I have just finished reading Jane Austen’s Emma and I must say, I am very much impressed at how incredibly modern she writes.  She wrote these words almost two hundred years ago and still, the issues and the humor she used are still very much relevant today.  I guess that’s the reason why it’s considered as one of the world’s greatest classics.  I wonder if Jane Austen ever thought that her work would live to see the twenty-first century; I’m sure every author hoped that his or her work would be immortalized in the annals of history, but for it to survive past two hundred years is just amazing.

Emma is the fourth book out of the six ever published, but the last one to be released while Jane Austen was still alive.  Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published posthumously and unfortunately there were a few more novels in the works that Jane Austen never finished. 

Anyway I bought my copy of Emma when I was still in high school but for some reason I never really got around to reading it.  Not for lack of trying though.  I remember picking it up every summer vacation, attempting to plough through it but I never really made it passed chapter three each time. 

But since I’ve read Mansfield Park last year, I thought to myself, why not give another hack at it?  It’ll be a good book for March, and 2009 is the year for backlogs.  I decided to pace myself, just in case it got too boring, and limited myself to five chapters per day.  As it turns out, there was no need for fearing boredom; the five-chapter rule was only good for the first two days but after that I just read until one o’clock in the morning.  And I was only forced to stop because my eyes were already complaining.

It’s a little known fact that the 1995 movie Clueless was based on Emma.  Yes, Alicia Sylverstone’s infamous Cher Horowitz was based on Emma Woodhouse.  It was a very good interpretation of the book; it translated the general feel and humor of the material.  Sure, they took liberties but everything was in good taste.  I can only think of one person who disliked Clueless, and that’s Ewan McGregor.  He, after all, played Mr. Frank Churchhill, in a period piece opposite Gwynneth Paltrow.  Now that I’ve read the book, I can honestly say that it’s only because the 1995 version made his character gay.  I guess he was insulted or something.

I actually can’t believe that this book held me in suspense as long as it did.  I mean I’ve seen Clueless countless of times; I pretty much should’ve had a clear vision of how the plot goes.  But I found the book tricky and sneaky that it took me quite a few days to figure out how it all was going to end.  It took me a whole week to read it, but considering that I’ve had it since 2003, it took me about six years to finally finish this book. 

It was a very good read, a comic jab at the repercussions of miscommunication in relationships.  I actually got feelings of kilig while I was reading it, but that’s a normal occurrence with Jane Austen books.  It was a swirl of emotions, the ups and downs, the rights and lefts, but, in the end, everything fell in to place and everybody got exactly what he or she deserved. 

How I wish the real world was a bit like an Austen novel.  Sure, everything would be a mouthful, but it’d be more civilized and decent.