Book Review

Emma by Alexander McCall Smith

Have you ever had the experience of enjoying a book as you were actually reading it and then five seconds after finishing it realizing that everything about the book was enraging? That was my experience with Alexander Smith McCall’s adaptation of Emma. I was so frustrated by the depiction of the character Emma that I kept flying into rages after I finished, but at the same time the side characters and the prose had sort of lulled me into a peaceful state of submission during the moments when I was actually reading.

The plot of this adaptation is nearly identical to the plot of the original Emma, although the setting is present-day rural England as opposed to Regency rural England. Emma graduates from college and comes home while she thinks about maybe having a career in interior design. She decides to fix the life of a lower-income woman, Harriet Smith, by setting her up with the extremely annoying local vicar who is also rumored to be rich.

If you aren’t familiar with the basic plot of Emma, by Jane Austen, go read it, and come back later, because I’m assuming readers of McCall Smith’s Emma or readers who are curious about it have read the original and therefore I have no qualms about spoiling the shit out of it.

This book does a lot of weird things, but its greatest sin is the way it depicts Emma so I’m just going to get this rant out of the way. For an adaptation to work, it doesn’t have to be faithful in any superficial way (I have no problem with, for example, Clueless, which sets Emma in a California high school in the 1990s) – but it does have to be faithful to the themes and the larger arcs of the original story. You can read my breakdown of Clueless and the Gwyneth Paltrow/Jeremy Northam movie version at geekgirlinlove.com.

McCall Smith’s theme is almost Austen’s but not quite. McCall Smith writes about a dishonest, manipulative, deliberately cruel girl who, through the power of becoming more mature and falling in romantic love, learns to care about other people. That’s a great story but it’s not the theme of Emma as told by Austen. Austen’s Emma is about how we might think we know it all when actually we know nothing, and about how meddling in people’s lives can be disastrous because of the limits of what we know. Austen’s Emma is sometimes impatient but she’s never deliberately cruel. She’s incredibly softhearted. She’s patient and caring towards her father, and her gestures towards Harriet are, while misguided and tainted by extreme snobbery, also sincere. Austen’s Emma is incredibly flawed and therefore often annoying, but she’s not actively malicious.

McCall Smith’s story would be fine (barring some plot stuff I’ll talk about in a minute) if it weren’t an adaptation. It’s especially glaring because it’s such a faithful adaptation in every respect other than time period and the portrayal of Emma as mean. In fact, even the time period stuff is extremely watered-down: it doesn’t feel modern other than the presence of cars and gap years. Because the book is marked as an adaptation, I think it’s fair to judge it on those merits: not just, “Is it a good book,” but rather, “Is it a good adaptation of a pre-existing work?”

As a stand-alone book about a mean girl who learns compassion, it’s fine. As an adaptation of Emma, it’s a disaster. Austen’s Emma, when she realizes she’s screwed up with regard to Harriet, apologizes to Harriet tearfully and sincerely. McCall Smith’s Emma tells a lie that contributes to the ruination of another character and she’s not sorry about that, either. She’s Emma The Evil instead of Emma The Well-Meaning Moron.

Emma: 200th-Anniversary Annotated Edition
A | K | AB
There are a lot of weird plot things that pop up and then vanish, or appear out of nowhere when an ending is called for. The romance with George Knightly is totally random. Of course Austen readers see it coming, but it’s not developed throughout the book. Knightly is mentioned occasionally, and there’s a chapter from his point of view that talks about how he’s starting to like Emma, but he’s not a prominent player and there is very little to suggest how Emma feels about him. Emma has some feelings of sexual attraction towards Harriet, which I thought might lead to some promising explorations of gender and sexuality in the modern era, but alas they vanish without explanation.

The characters that really shine are Emma’s hypochondriac father and her governess. Each of them gets significant time devoted to their histories and their points of view, and each gets a romance (not with each other) that happens entirely off the page. Since both characters are funny and sympathetic and play well off each other, why not devote more time to their romance? Why not let Emma be a background character, manipulating the lives of young people in the background while the older people are discovering their own miraculous romances long after they thought their time for romance was over?

