Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Jane Austin and Seth Grahame Smith
Quirk classics $12.95 £8.99
A few years ago I was grooving to a song called Paperback Believer - the song had never existed in the real world but by a clever mesh up by Go-Home Productions, a mix of The Beatles Paperback Writer and The Monkees Daydream Believer, it was as if the fab four and the not so fab simians had recorded together. The song works really well and there are numerous other mesh ups. In this bizarre virtual world Madonna has recorded with Elvis, Queen with The Beatles, Eminem with Wings. Visit Go Home Productions and download their free album of mesh ups to see how clever these things are.
Well now the mesh up has moved to the literary world.
Pride and Prejudice with zombies, credited to Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith, is the text of the original romantic classic with some amendments. Namely the inclusion of a pack of brain starved zombies.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."
85% of the text is actually Jane Austin's while the remaining 15% is interwoven so skillfully into the book that one could believe it's always been like this. It's a bizarre high concept novel that works beautifully and had me in tears of laughter.
"Two adult unmentionables - both of them male- busied themselves feasting upon the flesh of the household staff."
The book has been a huge success, pushing Seth Grahame-Smith into the bestseller lists. You must admire his gall since the largest section of the book was written by a long dead writer and is an acknowledged classic of literature. There is to be a graphic novel version and also a big budget movie. Though in truth I feel the novelty value, as well as the new author's skill in blending the two stories, makes the book so bloody enjoyable and too much of this kind of thing could become tedious.
4 comments:
I haven't read it so I probably shouldn't comment, but my first reaction to this was a sense of irritation. As if writers don't have a hard enough time getting noticed as it is, but when something like this becomes a bestseller I have to wonder whether another, more original artist, is passed over.
Charles - I was dubious but after reading it I like it. I think it's taken a lot of skill to seamlessly blend the zombie storyline into existing narrative. As I say it's a novelty and I wish I'd thought of it.
Wow, this is the first positive review (outside of entertainment mags) I've read about the book.
Most of the others that I've come across have almost been universally negative, some downright vitriolic.
I'm not sure if I would read it, being that I'm not that a big fan of Victorian prose or Jane Austen, but if it gets people to read, more power to the author (who probably can't write something totally original to begin with).
G - it's light hearted and if you approach it with that attitude it is very enjoyable. In fact I would say it's devilishly clever in places and very witty.
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