I recently finished reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. At first, I found myself highly entertained by the book. That is to say, I found myself feeling like I should be highly entertained by the book. In reality, I kind of felt like I used to feel in high-school when all the cool kids were laughing about something and I had no idea why they were laughing, but I laughed anyway because I wanted to feel cool and like I was a part of their group too. As I read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I found myself wondering if I was laughing at the story because I really thought that zombies roaming the English countryside side by side with Lizzy and Jane was funny or was I laughing because I wanted to be part of the supposed coolness of messing with a classic love story by loading it up with zombie attacks?
Over the past ten years, Jane Austen has broken the bonds of PBS and become firmly entrenched in pop culture with one blockbuster film after another starring the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Keira Knightley. It would follow that a pardoy of one of Jane’s books, if done properly, would be even cooler than the actual books themselves. What is even more interesting is that Jane was often parodying the romantic books of her time when she wrote. So Seth Grahame-Smith really wrote a parody of a parody with his version of the classic Pride and Prejudice. And when the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies comes out in film, it will be a parody of a parody of a parody. Just try and absorb that little factoid why don’t you!
The book is clever. The idea is clever and it truly has some hilarious lines and a few absolutely hysterical scenes in it. In a nutshell, Seth Grahame-Smith hijacks Austen’s entire book and inserts zombies into it at obvious intervals. As strange as it seems, there are obvious intervals for zombies to arrive on the scene in Pride and Prejudice. The recent dead are a good fit for Austen’s books, especially if you have a high tolerance for the utterly ludicrous, which I do.
I found a quote from co-author, Grahame-Smith that sums it all up as he refers to Pride and Prejudice and it’s innate ability to incorporate the un-dead. He says…“You have this fiercely independent heroine, you have this dashing heroic gentleman, you have a militia camped out for seemingly no reason whatsoever nearby, and people are always walking here and there and taking carriage rides here and there . . . It was just ripe for gore and senseless violence. From my perspective anyway.”
I don’t want to give away the story… as there is really not much to give away. Just picture your favorite version of Pride and Prejudice, add a few zombie attacks and a few well placed round house kicks from Lizzy and her sisters during a walk in the woods, an evening ball, or an afternoon tea and you will have Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. You might also want to add a fierce militaristic training regime to the five Bennett sister’s lives and a dojo in their garden. Got it? Okay. Now you can skip the book and read something else.
Personally, I don’t think Grahame-Smith went far enough. I think the book should have been far more absurd. I think he was a mite too cautious and a mite too sane in his approach. I also think he got tired of his version of the story before the end. Or maybe, it is I who got tired of his story before the end. Either way you have the same result, a story that lasts longer than the actual story lasts.
The movie rights have already been sold to the highest bidder and a film is in the works. I am afraid that I will have to see the movie. I have no idea if I am motivated by an insecure need to be able to talk the funky Jane Austen parody with all the cool kids at school, or if I just have to see Lizzy Bennet kick the ever-loving crap out of Mr. Darcy to defend her warrior honor. I just hope that the film industry pushes the envelope a bit further than Grahame-Smith did. Somehow, I don’t think that will be a problem.
In the mean time, the next book, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is due out in mid-September. Someone has already put together something that is called a ‘book trailer’ for this book, which is good, because I simply can’t abide reading a book until I have seen the ‘book trailer’ first.. And in case you were wondering, a book trailer has nothing at all to do with a book-mobile. One is a vehicle that delivers books to people that might otherwise never get to read them and the other… is a vehicle… that delivers books… to people… that might otherwise… never… get..to read… them.
Hmmmmmmmmmm……..
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