Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Almost everyone by now has heard of the book or movie "Pride and Prejudice" and most of them probably have a loose and shallow idea of what the book is about. I, admittedly, probably fall somewhere in this group as I've never really researched the premise and idea behind this renown story but as fate would have it though someone somewhere (Seth Grahame-Smith) decided to take Jane Austen's famous book and toss zombies in it. Personally, I found this rather amusing and I'm sure that everyone else who put a little thought into this concept did too. The story itself seldomly changed from Jane Austen's vision, though a bit might have been cut out, it still retains all its meaning. Only difference now is that the undead runs and kills people left and right and kung-fu becomes a noble's commodity.

What this all means in the end is that the same story has been delivered to us in a form that more people, like myself, would take joy in indulging in. It must be a sad truth that you'd have to throw ninjas and monsters into a work of art before the mainstream gives a damn, much like how the inclusion of nudity in early and even recent movies garners more interest in the masses, but in the end that's how the river flows. In the end though, I am now reading a book that I might have skipped over in the library thanks to this casual reader bait so maybe this is one of those moments where the end justified the means?

Jumping ahead to my thoughts on the book itself, I must say that I found myself rather shocked. In the beginning I chuckled at the thought of zombies into a serious novel. Obviously, two 'writer voices' in the same book would collide and the modern horror figure of today could not be seriously written into such an old book. Such ludicrousy! After surfing through this story, however, I found that the zombies oddly fit rather well into this story. They were structured into the caste system of Victorian society and somehow woven into the culture like some new, unwelcomed race. The Victorian persona was treated wonderfully, showing just how far members in the society would go to keep their image, often choosing to leave their gun at home while going on perilous journeys through zombie-infested woods due to it being 'unladylike'. This almost seamless integration of worlds and stories really opened my eyes a bit to the potential of this book.

The story premise is still the same as it was in Jane Austen's version. We follow Elizabeth Bennet, a young woman who is as intelligent and mentally sound as she is beautiful (which we gather is a lot). She is caught in an unusual yet actually familiar circumstance where she starts to interact with a man that she hates upon first impression because he seems to be a proud inconsiderate bastard that probably couldn't even fight his way through a field of zombies as well as she and yet in time and many stubborn conversations she realizes her feelings and he realizes his. Before any of that though, she must deal with her crazy mother and look to her father for support. Not much has changed in this world with the inclusion of zombies which makes you think that in our modern time, would we really be as hectic and world shaken as we portray ourselves to be in zombie apocalypses? Granted, we always show ourselves at the brink of losing the war but if we did get a grasp on the situation could we eventually treat zombies like the weather and just learn to live and possibly fight them? It was an interesting portrayal anyway of something that should seem common to people like me and yet it seemed so different due to the time placing and manner of which they decided to utilize the undead.

All in all, the book was a good read and surprisingly different like how steam-punk was when they first started blending Victorian mentality with Science Fiction. It felt like a new genre when really it was just bridging the classical books with our modern world for a moment. The kung-fu fights and zombies made everything feel a bit less authentic which probably takes away from the 'real' romance that many fans took from this book but it was still interesting and forced you to focus on matters outside of Elizabeth and Darcy's world. Without the zombies I most likely would not have read it. Not because I dislike romances, since romances are one of my favorite genres, but maybe because I'd yearn for more momentum. I'm not sure what exactly I mean or am looking for in a romance (since when does a boy ever know what he is looking for?) but I feel like this book doesn't have it and possible others would. It was written well and I do have a love for the Victorian but I think only with the occasional mind tease of the recently departed appearing would I be able to venture through all of this book.


Off note though, I'd like a zombie apocalypse to happen right about now. As an inspiring professor once remarked on romance in horror novels, "In horror stories, a girl learns to size a guy up real quick!" - True? Probably. Probably not