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

Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier as
Elizabeth and Darcy. Now picture a zombie
face at the window!

     I loved Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and couldn't stand it. It failed in what it tried to do and succeeded in what it didn't try.
     As a piece of comic writing, this book failed. Grahame-Smith wasted an opportunity to really infuse Austen with zombies--the undead appeared infrequently, missing many opportunities to develop this book as a stand-alone work of comic horror. Really, zombies should have appeared randomly every few pages, but instead long passages of extracted Austen totally lacked brain-eating and bludgeonery. The zombies were more a novelty than anything else and did not contribute to the plot, which steadfastly followed Austen almost to the death (but not by zombies). It was a completely missed opportunity. I hope the impending film version of P&P&Z rectifies the failed courage of the book.

Warrior Elizabeth

     So, I was disappointed. I wanted a campy post-apocalyptic romp and got Austen more embroidered than anything else--and not embroidered with flowers, but with ghastly needlepoint body parts and gore. Lovely! Still, it was great fun and not at all serious--a great read for a summer weekend.
     I was heartened by the strength of Austen's story, even truncated as it was. I have read the original Pride & Prejudice maybe a dozen times and I know that story backward and forward. I have seen at least 10 filmed versions of the novel. And still, yes still, the story hooked me and held me. It didn't matter whether Elizabeth slayed with a glance or with a Katana sword or whether the carriage was  spattered with mud or with guts. The main point was whether Elizabeth and Darcy would find it within themselves to love each other, whether they could combat pride and prejudice in each other and themselves as efficiently as they slaughtered and beheaded the undead.

Zombies are everywhere, man

     In this book, Elizabeth and her sisters are trained zombie killers, warriors, really. The plague of zombies has overtaken England as the dead rise from centuries of cemeteries to menace both town and country. (London has been sectioned off into walled quadrants to better fight the unmentionables). These plot aspects are draped around Austen's plot in utterly silly ways. And hey, silly is OK. I liked it. If it brings readers even one step closer to appreciating Austen or voluntarily (Jake Shapiro) reading her books, I'm even more tickled.


SIDEBAR: Me and Austen

Books: My Life

     I knew I was supposed to like Austen, like I was supposed to like Dickens and James Joyce and Fielding, and so on. To be a proper English major, I must like them, to outstrip my high school friends in literariness, I must read them. But I just couldn't get Austen. It was so damned wordy! So polite! These books were politely written even when describing hideous social faux pas, wrongs, and sillinesses. I cleaned house for a professor while I was in college and one day she gave me a set of seven Austen novels and I took them gladly, if only for their symbolism.
     In the summer of 1980 (oh, those were halcyon days--NOT!) I went to England. And when I got home, I got Austen. I loved it. I dusted off the seven Austen novels and devoured them as eagerly as any zombie goes for brains; I redeemed those books from mere symbolism and they took on an amazing life in my life. And those books were no cauliflower (which zombies mistake for brains)! They were the real thing. Suddenly, the gorgeousness of Austen's writing shone through; her grammar, her perfect word choices.

Holden Caulfield (not cauliflower),
one artist's vision

    I think now that certain brain development (brains again!) and education needs to happen before a reader can appreciate certain literature. I see all the time that students are assigned literature to read that they cannot under any circumstances understand or appreciate. And you can see the fire light when a reader gets the right thing at the right time--like me reading Catcher in the Rye in 11th grade. As I consumed the book it also consumed me. I was irrevocably altered.
     One of the delights of the Eager Readers list I am working on reading is that I have revisited books that I read before I was ready. Dickens. I would've missed him but for this reading project. He's the best gift I've gotten. Rereading all of Austen was also an amazing pleasure. Neither of these authors ever intended for their audiences to be schoolchildren. These are adult works with amazing brilliance and scope. Coming to them as a mature reader and writer I again consume and I am again consumed. Wonderful! Very zombie of me.