This is not a clever revamping of a classic story. In fact, the most clever thing about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is that its author recognized its complete lack of intelligence by refraining from naming it something dashing like The Most Unmentionable Curse of Meryton. No, Seth Grahame-Smith’s version is not a re-telling of Pride and Prejudice; it’s simply Pride and Prejudice with zombie bits tacked on. Hence, it is, just as his title bluntly points out, Pride and Prejudice AND Zombies. Likewise, Grahame-Smith appends his name onto the book cover after Austen’s, clearly announcing himself as the secondary author.
Which is not to say that I didn’t wholly enjoy this literary extension. In fact, the simplistic format is sure to elicit more than a few chuckles. Basically, this is the original Pride and Prejudice word for word, except for where Grahame-Smith has modified the text by sprinkling in a healthy dose of Katana swords, flying ninja kicks, and zombies mistaking cauliflower heads for brains. So, for instance, Elizabeth might be found employed in carving the Bennet crest instead of trimming a hat during a social visit, or oiling her musket rather than doing her needlework, as Austen has her modestly doing in the original.
In other areas Grahame-Smith does lengthen the additional text beyond brief mentions of muskets and flying stars. Where Grahame-Smith has interluded the original story with entirely new paragraphs I picture the author gamely reading through the original book, drifting off during a particularly mundane scene of social niceties, and then awakening with a jerk, thinking “This dance scene could really use a zombie attack.” Which is why, in the midst of the first ball in the story zombies suddenly crash through the windows and attack the guests, forcing the Bennet girls to do battle in their ballgowns. Zombie unpleasantries out of the way, however, the text resumes its natural course, concluding that “Apart from the zombie attack, the evening altogether passed off pleasantly for the whole family.” Here it is the transitions from original work to zombified Austen that really produces a smirk in the reader.
The really laugh-out-loud bits, though, come when Grahame-Smith projects reader response onto the story. Really, who didn’t find Mary’s didactic speeches positively snore-worthy? Even Austen poked fun at this nerd in the beautiful Bennet fivesome, with her terrible caterwauling at the piano and tiresome morals. Grahame-Smith, however, is much less subtle than Austen, and therefore has Elizabeth rolling her eyes in the midst of Mary’s central speech on vanity and pride, and finally yawning (as surely the reader is) at its dry-as-dust conclusion. Similarly, during the midst of one of Lydia’s rambling and vapid speeches, Elizabeth gets out her trusty Katana sword and lops off her head. Only, much to Elizabeth’s (and the reader’s) disappointment, this turns out to be a daydream and Lydia, head still very much intact, resumes her blethering while Elizabeth (and the world) sighs with disappointment.
In other areas, the additions to the story are so out of character that it’s hard to laugh. A zombie battle where Elizabeth kicks some serious zombie butt, but manages to do so without mucking up her clothes too badly or compromising her modesty, seems in character with the original Elizabeth (a bit of a tough rebel at heart, but still a lady). However, a scene with Elizabeth ripping out and eating a heart, with the blood running down her dress in the middle of a social visit, is a bit… I don’t know… too much?
Likewise, Mr. Darcy seems to have picked up a very un-Darcy-like tendency to make ribald jokes. The repeated “balls” puns are very in keeping with a twelve year old boy and make me think the author should have added “(tee hee)” every time he inserted this particular verbal jest. And the ladies do seem to have a penchant for pointing out the men’s “most English parts.” Still, call me a twelve year old boy, but I couldn’t repress a smile when, after Elizabeth and Miss Bingley engage in their walking-about-the-room-in-order-to-make-Darcy-notice-them scene, and Darcy calls them out for this behaviour, Grahame-Smith has Darcy naughtily pointing out that he can basically see their figures through their clothes due to the glow cast by the fire, instead of simply remarking, as in the original, that he can admire them better from where he is sitting by the fire. In this case, Grahame-Smith’s change actually works well, as Miss Bingley’s retort of “Oh! Shocking!” seems quite a bit less over the top when you take into account that Darcy is, you know, being a bit of a pervert.
Other areas in which Grahame-Smith’s changes quite work are the verbal fighting scenes. In both of Elizabeth’s major war of words, first when she rejects Mr. Darcy’s condescending proposal, and then when she verbally judos Lady Catherine’s prejudices, Grahame-Smith has the duos not only verbally sparring, but physically fighting as well, in an impressive display of Chinese versus Japanese battle techniques. While Mr. Darcy’s words are thrown at him as he is thrown into the mantelpiece, Lady Catherine and her ninja army find themselves cut down by Elizabeth’s tongue and sword alike.
And if you’re wondering, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies isn’t completely a random smattering of zombie mayhem. If you care to look for it, there is somewhat of a weak zombie plot. Basically, the English town of Meryton has been under attack from zombies, or “unmentionables” as they are decorously referred to, for many years. While Mrs. Bennet plots to marry off her five daughters, Mr. Bennet has them trained in the Chinese arts of fighting so that they can vanquish the evil foe. Elizabeth, in particular, is a master of zombie slaying, surpassed only by the haughty Lady Catherine, Japanese-trained and with an army of fighting ninjas to back her! Clearly the differences in fighting styles leads to Lady Catherine’s prejudice against Mr. Darcy marrying Elizabeth!
What follows is a battle of wills and roundhouse-kicks, as Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth reconcile their differences against an English backdrop of balls, social visits and violent zombie shenanigans. Along the way, the insufferable Mr. Collins marries the plague-infested Charlotte, who turns into a zombie, to the notice of no one except Elizabeth. Meanwhile Lydia runs off with the wicked Mr. Wickham, who is eventually condemned by Grahame-Smith to a double-whammy life of being a cripple and having to work for the church far, far away.
But eventually Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth learn to love and fight side by side, and everyone has a happy ending (except Lydia and Mr. Collins). Clearly this extension of Pride and Prejudice is riding the coat-tails of current zombie popularity and is in no way presented as a work of art. It does, however, serve a single bright purpose in introducing a literary classic to a new audience in a unique way. For, as Grahame-Smith ponders in his “Reader’s Discussion Guide” at the conclusion of the novel: “Can you imagine what this novel might be like without the violent zombie mayhem?”
You know, I can.
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Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is distributed by Quirk Books (International/US) and Raincoast Books (Canada).
