Rage in the Page: It all started with this one...

Monday, December 31, 2007

Title: Mr. Knightley's Diary
Author: Amanda Grange

12 hours before boarding a bus for a 5-hour trip, I needed a book. The library was closed (boo!), so I grudgingly went to the bookstore.

A desperate search for something worth buying took much longer than I'd hoped, and I ended up going with this one, for lack of any other options.

The book itself was rather enjoyable, though certainly not worth $14 to me. Seriously, you wonder why nobody buys books anymore? There's a reason I go to the library - it's FREE, and even paying a few fines is way cheaper than $8-14 per (paperback) book.

But I digress.

It's Emma, retold from Mr. Knightley's view - you know, the classic Jane Austen story known to modern audiences only as the inspiration for Clueless. Girl attempts to control the lives of everyone she knows, then once she's failed miserably, she realizes she loves the man who's known her forever, who promptly proposes.

While reading, my main thought was that, though I'm generally familiar with Emma, it'd be better if I remembered more of the details. That, and (spoiler!) Grange has Knightley fall in love with Emma practically at the start of the book, and even reveals it to his friends in town. I always thought of it as a very complex friendship, which he eventually realizes is love much further along in the story. It's a whole new plot when he's secretly in love with her the whole time.

And yes, it was the convention of the time, but the older man marrying innocent young girl just seemed creepy here - he's 37 to her 21 at the end of the story, and they even talk about how he, as a young man, had played with the toddler/baby Emma. Ewww. Not to mention that his younger brother is married to her older sister.

But back to a previous point: that it'd be more enjoyable if I knew the initial story better. Did I go out and buy the book Grange wrote before this one, Mr. Darcy's Diary? Hell no. But I did check the library catalog for it...

Labels: Austen, Brit lit, fiction, high society, romance of the non-trashy variety