A random BF’s notes on Emma (part 2)
Hey everyone! I’m glad you all liked hearing my thoughts on the first half-ish of Emma! The next one will be Sense and Sensibility although it will be a while as I’m still reading through it.
In the meantime here’s the rest of my Emma notes!
[pic wouldn’t load, imagine an entire page of miss Bates yapping her head off]
•bf: ^^^ YOURE TELLING ME THIS ENTIRE PAGE IS JUST A LEGENDARY YAP SESH FROM MISS BATES WHAT ON EARTH! Great example of show not tell (by telling?) from Austen lol
•bf: ITS EVEN WORSE A FEW PAGES LATER, SHES YAPPING FOR A FULL PAGE AND A HALF WITHOUT JNTERUPPTION AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
•bf: Mrs Elton is kinda snooty
•gf: oh my god Mrs Elton is a straight up bitch tho bc she’s like the worst parts of Emma PLUS absolutely no class (bragging about her rich friends when she isn’t rich herself)
•bf: Hahahahaha Emma’s rant about Mrs Elton is so funny
•bf: Good, good that Mr knightley doesn’t want to marry Jane Fairfax
•gf: Miss Bates is the REALEST character in this whole book lololol. There’s family ([name of certain family member]) that can do a half page of talking easily ahhahah
•gf: Fun fact: I looked up Emma’s fortune. She inherits 30k pounds. that’s….thats as rich as Darcy if not close to double his wealth. And that’s just STORED money, she’s easily getting passive income just from being rich at a bingley or bennet salary (1.2k to 1.5k pounds) from the estate alone, shared between her and her father. Also because the estate is not entailed as it is with the bennets, she could inherit a really nice house too!
aka she could be the biggest trust fund/nepo baby in her entire region LMAO
•gf: also I think this book, Emma, as opposed to P&P, was started and finished when she was an author so she may have intended her book to take place in 1810ish as opposed to maybe 1797ish (P&P) so taking account for inflation, 30k may sound like a lot but it still may be around Darcy levels-ish
•gf: also also also Knightley is just as rich as the Woodhouses but I was just reading that because he’s always out and about, he’s just investing his money differently (and smarter! He’s investing it in dividing up and selling his land to be farmed, making improvements to the estate, etc instead of just wasting it away like others do)
•bf: I’m seeing what you mean about Mrs Elton, she’s starting to bother me with how much she brings up her brother in law
•bf: And stupid maple grove. It’s wild how she can fit it into any topic. Hey [gf’s name] you live at a house right? Did you know we have a house at maple grove? it’s the most wonderful house. As a matter of fact my brother Mr suckling *also* has a house. I do so love Mr suckling, he simply *must* come by in his barouche-landau. Ugh
•bf: “Mr Elton you should dance” “yes Mrs Weston, I’m not an old married man yet and so I would like to dance, shall we?” “Oh nah not me, you should dance with Harriet bc she has no dance partner!” “Oh nope can’t sorry I’m an old married man” LMAOOOOOOOOO
•gf: It’s honestly so funny
•bf: Oh nah, one heroic rescue and now Emma is back to matchmaking. Frank and Harriet are an interesting pairing tho, I don’t know if it would work out
•bf: ^also about this, I could be wrong but my general assumption is that Frank’s social standing is around Mr Elton’s, maybe a bit higher or lower. If everyone was objecting to Harriet and Mr Elton idk why Frank would be any different
•gf: True. I think Frank is at least two steps higher than Mr Elton. Not a Mr Knightley tho
•bf: Oh? Frank remembers something that he says Mrs Weston wrote to him about despite her not knowing anything about it? He heard it in a letter from Jane methinks
•bf: If this were modern times and I were there I would suspect those two are hooking up but seeing as they’re in the early 1800’s I don’t think that’s it
