Pride And Prejudice And Zombies

"Jane Austen is the Stephenie Meyer of her generation."

If that's not a pull quote, I don't know what fucking is

Yes, it's a book review. But shut up ignorami, books will make you well proper clever like what I is. Seth Grahame Smith's update-with-zombies of Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice bills itself as being a version of the classic that "you'd actually want to read." And in all fairness, this is the first time I've ever made it past the sixth chapter of the book. Zombies and vomiting definitely help, although it's still not a book you can actually power through in a quick way. In fact, Smith's undead inclusions only make it mildly more tolerable - the characters are still horrible and there's far too much of Jane Austen's original prose. It's actually a remarkably faithful adaptation if you swap the dancing for zombie attacks and the Darcy/Elizabeth flirting for silly dialogue about Katana swords, ninjas and middle eastern martial arts' training. And vomiting. Lots of vomiting. Pride And Prejudice And Zombies made me realise that I'm about 3.5% less immature than I thought I was. Smith's additions make the source material more readable, but it can come across as childish and even a little obvious. Pride And Prejudice And Zombies is not a horror novel. It's full on comedy, and not a particularly rip-roaring one.

The forthcoming movie adaptation should weed out some of the problems. Namely, less of Austen's leaden prose and more of the grotesquerie as realised by the book's wonderful illustrations. It's a project which has the potential to be great, but is neither gruesome nor funny enough to work. Perhaps if I didn't hate Jane Austen's original so much I'd have enjoyed this book more. As it stands, there's far too much Pride And Prejudice and not enough zombies. Before you call me a heathen and an idiot, I should point out that I'm allowed to hate P&P - I'm English and have a literature degree. If this book had existed a few years earlier, then maybe I'd have actually finished Pride & Prejudice in at least some incarnation. As it stands, it says a lot about my character that the only version of the novel I've ever managed to finish reading is one with added zombie action and puking. With her stulted dialogue, dull, repetetive prose and unlikeable, sulky characters, Jane Austen is the Stephenie Meyer of her generation.

Pride And Prejudice And Zombies is worth a look, if only as a literary curiosity or if you find puke, zombies and ninjas overtly hilarious. As it stands, Pride And Prejudice And Zombies is a version of the novel "you'll actually want to read". But not more than once.