review of Emma

[edenfalling]

Wrote more "Secrets" and more Ekanufic. Am not anywhere near the end of either the chapter or the story, respectively. *sigh*

Also put my mad hand-sewing skillz to use and repaired a bra, because I am a) unemployed and b) a cheapskate -- and bras are too expensive in the first place. (Well, actually this one I got at a dollar store -- I love dollar stores to pieces. I buy all my shampoo and socks there, if possible. Because I am a cheapskate.)

I finished Emma last night, which means that I've read 5 of Austen's 6 finished works. (I'm a little leery of starting Mansfield Park, as I've heard some very conflicting things about its quality.) I like Emma best of the novels I've read, mostly because I think it shows a deeper picture of society, and a more interesting flawed main character, than Pride and Prejudice. One reason I enjoy Jane Austen so much is her gift for precise, subtle irony, brought out through exacting observation of social mores and personalities. This means that her books give a very good picture of what it was like to live in a certain level of English society at a certain time -- rather like sociological studies, in a way. And Emma gives a broader picture than her other books, dipping down to mention servants, and various strata of the gentry and their hangers-on.

I like it better than Persuasion because that's a quieter book in general, and leaves me feeling very subdued rather than entertained. And while Northanger Abbey is a brilliant send-up of Gothic romances, and Sense and Sensibility is loads of fun, they're just slighter works in general, I think.

So I like Emma best.

Comments

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

It's been ages since I read austen. i chose toread emma durign my finals at schoo lbut for osme reaso ni ran otu fo tiem and onl yread this huge introduction 9it was enough to know the plto which is why i'l skip thoe whene i start other books). She has veyr good characters. and this mai none was almsot abit irritating at times.


I' mabit confused about yoru different fics now. I know about "secrets" but coudl yo ugive me a crash course onthe others? Which is what? and is there original stuff there too?

[edenfalling]

I write a bunch of one-shots, of varying lengths and fandoms. However, I'm mostly concentrating on my three current HP works in progress.

Secrets: a novel-length CoS fic, from Ginny's point of view.

First You Have to Get There: an AU fifth-year H/G not-exactly-romance, the sequel to another H/G story called "Five Years Is an Awful Lot of Later"

Strange Likenesses: a dark AU where Voldemort notices his link with Harry much earlier, and tries to possess him instead of hanging around waiting for Quirell to stumble across him.

A lot of my one-shots use "Secrets" as an assumed backstory, but they're not part of the novel, and may take place at times quite distant from CoS.

Ekanu is an original character who's been living in my head for nearly a decade. I write about her in bits and pieces -- you can see the finished stories and snippets in my Memories -- and am currently working on a more lengthy story involving her, which is at 3,500 words and counting.