PRINTZombies attack!
Jane Austen joins the undead
Quirk Books, $12.95
April 23, 2009 | 12:00 a.m. CST
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a classic novel in possession of a good reputation must be in
want of a zombie theme.
Nancy Mebed and Dr. Julie Melnyk are co-coordinators for the mid-Missouri chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America, so their romance with the writer makes perfect sense — and sensibility.
Why are Austen’s novels so popular today?
Mebed: She was able to tell a very good story with very strong characters. And of course, the theme of finding life’s love is one that everyone likes, whether they admit it or not.
How do you feel about other people tackling
her work in sequels and films?
Mebed: They just aren’t very good. Sometimes people come up with interesting ideas, but they can never create any satisfying ending. Some people are just trying to make money, and Jane Austen is very popular right now. They just try to follow that, and it never works out.
Melnyk: The sequels don’t work out in general probably because Austen makes it look easy. Her prose is beautiful, but it doesn’t look labored or all that difficult. It tempts people to try it. But people who take some of her themes and use them in their own works rather than trying to be Austen, they actually produce pretty great stuff. I think Clueless is listed as the second best Jane Austen adaptation on a Jane Austen Web site. I don’t think I’ll be reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies any time soon.
You both have joined a society in her honor.
We’ve got to ask: Why Jane Austen?
Melnyk: Austen is accessible but deep. What is interesting about her novels is the way they work so well for the common reader, but there’s so much there for an academic audience as well. Also, she only wrote six completed novels, which means that someone who’s doing this as a hobby can really master those novels.
--Kelsey Whipple
In the case of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, that means a breakdown of about 80 percent Jane Austen to 20 percent random zombie mayhem, all of it clothed in a cover picture worth much more than a thousand words. Written by Jane Austen and re-imagined by Seth Grahame-Smith, the book offers a glimpse into the beloved regency romance with slight variation: the scourge of zombies (that’s “unmentionables” for you high-society types). Think Night of the Living Victorians.
Although a good first reaction might be, “What?” an even better one is “How did he get permission for that?” Grahame-Smith, whose book-jacket credits come down to once having taken a class in English literature, only clears up the first question. He uses the majority of Austen’s original plot and wit and expands on it to shape a surprisingly creative take on the lost cause that is the Jane Austen adaptation industry. In doing so, Grahame-Smith creates his own world, a humorously macabre one that, like it or not, will attract some Austen first timers. The novel hasn’t lost its identity; it has simply gained a new, blood-spattered one.
In the zombie-plagued English town of Meryton, Elizabeth Bennet swaps her traditional education for one in the “deadly arts,” and as she slays unmentionables left, right and yonder (blindfolded, no less), she’s more literally a heroine than ever before. Zombies are forever interrupting balls, meals and strolls through the countryside, much to the chagrin of those they drag into the next world with them. The crafty, humorous dialogue Austen wielded is made only slightly less subtle with the addition of ninjas who brandish their own slightly less subtle weapons.
Case in point: When a party is spoiled by the untimely undead, Elizabeth must clean up the mess. Her reaction? “‘Well, I suppose we had ought to take all of their heads, lest they be born to darkness,’” she says, always polite. Earlier, the famous hate-at-first-sight dance scene ends not in pride or prejudice but in a martial arts move called the “Pentagram of Death.”
Even more surprising than the zombie-plagued plotline is the fact that there is enough tearing of limbs and plunging of daggers to last the entire novel. And with the occasional cartoonish illustration adding further hilarity to chapters, it’s difficult for even the most stoic literary snob not to laugh. Just keep in mind that it’s Austen who makes you love it.
If his efforts make more people read the original Pride and Prejudice alongside his own version, which is encouraged, then Grahame-Smith deserves a high-five. With a witty voice that renders the results more comedy than heresy, he has given a new life to a classic that too many forced high school essays might have left slightly ignored. Classic literature isn’t dead — it’s undead.
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