A newly revived Jane Austen, author of Pride and Prejudice and Emma, writes to us with her opinion on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith.
Mr Grahame-Smith’s novel is a clever, true to life adaptation of my tale, depoliticised and distilled to the true Regency era. This riveting novel accurately portrays my experience in 1812, including bare fisted fights with love interests and running from zombies. Indeed, my original publisher insisted that I remove these incidents from the novel because,‘it would decrease moral during the Napoleonic wars.’ It was all very political. I am lucky to be brought back to life in a time that fully acknowledges the zombie apocalypse that devoured so many good English souls.
I do not mind that Mr Grahame-Smith has used so many of my own words, as I find that his writing generally enhances the reading experience.The descriptions of Darcy are particularly appealing, as his unquestionable masculinity when killing zombies fully realizes the partial image I was forced to create in my own work.
Mr Collins and Charlotte’s stories are particularly heartrending to me, as they relate so closely to events in my own life. In the novel, Charlotte is unfortunately bitten by a rouge unmentionable and slowly becomes a zombie. Stricken with grief at her transformation, her horrible husband Mr Collins kills himself. My own sister Cassandra suffered a similar fate after she was bitten by a zombie, although she was saved by the medical cure just in time to make a full recovery. Her unfortunate fiancé was not saved, however, after he went to the West Indies and was bitten by a werewolf there. Werewolfism is widely accepted now, but at the time it was not and he died in mysterious circumstances in the Caribbean. Cassandra was understandably heartbroken and my father never recovered from the incident.
Mr Grahame-Smith’s descriptions of Elizabeth are also very pleasing, as she reminds me even more of my days as a zombie slayer. Every young woman of good breeding was taught to fight zombies in my day (as the novel points out) and Elizabeth’s mastery of the Chinese techniques is particularly accurate. As a Clergyman’s daughter, Cassandra and I were not able to afford the traditional training, so we learned from books ourselves.
This book also gives readers a very good guide on how to kill zombies, as Darcy and Elizabeth do throughout the text. The process of decapitation and burning of bodies is brought to light, as well as the proper way to peruse a graveyard by plunging a dagger into the ground with every step to deter zombie attacks from below. It looked ridiculous, but being foolish is better than being (un)dead.
Finally, I must admit that I found it very satisfying when Darcy broke both of Wickham’s legs for absconding with Lydia. I have to admit that was entirely Mr Grahame-Smith’s idea, although I do wish I had thought of it myself.
Although I am a bit envious of Mr Grahame-Smith’s circumstances, his book is a good read for anyone who wants to know what life was truly like in the Regency era. However, I do recommend one reads the original first. One has to look out for one's royalty payments, after all.
RATING:
*****
Editing and general advice by Moorea Corrigan.