Saturday, May 23, 2009

pride and prejudice and zombies and me


I was sitting in the park yesterday during my lunch break, when the person on the bench next to me noticed what I was reading. "So how is that?" he asked me of "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies." I told him it was actually pretty good -- that I'd made it further than I thought I might. I had wondered if I wouldn't be like my coworker Marcy, who said she'd read the first few pages and given up. Then Johnny Bench asked me how closely the story followed the original. Not being an expert on all (or any) things Jane Austen, I simply told him it was very close -- the same story but with zombie parts added. Secretly, I keep thinking, "Didn't Mr. Collins marry a Bennet sister and not Charlotte Lucas?" But I'm not sure. And I'm not sure if Charlotte suffered from any disease in the original book, but here she is suffering from the "strange plague," meaning she's been bitten and is slowly, over a period of months, turning into a zombie. An "unmentionable." One of the "sorry stricken."

I won't nit-pick over the details of this book, because I'm not an Austen snob of any sort. If it had been "Jane Eyre and Zombies," that might be another story, but with "Pride and Prejudice" I'm just along for the ride. I do still picture Elizabeth as Keira Knightley and Mr. Darcy as Colin Firth, so it was a little bit of an "ouch" to hear her say she'd like to rip out Darcy's still-beating heart, but I'm sure they'll still end up together in the end. In this strange retelling of the classic, the Bennet sisters are highly skilled ninja warriors, Buddha-pleasing disciplinarians and effortlessly violent zombie killers. Their skills in the "deadly arts" add value to their positions as "accomplished" women, in addition to their piano and conversational talents. Of course it's out of place and ludicrous, but it's also pretty fun to read. I haven't been laughing out loud, but that doesn't mean I'm not entertained. I like reading the familiar story because I don't remember how all the romance exactly unfolds, and I like reading about zombies. Seth Grahame-Smith does a pretty good job of creating zombie scenes that elicit a reaction from the reader, and with a novelty such as this, that's pretty much all we can ask for. It's a nice blend of romance and death, and it's much quicker to get through this time around -- reading for pleasure instead of homework. I'll probably be done with it in a few days, and then I'll move on to something respectable. But I'm actually pretty excited to see if the Brits can defeat the strange plague. If Mr. Grahame-Smith can find a way to do that, I'll be truly impressed.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

non-spoiler requiem tragicus

So I can't spoil for anyone "And the Ass Saw the Angel." Because I won't even be spoiling it for myself, although part of the reason I'm not going to be finishing this book is because I can see where it's going. I've read enough to not have to read any more. I wanted to like this book, and I don't dislike it, but the reading of it is far too draining. I don't have the time to read books for hours per sitting, so when a book is this hard to get into, I must abandon the mission. These pages require the kind of energy I can't maintain, because the author hasn't made it easy enough for me to care. I can get into the story after reading for about 20 or 30 minutes, but by then it's time to get off the train. And I won't be able to work up that enthusiasm quickly enough in the next sitting to make this a book worth reading. I apologize to you, Mr. Cave, and to you, my brother Daniel. But I'm going to switch gears and pick up something a little more accessible.

I picked up a new bagful of books from The Strand last week. Maybe I'll give Doris Lessing a shot, or "My Friend Leonard." Too many choices! This is why I need to pick up the reading pace.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

don't read it, daniel


... this blog post, that is. But read the book, "And the Ass Saw the Angel." I'm definitely going to spoil it for you if you can't resist the temptation to continue reading this before I mail you the book.

So there is a real ass, and there is a real angel. There is already so much to say about this book that I fear I'll make it a jumbled mess. But after the longest prologue ever, I've already gotten to know pretty well the book's protagonist and the town in which he lives. The town produces sugar but experiences a devastating rain pattern in the early 1940s. Euchrid is the baby that survives in the beginning, and his childhood is a tortured one. His father's family is known through "these parts" as the most inbred, violent bunch of hillbilly trash around. I keep picturing them having the same family tree as the killers from the 2003 Eliza Dushku movie "Wrong Turn." Euchrid's father seems to have been the sanest of the bunch, and in trying to escape he was "rescued" by a crazy, drunken mash-brewer who mistook him for her long-estranged husband. Still a far cry from normal, Euchrid's father is a meticulous hunter of small animals and likes to invent traps that maim (but don't kill) them. I haven't yet found out the reason for this.

Some of the book is told from Euchrid's perspective (he's recounting from his position in the sinking mudhole), some of it from a non-character narrator. Incidentally, I like the idea of experimenting with narrators, and I'd like to read something written in second person, but it will have to be the right book. I could try "Ablutions," which came out recently, but I'm not sure I want to envision myself an alcoholic dude in a bar.

Back on point, Euchrid did see an angel, and has since been slowly discovering that he has an ability to understand and influence animals. The family's mule, named Mule, almost died but was rescued by Euchrid's laservision-esque stare. Not the same stare that got his (other) ass kicked for peeping in on a local trailer-trash lady and her sexual exploits. I guess a kid has to entertain himself after being smacked across the face with a flyswatter by his mother all day.