Sunday 23 May 2010

Pride and Prejudice.... and Zombies... and Darth Vader


I had to have this book, and my very nice husband bought if for me for my birthday. It sounded really interesting, I am a BIG Jane Austen fan, and I was wondering how anyone could make this mix work. When I started reading I realize that this author, at least, could not. It was totally hollow, this writer writes for the words on the surface, not as Austen, the meanings beneath the surface. It seems just like the author, Seth Grahame-Smith, took Jane's book simply as it was and took out some of her well contemplated sentences and put in some badly written zombies and gore, and that is exactly what he did, as he states in the preface. One of the things that bugs me is that the zombies has no purpose, why is England in the early 19th century swarming with zombies?! That is the mark of a bad story, the bad guy has no motive for being mean. Look at Darth Vader, he has a great motive, at least if you see all six movies. So, to sum up, the zombie parts are badly written and the Austen parts are cut out, and I was really mad for about half the book. Then I started thinking in a new way, actually enjoying the zombie parts for what they were, fun! It was really fun to start imaging Elisabeth and Darcy fighting bloody battles with zombies that were after fresh brains, but could be fooled with cauliflower. I also liked the parts where Darcy fuzzes over his chestnut mane of hair, and the part where he gives Elisabeth his "balls". Another advantage of rewriting a book is that you can punish the not so sympathetic characters in an all new and horrible way.
Read it and have fun, but don't expect a Jane Austen book.

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