Book review: Emma by Alexander McCall Smith

The forty-sixth book I read in 2016 was Alexander McCall Smith's Emma: A Modern Retelling.  Having been a longtime fan of McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, I can't tell you how excited I was to discover that the same author had produced a modern retelling of Emma.  Nor are mere words enough to tell you how disappointed and disgusted I was with the project.  If I thought that Isabel Dalhousie was an unlikable character, she's Elizabeth Bennet compared to McCall Smith's Emma Woodhouse.

McCall Smith, in my opinion, utterly fails to translate Emma forward two centuries.  Rather than trying to get Harriet Smith married so she can have her own household and some security, McCall Smith's Emma is only trying to set her up with a rich sugar-daddy so she can have an exotic gap year abroad before dumping the man who paid for it.  Pretending these two goals are morally equivalent is ridiculous.  In addition, Emma gets Philip Elton drunk on purpose in hopes of his coming on to Harriet, which leads to him being arrested for DUI, losing his license, and being humiliated in the press.  (All Austen's Emma did was reject his proposal.)  Austen's Emma was self-centered and vain, but her heart was in the right place.  This Emma is just a horror show.