Book Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

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"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" debuted as an original paperback last spring. I ignored it, regarding it as a Frankenstein's monster that would appeal to neither Regency romance nor horror fanciers.

Then the "Deluxe Heirloom Edition" from Quirk Books came in the office mail recently. Its leatherette binding, full-color illustrations, bookmark ribbon and $24.95 price tag screamed success.

Authors Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith had clearly arrived, and I was late to the ball.

Grahame-Smith seems to have had no doubt of the genius of this hybrid his editor proposed to him.

"He'd barely finished the word zombies before my head was flooded with images of aristocrats being eaten alive; of the Bennet girls flying around 'Crouching Tiger' style; of Mr. Darcy riding into battle atop his mighty steed, his glorious chestnut mane awash in musket smoke," Grahame-Smith writes in the book's preface.

He pulled up the original text on his computer and began "changing words, adding lines, inserting all-new scenes - one bloody page at a time." Within eight months of conception, the book was a best-seller and "(mostly) well received. If there was any consistent criticism, it boiled down to 'We want more zombies!' "

By one estimate, the book is 85 percent Austen, 15 percent Grahame-Smith.

"In many ways, the central gimmick of 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' is true to the spirit of the horror novels of Austen's day," Alfred University English Professor Dr. Allen Grove writes in the book's afterword. He notes, too, that Austen expressed disdain for the gothic horror novel, and its readers, in a passage in "Northanger Abbey."

Grahame-Smith did what Austen-era fiction writers did when they "reworked existing novels with new and sensational supernatural machinery."

Since we have a Jane Austen Society meeting regularly at the Lititz Public Library, I asked founder Genevieve Wimer, of Lancaster, what she thought of the new twist on the classic dear to her heart. She, after all, wrote her own Austen tribute, "Honour and Humility" a few years back.

Turns out Wimer is something of a purist and has no intention of reading the zombie variant. She referred me to the one member of the society she knew had expressed interest - the lone male, who's also a fan of science fiction and horror genres.

John Erb, contacted by e-mail, said he owned a copy of "PPZ," and "I plan to read 'Pride and Prejudice' concurrently with it, comparing the respective chapters to see how they differ." He promised to report back when he was finished.

I'm not surprised he hasn't, yet. I started reading "PPZ" and - after marveling at the girls' martial arts skills being valued as much as their talent at the pianoforte - put it aside rather soon. A bit too much splattering of brains and blood, as well as the concept of parody.

Still, my well-read officemate Melissa Julius said she liked "PPZ," and now craves Amanda Grange's "Mr. Darcy, Vampyre."

Trick, or treat? If you can't appreciate "PPZ" at Halloween, when can you?

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