It was a long time ago I read this book and this time I listened as an audiobook.
I love the character descriptions and the chemist is almost Dickensian in his caricatured awfulness.
However, Emma is dreadful and impossible to have sympathy with given her overwhelming selfishness. She is the ultimate in anti-heroine, femme fatale. How would she fare in the twenty first century where she could indulge her whims without society's condemnation. Sadly, I think she would fare badly. It would always be somebody elses fault that she was unhappy.
If Emma is a character you love to hate her husband Charles is worse. How can he have no idea what is going on? He is either totally self obsessed or totally stupid. I like to think he was away in the countryside having a torrid affair of his own but that makes the end of the book a little more difficult to explain. Also why does he give up his finances so easily.
One last question. What happened to all the creditors baying for blood just before Emma's final act?
A great character study but a frustrating novel 7/10
