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Darling Readers, life has just gotten in the way of our planning schedule this January. It seems that 2023 has decided to kick life into overdrive in ways that we haven’t been prepared for since the beginning of 2020. And with that, we’re putting Virtual Book Club on hold until further notice. If we were to announce a February book now, we would all be scrambling to get it from the library and read it in time to discuss. So, we’re pushing hosting a public Virtual Book Club for now. But, if you’re in the mood to discuss a specific title with us, you know where to reach us and we’d be happy to get YOU a personal VBC set on our schedules.

Let’s start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start, and Alexander McCall Smith, prolific British author born in what is now Zimbabwe and lives in Edinburgh, dedicated this book to his two daughters, Lucy and Emily. The 74-year-old author studied law at the University of Edinburgh where he earned his PhD and proceeded to teach at the Queen’s University of Belfast and then at his alma mater in Medical Law. McCall Smith has written over 100 works of fiction for both children and adults, as well as numerous academic texts. The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series, set in Botswana and started by Madame Precious Ramotswe – an African woman of color, is what has made McCall Smith a household name. Often referred to as “Sandy,” McCall Smith lives in Edinburgh with his wife Elizabeth, a physician, in a renovated Victorian home and doesn’t seem to be slowing down his writing any time soon.

Emma: A Modern Retelling was exactly what I wanted a retelling to be. And if it weren’t for the vagaries of life, I would have settled in to read it in one or two sittings rather than the week it took me to read the 370 page homage to Jane Austen and modern British country life. McCall Smith places every character and location from Emma into his witty and sarcastic prose. What I really loved about this modern version is that we get the background on Mr. Woodhouse’s obsession with health and how his mother called him a “valetudinarian.” When I read this word in Emma earlier this month it sent me to the Kindle dictionary. I loved what McCall Smith did on page two to hearken back to a modern person’s reading the original novel:

“To dispatch one’s friends to a dictionary from time to time is one of the more sophisticated pleasures of life, but it is one that must be indulge in sparingly: to do it too often may result in accusations of having swallowed one’s own dictionary, which is not a compliment, whichever way one looks at it.”

We also receive more background on how Miss Taylor came to be the Woodhouse sisters’ main caregiver, the intriguing story of Isabella’s and John Knightley’s romance, and the best snippets of Emma’s real feelings and thoughts with her inner monologue. We get more understanding of Emma’s motivations and personal growth as a character. If Emma isn’t an Enneagram 1, with her desire for everything to be in its proper place and everyone to be better than they are, especially herself by the end, then I don’t know my own type. The friendship between Harriet and Emma is a delight of surprises and secrets revealed at the end of the book.

I’m giving Emma: A Modern Retelling four solid stars! I will recommend this title to everyone and will be adding some of McCall Smith’s backlist to my TBR, but don’t foresee myself re-reading it. I wish every classic novel was given a new, modern interpretation as reverential to the original as this one. If you can find me some more, I’d love to read them with you!

~Ashley

Darling readers, let’s have a little chat today.  I want to chat about adaptations and retellings.  First, let it be known that I did not dispatch myself to a dictionary to discern the difference between the words, so I’ve more or less been using them interchangeably, until now.  My understanding now is that an adaptation takes the story into a new media form, whereas a retelling is to tell the story in a new way, in the original medium.  Is that what I expected them to mean?  Nope, but here we are, with my own story of being dispatched to a dictionary by Emma Woodhouse.  

Ashley has already given us some great comments on what quirks are included in Emma: A Modern Retelling and I have a couple more things I want to add to that.  First, while you can read our full review of The Emma Project here, I’ll add to it, that retelling adapts the story across time, place, and culture.  Today’s title retells the story in the same place and culture, and merely updates the time.  If we also look at adaptations, such as Clueless, we can see more of the difference here, as it’s in a similar place and time as The Emma Project, but a very different culture.  Here’s the point – Emma: A Modern Retelling changes the time, but still sets the story in an English village, with all the same names and characters you’re expecting.  John Knightley is perhaps the most different character from the original, as I don’t think a younger son reading the law in the 1800s is very similar to becoming a photographer and hiring a voice coach to adopt a Chelsea Cockney accent, although I get that modern John as a barrister doesn’t fit either.  There are other minor differences, but they also serve to modernize or add dimension to the story, including the details of Mr. Elton’s background and trip after Emma refuses him, the specifics of Mrs. Goddard’s school, and the business the Martins operate.  Other than the specifics of John’s quirks, the cast does feel like the modern version of the classic, which I genuinely enjoyed, perhaps most of all Miss Taylor / Mrs. Watson, because as a governess, yes, even in the modern version, she does have an almost Mary Poppins feel to her, without the magic.  

McCall Smith has definitely earned his backlist a place on my TBR with his careful, considered treatment of this classic, his understanding of the updated social norms, and his gorgeous writing.  Like Ashley, if life hadn’t gotten in the way, I’d have consumed this book.  It’s engaging in its own right, and then you add in that it’s a retelling and I am reading for an updated treatment and how he hides those Easter eggs because we all know how this is going to end…without enough epilogue, just like the original.  I’m delighted to give Emma: A Modern Retelling an emphatic four stars.  I definitely encourage lovers of the original and those who enjoy an amusing (not spicy) tale of fumbled romance in the English countryside to pick up this title.  I won’t likely read it again, but I’m looking forward to reading the other half of this modern retelling series and more from McCall Smith!

What’s a title that was everything you didn’t know you wanted it to be?

~Nikki 

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