Classic Literature, Upgraded with the Undead
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
By Kris Howell |
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Through the miracle of zombification, Seth Graham-Smith apparently exhumed Jane Austen's body and collaborated with her on a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, complete with a plague of "unmentionables" (classic lit code for zombies) and ninjas. It's hailed as the transformation of "a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read." And for the most part, that's a pretty dead on description.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
I hadn't read Pride and Prejudice for over a decade, so as I thumbed through the zombie revision, both books in hand, I went back and forth picking it apart. At times Graham-Smith simply replaces an innocuous word with sexual innuendo or gore. At other times whole new story lines are introduced, always including some sort of ultra violence, whether against the "sorry stricken" (again, a euphemism for zombie) or among the characters themselves.
Literary purists will hate this book. But those are the people who always hate a movie that's based on a book. It's never what you want it to be. But if you read this novel as an entirely new work, and you can read it without having ever read Pride and Prejudice, then it's clear that Graham-Smith has added his own fundamentally different values. Although the wit and cunning of Jane Austen play out in the shadow of all out zombie-ninja warfare, the retelling takes her nonchalant wit to a new, more x-treme iPhone-wielding, energy-drink-guzzling attitude that keeps the video game class on the edge of their futons.
Be on the lookout for the next installment in the series from publisher Quirk Books: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.
Originally Published: October 1, 2009
