TITLE: Pride and Prejudice and ZombiesAUTHOR: Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
STARTED: June 18, 2009
FINISHED: June 28, 2009
PAGES: 319
GENRE: Fiction
FIRST SENTENCE: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.
SUMMARY: [From barnesandnoble.com] "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains." So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton-and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers-and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read.
THOUGHTS: Sweet jeebus was this a randomly fantastic jaunt of a read. While, in many ways, I think Mr. Grahame-Smith went too far (Lizzy would never, ever eat someone's heart), Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a joy of a book.
I found that P & P & Z brought out the humor of the original text that I had missed during my first perusal. The author does a good job of incorporating the zombie action in language and description that fits with the original text. In some areas the zombie scenes jump out too much and just seem thrown in for the sake of being there. At those times, the book felt more like bad fan fiction than updated literature.
I have to agree with my roomie that the new additions are heavily male oriented and Grahame-Smith misses the nuances of the original work, but I think that's the point. The author wanted to see if throwing in zombiness would work. And it does. Not perfectly, but it was still works more than I could ever have dreamed.
The cover is mildly terrifying and I did dream about zombies the first night I read this. Not recommended for those of weak constitutions.
RATING: 8/10 [Terrific]
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