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.