2010/04: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies -- Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

[tamaranth]

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies -- Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

"... Can there be any other opinion on the subject?"
"Yes, there can; for mine is totally different. Will you hear it?"
"Most willingly."
"You shall have it in a few words. Miss Bingley sees that her brother is in love with you, and wants him to marry Miss Darcy. I dare say she means to keep you from his attentions. Your honour demands she be slain." (p. 94: compare the original...)

Does what it says on the label, and rather better than I was expecting: it is a one-joke book (zombies! and ninjas!) but doesn't wholly vandalise the original. Yes, I can see Elizabeth Bennett as a fearsome swordswoman determined to avenge all and any slights; yes, this book does advance an original new theory for Jane's willingness to marry Mr Collins; yes, Lydia is a silly cow.

The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every zombie confirms my impression that God has abandoned us as punishment for the evils of people such as Miss Bingley. (p. 103)

I am, however, unimpressed with the blurb: "transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read." And slightly horrified at the prospect of anyone reading this without knowledge of the original. This is a proper Transformative Work, if a heavy-handed one, and what's the point of transformation if the audience doesn't know what's changed? (Clue: Jane Austen would not have included off-colour jokes about balls.)

Comments

[frandowdsofa.livejournal.com]

People who read this also enjoyed:

I am Scrooge: A Zombie Story for Christmas by Adam Roberts

[zotz]

If you're open to one-joke books then you might like Ulrich Haarburste's Novel of Roy Orbison in Clingfilm. It really is very good.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

Blimey, I haven't read P&P - or indeed any Austen - in nigh on 30 years. I suppose I ought to remedy that.

I gather that the next book in the sequence - Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters - is nowhere near as good.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

On the other hand - as I am about to tell tamaranth - I have heard that "Mansfield Park and Mummies" is way, way better...

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

I wonder iff that's because mummies have a more standard (and widely known) range of tropes and iconography than sea monsters?

[ms-cataclysm.livejournal.com]

I thought it was a fun fluffy read for post Christmas slummocking ,but I'm not sure I'll re-read it that much.

I also enjoyed a very fan fic follow up to Pride and Prejudice were Elizabeth discovers that Darcy is a vampire - again , great for a train journey but probably not something that I will reread frequently.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I am told that Vera Nazarian's "Mansfield Park and Mummies" is actually rather good, and not at all a one-joke joke. I only have this at second hand, you understand, but I do tend to trust my sources.