Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

I usually avoid literary criticism. But after I discovered this literary "gem" on the shelf of an airport bookstore I couldn't resist. A week later (online library reserve system to the rescue!) I cracked open this little "masterpiece."

Let me preface this by saying I don't normally read zombie/horror fiction. The genre is usually an excuse for gratuitous violence and gore. But the combination of classic literature, and zombies? I just had to take a look.

At first I chuckled. The juxtaposition of Jane Austen and zombies was hilarious. But as I read on, I found myself chuckling a lot less. Although the fate of the ever-annoying Mr. Collins almost seemed appropriate. (That's as close to a spoiler as I'll go.)

The text was about 80% original Austen with only 20% of the text dedicated to Zombies. So the book was mostly the original Pride and Prejudice interrupted by brief interludes of assaults by and/or slaying of zombies. But as I read on I found myself skimming through the zombie parts so I could get back to the "action."

Although I had not previously read Pride and Prejudice, I was thoroughly familiar with the story from the various film interpretations. So on the rare occasions that the action got good, I was never afraid anyone of consequence would come to any real harm, since the original plot was preserved in this book. The zombie victims began to feel like the red-shirt-wearing crew members from Star Trek--new characters introduced only to be killed off a page or less later.

The zombie element also introduced some other problems. The main characters could not be substantially altered, so the addition of their new mighty-zombie-slayer skills often clashed with their established character from the original. Just try imagining Jane Bennet as a vicious zombie-slayer. It doesn't work much better in the book.

In short, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is not a good zombie thriller. Neither is it the original Pride and Prejudice. If you want my advice, read the original. And if you want some zombie-slaying action, look elsewhere. But I'm afraid I don't have any worthy recommendations.