Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

Tweet I've written about literary remixes, or mash ups, before (here) but I've only just managed to finish Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, credited to Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. I tried to start it as long ago as last August, convinced that I would love it. Truth is, I didn't. I kept putting it aside in favour of other, more enjoyable, books. Well I've eventually slogged through it, and I cannot say that my final impression is altogether that favourable.

I love Pride & Prejudice. It's one of my favourite books, and the only thing that even approaches its genius is the BBC's serialised adaptation in 1995, starring Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth and Colin Firth as Mr Darcy. I also have a penchant for zombies, so you'd think that anything that could combine the two would be amazing.

Ah, if only it were the case! At the beginning of the book, the somewhat liberal application of zombies feels jarring and implausible, not to mention lazy. In many cases, he simply changes one word in a sentence in order to allude to the 'plague'. He also tinkers with characters in order to make their "mastery of the Deadly Arts" fit within his plot, but this renders their actions as regards the Pride & Prejudice to become incoherent. For example, pious bookworm Mary is transformed into a highly focussed, zombie slaying Warrior, yet this doesn't work when Mr Bennett continues to refer to his younger daughters as "three f the silliest girls in the country". There is nothing remotely silly about Mary after Grahame-Smith's treatment - so why not change ALL of the text accordingly?

Another problem is the use of terminology. The girls are originally described as following the code of the Samurai, and they wield Katanas, but by the time Elizabeth has gone to Rosings, we discover she studied in China, and not Japan. It's this lack of consistency that jolts the realm of believability, and distracts from the plot.

By the middle of the book, Grahame-Smith hits his stride, and his substitution of Elizabeth's piano display at Rosings for a sparring match between Elizabeth and three of Lady Catherine's ninjas is perfectly normal. Likewise for Elizabeth's meeting with Darcy at Pemberley - no more is he encountered having just gone for a swim in his pond. No, now he appears on horseback to defend an unarmed Elizabeth against a horde of zombies (somewhat bizarrely referred to here as a 'herd').

Sadly, as the end of the book draws near, it feels like Grahame-Smith has forgotten what he set out to do, and several pages go by with only one or two vague mentions of the zombies. All that does is make me remember how much I enjoyed the original. If anything, he's written a spectacular advert for Pride & Prejudice, while failing to distinguish himself at every turn. If anything, his own book feels more like the outcome of one of those "Wouldn't it be funny if...?" questions, which seldom turn out to be as funny as the author would like.

If you want Austen and zombies, I'd recommend that you read Pride & Prejudice, and then go watch Zombieland. You'll have far more fun.

Happy birthday to...

Tweet ...Jane Austen!

The lovely lady of literature would have been 234 today. My personal favourite of her works is, unsurprisingly, Pride and Prejudice, since Elizabeth Bennett is by far one of the greatest heroines of English literature. I do also like Northanger Abbey as well though; Catherine is a fine heroine. The only one I've never been able to click with is Emma, and it doesn't surprise me that it provided the loose concept for Clueless...

Literary Remixes

Tweet The tendency towards remakes and sequels has been present in cinema for decades now, but for a long time it seemed that literature stood apart. A book was an individual creation by an author/genius, and was therefore sacrosanct. They could be adapted for performance in the theatre, or on screen, but it was rare for other authors to continue the story, or to retell it altogether. However, this seems to have changed over recent years, with more authors 'retelling' classic fairytales, or taking inspiration from earlier works.

There have already been plenty of novels released that either continue the story after the final page of classics such as Mansfield Park, or that tell the story of an alternative character (see the series of 'Diary' novels for Jane Austen's heroes), but now a new literary 'remix' trend seems to have exploded out of leftfield. Horror is being injected into the works of Austen - we've already had Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters and Mr Darcy, Vampyre, with Vampire Darcy's Hunger: A Pride and Prejudice Adaptation due in December. Exactly what has prompted this trend? Personally, I can't help thinking that a great deal of it relates to the publishing world's grudging acceptance that women do read horror, and they enjoy it. They also enjoy romance and the classics, so...why not combine the two?

However, I cannot work out whether this trend either devalues the original classic, or devalues the horror genre as a whole. Horror is a particular genre, defined less by its iconography, themes or typical characters and more by the feeling it provokes in the reader or viewer. It has long been seen as the 'poor man' of both literature and cinema, looked down upon by loftier genres, a sort of 'trash' for a less discerning audience. Therefore on one hand, injecting this 'lowest common denominator' genre into classic novels brings the reputations of these novels into a sort of disrepute. The subtle social commentary or historical value of such works is obliterated by the introduction of zombies, vampires and sea monsters, rendering the (often poorly written) original text almost worthless. However on the other hand, horror is actually a complex means of conveying wider themes as it reflects social anxieties current at the time of its inception, and to ham-fistedly cram it into a classic novel tells the world that actually, horror is a bit of silliness, only good for amusing or entertaining the reader as a new spin is put on a well-known story.

Beyond this, I also can't work out why it seems to only be Jane Austen's work that is so far afflicted. She only wrote six full novels, two of which are in my opinion truly dire (Mansfield Park and Emma, in case you were wondering), and surely there are other authors with a larger oeuvre who would benefit from the introduction of a little silliness in their stories? Charles Dickens is a po-faced bore at the best of times, and I can't help thinking that a scene depicting Pip battling a werewolf Miss Havisham would truly improve the work as a whole.

Still, it's an interesting trend, and with any luck will prove that horror is a viable genre for female readers. I shall be watching with interest...

The image in this post is actually a drawing by me!