Emma

By: Jane Austen

Narrated by: Anna Bentinck

Emma is a literary classic by Jane Austen following the genteel women of Georgian-Regency England in their most cherished sport: matchmaking. Emma is spoiled, headstrong, and self-satisfied. After a couple she has introduced gets married, she greatly overestimates her own matchmaking abilities and, blind to the dangers of meddling in other people's lives, proceeds to forge ahead in her new interest despite objections. What follows is a comedy of manners, in which Emma repeatedly counsels her friends for or against their marriage prospects, absent any notice of their true emotions or desires. This story is often cited as a personal favorite of critics and literary historians, and Emma is set apart from other Austen heroines by her seeming immunity to romantic attraction.

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A truly great novel, wonderfully performed

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, it is one of the great English novels, a work of profound and perceptive moral seriousness about a round of visits and social engagements of upper-class families. Austen's genius, wit, and irony make the two aspects - the moral seriousness and the social round - work together to produce one of the great works of English literature.

What did you like best about this story?

The way it portrays Emma's getting everything wrong so powerfully that the listener wants to yell at her to show more sense. One can't help but feel Austen's own self-criticism - observant and critical of those around her, yet misperceiving or deluding herself almost to the very end.

Which character – as performed by Anna Bentinck – was your favorite?

Emma is wonderfully performed. But the other characters, including the male ones, are convincingly done too.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The classic moment when Mr. Knightley reproves Emma for her thoughtless, supercilious unkindness to Miss Bates - and Emma's mortification as she takes the full measure of the criticism and its justness - was movingly conveyed in the reading.

Any additional comments?

One reviewer thought the reader condescending. I thought the reading perfectly conveyed Emma's own unjustified sense of the superiority or her own insights into the affairs of others, her misplaced sense of the need to direct the affairs of others she deemed incapable of managing their own affairs. She came to see how wrong she had been about everything, the harm she did to those she thought she was helping, and how she continued to be deluded almost to the very end. An extraordinary creative exercise in self-criticism.

Loved it!

Emma has never been my favorite Jane Austen novel but I loved listening to this narration . The pace of the narrator brought out nuances of humor that I had missed through previous readings / films of this story.

meh narration

the narrator reads too slowly and her characterization of mr. knightly in particular, is quite bad. I'm running of returning this Emma and trying a different narrator.

2nd best

An ok book to listen, but is boring and is certainly no Pride and Prejedice.