Emma: Get Down With the Sickness

Chapters Read: 9 - 18
Sanity Level: Whatever! As if!
Update: Jane Austen is a bit of a hack.

I don't mean a hack hack, like in the sense of George Lucas*. I mean more like she uses certain plot devices over and over again.  She's much more Agatha Christie and a lot less Charlotte Brontë than she's made out to be.

She's a hack in the way that Hey! Nothing has happened these past 100 pages... I'll make a character sick and bed ridden! Because you know, she has to have everyone sit around and play cards and do absolutely nothing for 100 pages and that's her only way out of that rut.

Harriet Smith is now sick. Just like how Marianne Dashwood (Sense & Sensibility), Jane Bennet (Pride & Prejudice), and Tom Whatever (The Book That Will Not Be Named Park) were sick.

Besides Brittany Murphy Harriet Smith being sick I have one other thing to talk about: Emma's attitude. If Emma were a real person I would've already removed her from my dating pool; that's right, I would ignore her. I don't care how handsome and pretty Emma Woodhouse is made out to be: she's a complete tool.

She's a tool in the sense that she thinks no one is good enough for her. That no man can meet her level of expectations. This lady is smug and I use the term lady lightly. There's an episode of How I Met Your Mother in which Neil Patrick Harris explains The Emma Woodhouse Situation perfectly.

Emma, unfortunately, falls into the red zone on the chart. She's essentially not worth the trouble no matter how pretty she is. Harriet Smith? Perfectly acceptable. Hell, we could throw Mr. Woodhouse on there and he falls far outside of the red zone.

Emma is in good company, though. She's up in that red zone with EVERYONE from The Book That Will Not Be Named Park.

*Post prequel trilogy.