The truth is, Emma is not interesting as depicted by McCall Smith, and neither are Harriet or Frank. On the other hand, McCall Smith is exactly the kind of gentle, compassionate author who can draw the humanity out of characters like Emma’s father who, in the original, serves only as comic relief.

The only reason I didn’t hate the book was that I did love the treatment of some of the supporting characters, and I loved the prose. Here’s an example – this is the point of view of Emma’s father, a widower, who watches his daughters grow up:

He was bemused by the changes that he saw about him, by the constant activity, by the new enthusiasms. He watched as scrapbooks filled with cuttings from magazines and paper; as cut-out dolls found their way onto every table; as rescued animals and birds took up residence in shoe-boxes lined up at the base of the warmth-dispensing Aga; as the current of life, which had grown so sluggish after the death of his wife, now began to course once more through the house. He welcomed all of this, even if it failed to relieve his own anxiety.

 

Adapting a story is beneficial when it gives us a new way to look at a story. That’s why Clueless was so much fun – it totally re-vamped the book, changing the setting and the characters and the time period and much of the plot – and yet it was so faithful to the themes of the book that it’s counted critically as an incredibly successful adaptation. The Gwyneth Paltrow version of Emma is much more faithful to the book, but it brings something fresh by allowing the performances to illuminate various aspects of the characters. It doesn’t hurt that in that version we get to stare at Jeremy Northam for two hours, either.

This book does a disservice to the main character by painting her as much more selfish and dishonest than Austen’s Emma, and it doesn’t add any insights into Austen’s themes. It’s not very realistic (there’s almost no social media; in fact it’s just like Regency England only with cars and different clothes and a lot of talk about gap years). The plot holes are horrid. But I have to admit that other than being outraged on behalf of poor Emma, I wasn’t so bothered by plot holes and plausibility during the actual moments when I was reading the book. I was, as Harriet might say, very keen on it. It was the literary equivalent of a warm blankie. The language itself is lovely, and the sentiments that most people are basically good and that life can be quiet and serene and people can be surrounded by lovely things was very comforting.

If this book were not an adaptation of a previous story, I’d be inclined to grade it a bit higher. But it is an adaptation, and it’s marketed as such, so I have to judge it not only on merits of language and story but also on whether it does a good job of handling the themes of the original material it’s adapting. The answer is a qualified “no”. Austen wanted to write a character that people wouldn’t like, but I’ve always liked her Emma even with her many flaws. McCall’s Emma is so dreadful that she’s a blot on an otherwise nicely written story about people who aren’t exciting or glamorous but who try to be kind. We could all use more kindness in our stories and our lives and McCall Smith’s books do always deliver on that, regardless of their other ups and downs. If you want to read his work with less irritation, I highly recommend the series The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.

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Emma: A Modern Retelling by Alexander McCall Smith

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  1. Ann says:

    You mentioned that there wasn’t much sense of the present, aside from cars. Alexander McCall Smith is on record that he deliberately refuses to include cell phones in his books, even though they are, in theory, set in the modern times in places that use phones heavily.

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/20/mobile-phones-storytelling-alexander-mccall-smith-books-technology-fiction

  2. Rachel says:

    Interesting review! You really hit the mark with your take on Austen’s Emma: although it can be tempting to see her as a villain, given that, in some, superficial ways she’s almost a Caroline Bingley type, I agree that she’s really just terribly limited by her own viewpoint (as we all are, to greater and less degrees). For me, Emma’s not a love-to-hate character, but a love-to-head-desk character. It’s a shame that this re-imagination didn’t capture her well-intentioned ineptitude: it’s the aspect of Emma that I think makes that novel so special in the Austen canon. I’ll still probably put this one in my reading list!

    Also, agree 100% re Jeremy Northam.

  3. Alina says:

    A modern Emma that worked for me is the web show Emma Approved (it’s from the family of shows that started with The Lizzie Bennett Diaries). Like all Pemberley Digital shows, it has things that work and things that don’t so much work, but the casting is top-notch.

    This review really reminded me of the reason I put down Pride & Prejudice & Zombies free e-book sample and never bought the full book – the first insight into Lizzie’s thoughts made me think: “I don’t know who this is, but it isn’t Lizzie.”