•bf: THEYRE PLAYING WITH WORDS AND FRANK HANDED JANE THE WORD BLUNDER?!?!?? THEY *HAVE* TO BE HOOKING UP
•gf: ABSOLUTELY DARN RIGHT (I’m glad u picked it up so fast)…not anything too spicy bc it’s regency England but yeah, hooking up is a good relative turn
•bf: WAIT AND FRANK WAS THE ONE WHO SUGGESTED PLAYING WITH THE WORDS
•gf: Frank is such a bad good character (or good bad character) bc he is being way too obvious about it and not respecting Jane’s wishes. And he’s very much a profligate guy anyway
•bf: Now at knightley’s place, very suspicious that Frank shows up shortly after Jane leaves…
•bf: SWISSERLAND
•gf: Toblerones from *swisserland*
•bf: “Emma and Harriet belonged to Frank Churchill” same stuff different day lol, I wonder if Emma will try her hand at matchmaking once again
•bf: The vibes are very off and weird at box hill
•gf: oh absolutely, it’s very similar to the ball at nether field from P&P- SUPREME cringe-inducement-embarrassment for the main character
•bf: I am speculating that whatever history Frank and Jane have, it has to be related to the whole Dixon saving her thing on that one boat trip. I’m thinking there’s more to that that Jane Austen is withholding from the readers for now
•gf: yes but not exactly from the boat trip. I forgot exactly what the history was tho
•bf: I’m glad Emma got humbled and had time by herself to reflect on what she said to miss bates, I better see a DAMN good apology the next time they interact
[editors note: you can’t tell from this alone but I was PISSED at Emma, so much so that I put the book down for a few days because I was so upset]
•bf: I’m not seeing an apology… just a visit…
•gf: but the visit is the apology and Miss Bates is so unbelievably nice as to understand the gesture
•bf: FRANK AND JANE ARE ENGAGED WTFFFF THATS CRAZY
•gf: what a surprize!
•bf: …wait what? Emma likes Mr knightley? That feels out of nowhere
•gf: Maybe, but it’s using the friends-to-lovers trope. Emma’s not dissimilar to [describes me, we were very much friends-to-lovers] 😉
•bf: Yeah wait what so the older sister married the younger brother but now the younger sister wants to marry the older brother???
•gf: I suppose so, not that many options around Highbury
•bf: he likes her back??? Sounds like he was about to confess when Emma said “no please don’t say something you’ll regret”
•bf: HE DOES LIKE HER BACK
•bf: I’m curious to see how Harriet takes this, it seems like she’s the one getting screwed the most by everything
•bf: FRANK CONFESSION TIME LETS GO LETS SEE WHAT SECRETS BRO’S BEEN KEEPING
•bf: HE SENT THE PIANOFORTE??? DAMN
•bf: Yet another banger letter-that’s-actually-the-whole-chapter. I wonder if that’s a thing in every Jane Austen book
•bf: Hmm yeah where are they gonna live? I guess knightley would have to move to hartfield huh
•bf: Aww now she’s asking him what he should be called, I wonder if he’ll say darling dearest. Mr knightley the type of guy to want to be called darling dearest [inside bit about what i call her when I'm afraid she's gonna mess with me lol]
•gf: yeah :) for all of its 16 year age gap weirdness, I like this romance quite well because it’s a mature, communicative romance!
•bf: Oh cool Harriet ends up marrying Mr Martin after all. Good for her!
•gf: he really saved her ass because if he hadn’t come thru she’d be cooked financially/socially
•bf: Finished Emma! Good book, I definitely liked it better than P&P although I still have a few questions. So what exactly was franks deal? Was it ever explained what happened between him and Jane that caused them to get engaged but keep it under wraps? And why was he so mean to her in public? I get why he was kinda pursuing Emma so as to keep up appearances but I don’t see a reason to bully Jane. Also it’s still weird that he had to suddenly leave town for a day for that haircut, I thought there was some sneaky nefarious thing he was doing, was it literally just to go get a haircut?