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** spoiler alert ** Emma, the novel (not the character), is for me, a conundrum. It is definitely not my top Austen (which is typically Mansfield Park, with Northanger Abbey right on its heels). There was much about Emma that I enjoyed- Mr Knightley, Harriet Smith, Jane Fairfax, etc, but I could never warm to Emma herself. I do know that Austen once said Emma was unlikable, and I do see that she grows exponentially over the course of the book. There are even times (always regarding her unrealized feelings about Knightley) where I identify with her. I also really enjoy a character who loves to match make. So, then, what did I dislike? More often than not, to me, that Emma's sheer blindness to other people's true selves gave the book a tedium I could not stand. I could only see her drag poor Harriet through the mud so many times before I found her impossible to cheer for by the time her epiphany and subsequent personal growth occurred. I felt (and this is surely just me, since many people talk to her sincerity) that Emma came across vapid and disingenuous which, although surely a side effect of her immaturity, can only be tolerated in a protagonist for so long.

In summation though, I suppose it comes down to this one overarching belief that stayed with me throughout:
Mr. Knightley could, and should, do better than Miss Woodhouse as a life partner.