Wind & Sea Med
Weather and Navigation
App
Wind & Sea Med is the APP that allows you to always have the famous LAMMA weather forecasts for sea...
Wind and Sea Med for iPad
Weather and Navigation
App
Wind & Sea Med is the APP that allows you to always have the famous LAMMA weather forecasts for sea...
Between the Sunset and the Sea: A View of 16 British Mountains
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'I watched the mirror for a last view, for now, of the frozen mountains of Glen Coe. As the road...
Dawn Rising
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Magical 2.5D Classical PC Element Masterpiece of the Year The journey of the magical MMORPG begins ~...
Transcendental Magic, Its Doctrine and Ritual
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2011 Reprint of 1958 London Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with...
The Ever-Present Origin
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This English translation of Gebser's major work, Ursprung und Gegenwart (Stuttgart, Deutsche Verlag,...
OsmAnd Maps
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Note: Continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life. OsmAnd...
Anthropocene by Peter Oren
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Indiana-born, everywhere-based singer-songwriter Peter Oren possesses a remarkable singing voice,...
folk rock
Blue Moon City
8.0
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Tabletop Game
Blue Moon City - the board game - picks up where the two-player game, (Blue Moon), ended: the...
Six bestselling authors have taken on the task of writing modern retellings of the complete works of Jane Austen. Alexander McCall Smith has successfully taken on the challenge of bringing Emma into the 21st century. Although the settings and characters remain the same the contemporary clothing, vehicles and ideas are something that the reader can relate to.
As fans of Jane Austen will already know, Emma is about rich, single Emma Woodhouse who, despite the disapproval of her good friend George Knightley, enjoys interfering in the lives of others, particularly where romance is concerned. Her meddling backfires when her plan to match her friend Harriet Smith with the boring Philip Elton has disastrous consequences.
Alexander McCall Smith’s version of Emma has more focus on the life of Mr. Woodhouse, Emma’s father, than the original did. He gives an account of Henry Woodhouse’s history and over emphasizes his anxieties about health and safety. Mr. Woodhouse’s concerns are constantly cropping up throughout the novel adding a little humour to the story.
One concern about this modern adaptation is that the writing style was overly formal. If it were not for the references to the current clothing fashions, motorcars and women attending university, the book could have been set during Jane Austen’s lifetime. Take, for example, the character Anne Taylor. Mr. Woodhouse hires Miss Taylor as a governess for his motherless daughters. Miss Taylor’s approach to the girls and her prim and proper use of language made her seem antiquated. She would not have looked out of place amongst other well-known governesses or nannies such as Mary Poppins or Nurse Matilda.
Occasionally it felt that Alexander McCall Smith was mocking the modern world, for example the activities of the younger generation or the way people speak. Whilst this may appeal to older readers who may disapprove of the recent developments and changes in the Western world; it alienates the teenagers and young adults who have grown up with modern technology.
There is no doubt that Alexander McCall Smith has done an excellent job at retelling such a famous novel, however to be a complete modern retelling I think everything needs to be brought into the 21st century. This would include all the characters and the style of language it is written in.