  4. Thanks for this review! Emma has long been my favorite of Austen’s books and characters so I don’t think I could handle this depiction of her. I second Emma Approved. It’s not quite as well put together as LBD but the scene when Emma falls apart after hurting Harriet is wonderful (in a sad way).

    As far as depictions of Emma’s father go, I am a big fan of Michael Gambon in the latest Emma with Romola Garai. His antics are still humorous but the fear of losing his daughter is really sweet.

  5. Heather T says:

    A mean Emma would be insufferable. As it is, Austen’s Emma is on the thin edge — it is only her good heart, best intentions,and genuine remorse when she causes pain that make her a beloved character. And Emma (the story) without Knightly, what’s the point of that?

  6. AmyL says:

    The characters that really shine are Emma’s hypochondriac father and her governess

    Is Miss Taylor still a governess in this book?

  7. CarrieS says:

    Yep, she is. When Emma goes away to college she stays on as Emma’s Dad’s secretary, because Emma’s dad hates change and doesn’t want her to leave. But when Emma is younger she’s the governess.

  8. Mary says:

    My favorite Emma adaptation is Clueless. I think I was just the right age when I discovered it for it to work its way into my heart. I love the modern twists they added and I love how they show Cher/Emma’s big heart but misguided intentions. Also Paul Rudd.

  9. Joanna says:

    I can’t believe it wasn’t until afterwards that it annoyed you! I was frustrated and bored by this book the whole way through. I persevered only because I wanted to see how it would be resolved to the original. Wasn’t worth it.

    Although this is the first McCall Smith I’ve read, so perhaps half my problem was the writing style.

  10. Beth says:

    I adore McCall’s No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, but every other book of his I have hated with the white hot hatred of a thousand suns.

    Okay, maybe not quite that bad, but his other characters are often so irritating and I bounce off those other plots.

  11. Marybeth says:

    I read the beginning of this book. It seemed like AMS’s Emma might be in love with Harriet, and I imagined that by yhe end of the book she would acknowledge that to herself & her world, and I was liking that twist on the original. But then somebody told me that’s not what happens & I lost all interest on the book!

  12. Maureen says:

    This book is part of The Austen Project, which is contemporary authors reworking Austen’s novels. So far we have had Sense and Sensibility by Joanna Trollope, Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid, and Emma by Smith. I belong to a Jane Austen Book Club, and these books make everyone have lots of feelings 😉 I happened to love the Northanger Abbey rework, but Emma? I started it and put it down after several chapters. Weird because I like Alexander McCall Smith, so I thought it might be because Emma is my second to last favorite Austen novel.

    I guess I need to pick it back up and finish it-but honestly, I really can’t stand Emma. Actually, what I would have loved-if SHE fell in love with Robert Martin, the farmer. That would have been awesome!

  13. SB Sarah says:

    @Rachel:

    For me, Emma’s not a love-to-hate character, but a love-to-head-desk character.

    That’s a perfect description for Emma – completely, totally accurate for me, too. Well played!

  14. kkw says:

    I’m not a fan of McCall Smith (or remaking books), but I have to say @Maybeth and @Maureen I would definitely read a reworking where Emma winds up with Mr. Martin, and I would read the hell out of one where she winds up with Harriet. Can someone make that happen, please? Or she has a crush on Harriet, but her real feels are for Jane Fairfax?

  15. Megan M. says:

    I wanted to read this when I first heard about it because I enjoy McCall Smith’s Ladies Detective Agency series and his Isabel Dalhousie series, but I saw another review that said it fell flat for them. Looks like you felt the same way. I also love Clueless – it perfectly captures the spirit of Emma in a modern setting.

    I did really enjoy Val McDermid’s update of Northanger Abbey, if anyone wants to try a different Austen adaptation (of the thousands currently available, LOL)

  16. Letty Hixon says:

    McCall Smith lost me at page 2. “Is is normal?” “Absolutely normal”…”Ninety Eight point four.”
    Really? This is supposed to take place in modern day rural England. They use the Celsius temperature scale.

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