Saturday, May 16, 2009

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith


Jane Austen's writing is funny and clever in its own right, but never in my life have I laughed as hard at a book as I did while reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, adapted by Seth Grahame-Smith.

Grahame-Smith took a beloved literary classic and turned it on its head by the addition of zombies. In order to counteract the "strange plague" that is turning English citizens into zombies, Elizabeth Bennett and her four sisters have been trained as ninjas during a stay in China. Mr. Darcy is also an esteemed zombie-killer, and his aunt, Lady Catherine De Bourgh, is the most celebrated slayer of dreadfuls in the nation. The novel follows the same plot and characters it has followed for more than a century, but now with a few detours here and there while the Bennetts and Darcys do their best to protect Britain from the zombie threat.

I didn't know how well the melding of these two genres would work. It could easily have been painful to read, especially given my great love for Jane Austen's works. However, I am glad to say that the zombie part of the story adds rather than detracts, and gives readers another way to experience this well known literary classic.

So now, I have to ask, when will someone get around to writing Wuthering Heights and Zombies?

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