Jane Austen

Well, I've finally finished it. Ten years after buying Jane Austen's Emma, and more than a month after starting it, I've come to the end. The journey is complete. 

There's not much that I can say about this classic that might be considered new, so let me instead offer just a few reflections. 

What I enjoyed most about this novel was its provincial quality. I love that Austen commits herself to one or two small communities - close to London, but not properly a part of it. This commitment lends itself to an intimate portrait, a sort of micro-fictional account of those on whom Austen casts her (very patient) gaze. 

Another aspect of the novel that I enjoyed was the context in which it was written. Put differently: there's a forgotten quality to the start of the nineteenth century. It's no longer the period of the American Revolution or Enlightenment, but it's not yet the age of the Victorians. Austen's era was dominated by the aristocracy. And that, I think, leads to a novel that's very firmly of another time, of another imaginative space. 

To follow up on this, the final part of the novel that I enjoyed was its approach to sensuality - if it can so be called. Whereas the early Victorians danced around this topic, but resolved its awkwardness with opaque references to a hand gracing the ruffles of a chemise, Austen doesn't even go that far. The erotic qualities of the book (again, if they can so be called) are caught up in the thought processes captured by the narrator. In that sense, the marriages that are at the heart of this book are best understood as intellectual unions. Or that's the way I understood them...

To close, I should add that while Austen's universe of love seems removed from our own, the mystery and immediacy accompanying it remains - and in that sense, this forgotten universe might not be as far as we sometimes imagine.