Pride and Prejudice… and Zombies

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith.

I was excited to finally read this mashup of two of my favorite things: zombie stories and the book Pride and Prejudice.

A Zombie Ate My Readers’ Brains!

My enjoyment of the book was diminished in two ways:

Either Grahame-Brown is full of pride of his understanding of the original author’s wit and needs to show it off; or he is full of prejudice - thinking that his readers won’t understand it on their own.

The original book is ‘dumbed down’. It seems that the author makes an assumption that zombie fans need Austen’s wit explained to them, which I found insulting. It’s just not as entertaining when there is a translation following her witty observations. It’s even worse when they are paraphrased (a sort of close-captioning for the Austen-impaired).

Rewriting Austen’s words is the kind of sacrilege that might just cause Jane Austen to rise from her own grave as the living dead…

I was under the impression that the text of the original book would remain completely intact, with extra sentences adding the zombie plot. Instead, I noticed that Austen’s original writing was often altered.

Overall, I would recommend this book if you’re a fan of Zombie movies and the Pride and Prejudice story.

However, if you’ve read Pride and Prejudice so many times that you are able to recognize the changes to the original text - be prepared to be annoyed. I bet Pride and Prejudice and Zombies will be a bigger hit with people who have only seen the movie version of the book.

On a positive note, I’d love to see a movie version of this book! The fight scenes are hilarious. I vote for Sam Raimy - and, of course, Bruce Campbell would make an excellent Mr. Darcy…

The cashier at the bookstore told me that Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is already available! My own suggestion would be for a Persuasion Poseidon Adventure…