I loved this "feel-good" novel and recommend it highly. I read it by flashlight during a power outage and was grateful for the way its lively plot, dialogue and humor held my interest.
As I read it, I found myself ruminating on what it is that I love about Jane Austen's work. It's the humor and satire, the elegance of her style, the values and yes, the happy endings.
A Completing of the Watsons supplies all these things.
The Watsons, a fragment begun and abandoned by Jane Austen while she was living in Bath, has a real humdinger of a plot. Like Mansfield Park, there's more than a little edge to it as Emma, a young woman raised by her wealthy aunt and uncle, suffers a reversal in fortune and must return to the family home. There her three sisters are engaged in a hunt for husbands as their dying father has no money or property to leave them - and they talk about it constantly, adding to the atmosphere of gloom.
Emma's change in fortune has occurred because when her mother died when Emma was just six, she was given to her aunt and uncle to raise and was presumed by her family to be the intended heiress of her uncle's estate, Claperton Park. Her uncle has recently died, however, without making any financial provision for her and her aunt has remarried to an Irish captain who did not want Emma to continue living with them.
Given a good education, she's a little bit too refined for the modest situation in which she finds herself now living. As the book opens, she is meeting the eldest of her sisters, Elizabeth, for the first time in 14 years.
At the first ball she attends after moving to Stanton, she meets a man she is immediately drawn to, Mr. Howard, a vicar. But she is also spotted by the stand-offish and socially awkward Lord Osborne. Lord Osborne never dances; his disdain for balls and dancing reminds me of Mr. Darcy. Lord Osborne immediately wishes to be introduced to her, and while that does not happen, he begins a campaign of courtship of Emma which she finds, while not welcome, certainly makes her life more eventful.
What I love about Rose Servitova's writing is her humor, her writing style, her delight in the foibles of human beings, and her fidelity to the language, manners and concerns of the Regency period.
I find myself wondering if Austen abandoned The Watsons because the dilemma Emma faces was just too close to Austen's own.
There are many elements here which remind me of other novels. Of course, Lord Osborne reminds me of Mr. Darcy. The discussion of lady novelists reminds me of the many discussions of books and reading in Northanger Abbey. Emma's status as a dependent, with an uncertain future, reminds me of Fanny in Mansfield Park. There is a passing reference to Box Hill, which, of course, reminded me of Emma - not to mention the sad hypochondria of Mr. Watson, reminiscent of Mr. Woodhouse in Emma and Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. The close friendship Emma and Elizabeth form in this novel reminds of Lizzie and Jane in Pride and Prejudice. The somewhat frosty relationship Emma and Elizabeth have with their other two sisters, Penelope and Margaret, also reminds of Kitty and Lydia from the same novel.
As I read it, I found myself ruminating on what it is that I love about Jane Austen's work. It's the humor and satire, the elegance of her style, the values and yes, the happy endings.
A Completing of the Watsons supplies all these things.
The Watsons, a fragment begun and abandoned by Jane Austen while she was living in Bath, has a real humdinger of a plot. Like Mansfield Park, there's more than a little edge to it as Emma, a young woman raised by her wealthy aunt and uncle, suffers a reversal in fortune and must return to the family home. There her three sisters are engaged in a hunt for husbands as their dying father has no money or property to leave them - and they talk about it constantly, adding to the atmosphere of gloom.
Emma's change in fortune has occurred because when her mother died when Emma was just six, she was given to her aunt and uncle to raise and was presumed by her family to be the intended heiress of her uncle's estate, Claperton Park. Her uncle has recently died, however, without making any financial provision for her and her aunt has remarried to an Irish captain who did not want Emma to continue living with them.
Given a good education, she's a little bit too refined for the modest situation in which she finds herself now living. As the book opens, she is meeting the eldest of her sisters, Elizabeth, for the first time in 14 years.
At the first ball she attends after moving to Stanton, she meets a man she is immediately drawn to, Mr. Howard, a vicar. But she is also spotted by the stand-offish and socially awkward Lord Osborne. Lord Osborne never dances; his disdain for balls and dancing reminds me of Mr. Darcy. Lord Osborne immediately wishes to be introduced to her, and while that does not happen, he begins a campaign of courtship of Emma which she finds, while not welcome, certainly makes her life more eventful.
What I love about Rose Servitova's writing is her humor, her writing style, her delight in the foibles of human beings, and her fidelity to the language, manners and concerns of the Regency period.
I find myself wondering if Austen abandoned The Watsons because the dilemma Emma faces was just too close to Austen's own.
There are many elements here which remind me of other novels. Of course, Lord Osborne reminds me of Mr. Darcy. The discussion of lady novelists reminds me of the many discussions of books and reading in Northanger Abbey. Emma's status as a dependent, with an uncertain future, reminds me of Fanny in Mansfield Park. There is a passing reference to Box Hill, which, of course, reminded me of Emma - not to mention the sad hypochondria of Mr. Watson, reminiscent of Mr. Woodhouse in Emma and Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. The close friendship Emma and Elizabeth form in this novel reminds of Lizzie and Jane in Pride and Prejudice. The somewhat frosty relationship Emma and Elizabeth have with their other two sisters, Penelope and Margaret, also reminds of Kitty and Lydia from the same novel.
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