Book Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Ariel King-Moore
Issue date: 10/1/09 Section: Arts
The witty repartee of Austen's beloved Elizabeth Bennet paired with undead, zombie action and topped off with ninjas? Bring it on. Despite the reservations of die-hard Austen fans, most of America agreed with my reaction and made this quirky cocktail of a novel number three on the New York Time's Best Seller list. Author Seth Grahame-Smith, who is described as having once taken an English literature class, infuses classic zombie havoc into Austen's regency era novel about the minutiae (and economics) of courting and marriage. This transforms heroine Elizabeth Bennet into an expert zombie slayer who, because of her pride, cannot see Mr. Darcy for the fine warrior that he is. Although his retelling is unorthodox, Mr. Grahame-Smith maintains the essence of each of the novel's characters while adding the necessary attitudes and concerns of Englanders beset with roaming herds of the undead: "The business of Mr. Bennet's life was to keep his daughters alive. The business of Mrs. Bennet's was to get them married." The Bennet sisters are all "silly and
ignorant like their mother, the exception being Lizzy, who has something more of the killer instinct…" Grahame-Smith does take a few liberties with the original plot by the deaths of some secondary characters. With the weapons of an infectious plague and katana swords, he appears to have taken a personal revenge on characters he thought stupid and useless. As entertaining as the shotgun-wielding Bennet sisters can be, the book comes down to an action-packed, extended version of Spark notes. Readers are robbed of the pleasure of reading and appreciating Austen's literary brilliance in the character's dialogue. All subtlety is laid bare and characters' idiosyncrasies and motives are often made painfully obvious. Swords (or ninja throwing stars) replace tongues in the sharp dialogues between Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy and Lady de Bourgh. The book is not completely void of ingenuity and an originality of its own. The opening line to the book is an example: "It is a universally acknowledged truth that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains." Later, instead of expounding on her views of the proper education of young, middle class women, Lady de Bourgh exclaims: "No ninjas! How is this possible? Five daughters brought up at home without any ninjas!" Seth Grahame-Smith has certainly been able to put quirk in a classic, but that doesn't make it a classic itself - not by a long stretch. The good news: you need fewer brains than Grahame-Smith's zombies to be entertained by his book. We can only hope for a bit more from Quirk Classics' newest novel set to come out this September, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.
ignorant like their mother, the exception being Lizzy, who has something more of the killer instinct…" Grahame-Smith does take a few liberties with the original plot by the deaths of some secondary characters. With the weapons of an infectious plague and katana swords, he appears to have taken a personal revenge on characters he thought stupid and useless. As entertaining as the shotgun-wielding Bennet sisters can be, the book comes down to an action-packed, extended version of Spark notes. Readers are robbed of the pleasure of reading and appreciating Austen's literary brilliance in the character's dialogue. All subtlety is laid bare and characters' idiosyncrasies and motives are often made painfully obvious. Swords (or ninja throwing stars) replace tongues in the sharp dialogues between Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy and Lady de Bourgh. The book is not completely void of ingenuity and an originality of its own. The opening line to the book is an example: "It is a universally acknowledged truth that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains." Later, instead of expounding on her views of the proper education of young, middle class women, Lady de Bourgh exclaims: "No ninjas! How is this possible? Five daughters brought up at home without any ninjas!" Seth Grahame-Smith has certainly been able to put quirk in a classic, but that doesn't make it a classic itself - not by a long stretch. The good news: you need fewer brains than Grahame-Smith's zombies to be entertained by his book. We can only hope for a bit more from Quirk Classics' newest novel set to come out this September, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.
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