading her novels since the age of 10. The characters have become so real to me over the years, and so I scooped up the sequel to my favorite Austen work, EMMA,and was amazed to find the spirited, self-centered (but lovable) heroine of Austen's work degraded into a whining twit who seeks sexual and emotional fulfillment from the husband who treats her as little more than a sister. Moreover, she toys with the idea of finding it in the company of another WOMAN. This is not the place for risque situations and sexual frustrations -- this is Austen's world; please respect the rules!!

Emma Tenant has managed to completely regress every single character that grew in character in Austen's Emma. The writing and the use of the English language leads you to wonder if Ms. Tennant actually READ Emma or anything by Austen before beginning her tale.

It is unclear to me how anyone could take the liberties she has taken with this story and introduced shuch lewdness. The things that are introduced in the story would certainly be more suited for trashy dime store romance novels.

It makes me wish there was a rating less than one star.

If you love "Emma" as much as I do and you really want to read some more, try "Jane Fairfax" by Joan Aiken - it's so much better than "Emma in Love"! I felt like Emma Tennant polluted all the characters I grew to love in the original. Truly bad!

I found "Emma in Love" to be extremely disappointing! Mr. Knightley is an old fogy, his brother is churlish, Jane Fairfax is even more of a non-entity than in Jane Austen's "Emma", Mr. Churchill is back to being a cad, and Emma herself is unconvincing and has lost her confidence. The story is choppy and disjointed and has overtones of homosexuality. Ms. Tennant does get an accurate conversational style and has the ability, I think, to write some really good "imitation-Austen". But the overall idea and the plot left a lot to be desired!

Tennant writes: Mrs. Elton, like a shark that waits in waters bloodied by a fall, swam up with her repeated offer of an excellent situation for Jane. Need I say more? What ever possessed Tennant to think this gory word picture would bring to mind the beautifully restrained writings of Jane Austen? Austen's polite restraint and gentle humor are only a few of the reasons she can deal so effectively with the controversial topics of her times. While this book wrestles with controversial topics, it is done without finesse, beauty or regard for Austen's original character development. What passes for wit in this book comes across as mocking Austen's characters and style. I wanted to like this book but wound up hating it.

This is quite possibly the worst book I've ever read. Ridiculous plot, terrible characterisation and abysmal writing. Do not read - ever.

I LOVE Jane Austen novels. I was excited to read a sequel, but this one was TERRIBLE. How could Emma Tennant take Jane Austen's beloved characters and turn them into whining, conniving, vindictive people?

If you love Jane Austen, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. Terrible.