January Book Club - Emma

A group of nine gathered on Wednesday the 15th to discuss two “Emma”s—the original by Jane Austen and the “modern retelling” by Alexander McCall Smith. Thanks so much to Nisha Thatte-Potter for hosting us.

We all enjoyed reading/re-reading the Austen book. We discussed why it’s a classic, why we still find it worth reading 200 years after it was written; Austen’s prose, “every word perfect”; her characters—especially Emma, a complete person of traits both admirable and irritating; the way Austen details a society with its rigid class structure, insularity, appeal and limitations; her psychological perceptiveness. We felt McCall Smith missed entirely Austen’s tone and underlying morality; his book does not stand up in comparison to Austen. However, seen as a stand-alone, it’s a charming, smoothly written light read and we felt McCall Smith had made interesting choices as he set it in modern times.