I thought I could stay out of the fray regarding Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. But now, it seems inevitable that I’m dragged into it. Quirk Books, the publishers who brought us PPZ, just announced the next book in the series: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.
Both books are mash-ups of the Jane Austen classics, but with crazy and bizarre twists. In PPZ, Lizzie Bennett is an accomplished zombie fighter who takes an initial strong dislike to one Fitzwilliam Darcy. The backstory remains the same; they’ve just added zombies! In SSS, the Dashwood sisters are stranded on a deserted island, looking for love – and fighting off sea monsters.
Grahame-Smith’s book is apparently doing well and, by all accounts, most Janeites seem to love them. My first instinct is to cringe – after all, Quirk editor and creator of the series did say, “I just thought it would be really funny to desecrate a classic work of literature.” But Ben Winters, author of SSS, makes the point that Austen’s novels are filled with strong, intelligent, self-assured women and lots of witty and clever conversations that, in a way, they are well suited to become over-the-top parodies.
I still hesitate to read these books because I do love the originals so much (and it’s not like my “to read” list is small or anything). But I suspect I’ll eventually succumb to temptation and give it a try.
Crazy as it sounds, I can actually picture Lizzie and Darcy fighting zombies side by side – once, of course, they got over their respective prejudices and pride.
[Photo Credit: Amazon.com]
