I read this book as a teenager and enjoyed it so I thought I'd give it another read. I haven't read any Jane Austen in awhile so adjusting to her vivid descriptions and endless outflow of characters was a challenge in itself. Emma is a young woman from a superb pedigree who lives in a small rural village caring for her father. It's clear from the beginning that Emma considers herself rather intelligent in the field of social complexities but the events of the book soon prove her wrong when she takes Harriet, a younger woman from a Ladies School under her arm and seeks to make her the perfect marriage.
It's quite funny assessing Emma's opinions of things in this book and always knowing that they are sorely mistaken. She is an entertaining character if nothing else and never seems to doubt her own notions of things. Her father is only mentioned a few times, a man with arthritis I think as he complains of having cold bones throughout the book. Jane Fairfax, a woman who Emma really never gets to know is another important character, not quite so prone to the gossip of country life as any of the other characters.
As usual in her books, Austen makes the plot enjoyable, the characters intriguing and the relationships (to me) seem built on nothing but maybe that is just a product of the time or maybe it is because Austen chose not to explain them in depth. Nevertheless, probably one of my favourite Austen books.
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