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A review by emtees
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen, Seth Grahame-Smith
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
I wanted to like this book because the premise is really clever and funny. If I had to pick a quiet piece of classic literature that would benefit from the inclusion of horror monsters and fight scenes, it would be Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth Bennet is the perfect classic heroine for this story, which comes across well in the book - she’s got a bit of savagery to her that this twisted version of her story brings out. And if the author had chosen to cut the original novel down to a novella and insert the zombie storyline into it, I think it would have worked very well. There are so many moments that are really striking and funny: the Bennet sisters falling into fighting formation when a ball is overrun by “unmentionables,” the prolonged bit where a major character from the original story is turning into a zombie and the manners-obsessed society around her doesn’t seem to notice, the big wuxia-style fight scene at the end between Elizabeth and Lady Catherine. I also really liked the fictional sermon inserted at the end of the book, where a priest attempts to explain why the English are so suited for dealing with a hoard of zombies overcoming their country: “who but the English could suffer this plight with so complete an absence of hysteria or emotion whatsoever?” The fake set of questions for the reader, imitating the kinds of book club type questions found at the back of reissues of classic novels, was also funny.
But the concept of the book isn’t really enough to sustain a whole novel, and all the ways the author tries to get around that problem don’t work. There are whole chapters that are just Austen’s Pride and Prejudice with some find-and-replace dialogue, subbing in references to training in the “deadly arts” in place of music lessons or randomly adding a line about the joys of the warrior lifestyle into a familiar scene. There are moments where it feels like the author is actually trying for some real fantasy world building - the scene where Elizabeth surveys a church full of zombie victims, or the bits that deal with the way the Bennet sisters were shaped by their warrior training, are strangely sincere - but they sit awkwardly alongside a bizarre scene where Elizabeth rips a man’s heart out of his chest for no reason or constant references to ninjas. (The thing where all the characters are trained in Asia to fight and are obsessed with a really superficial idea of Japanese and Chinese culture is never clearly explained or excused. Why does Darcy’s housekeeper have bound feet?) There are plotlines that should have been cut because the experiment falls apart when you get to a storyline where everyone worries that a warrior-trained zombie fighting woman might have her virtue besmirched. And worst of all, there’s the gross, sophomoric humor that has nothing to do with zombies that keeps being thrown in, like the author needed to make sure you understood that this book was not actually written by literary icon Jane Austen. I could get past weird stuff like Elizabeth’s father sleeping with Chinese prostitutes or the constant unnecessary references to vomit, but then there was the prolonged bit at the end where Wickham becomes a quadriplegic and this is not only played for laughs, but we get endless references to him having bowel movements and Lydia being forced to clean them up, which we are assured is what they deserve, because I guess disability and caretaking is a funny bit. .
But the concept of the book isn’t really enough to sustain a whole novel, and all the ways the author tries to get around that problem don’t work. There are whole chapters that are just Austen’s Pride and Prejudice with some find-and-replace dialogue, subbing in references to training in the “deadly arts” in place of music lessons or randomly adding a line about the joys of the warrior lifestyle into a familiar scene. There are moments where it feels like the author is actually trying for some real fantasy world building - the scene where Elizabeth surveys a church full of zombie victims, or the bits that deal with the way the Bennet sisters were shaped by their warrior training, are strangely sincere - but they sit awkwardly alongside a bizarre scene where Elizabeth rips a man’s heart out of his chest for no reason or constant references to ninjas. (The thing where all the characters are trained in Asia to fight and are obsessed with a really superficial idea of Japanese and Chinese culture is never clearly explained or excused. Why does Darcy’s housekeeper have bound feet?) There are plotlines that should have been cut because the experiment falls apart when you get to a storyline where everyone worries that a warrior-trained zombie fighting woman might have her virtue besmirched. And worst of all, there’s the gross, sophomoric humor that has nothing to do with zombies that keeps being thrown in, like the author needed to make sure you understood that this book was not actually written by literary icon Jane Austen. I could get past weird stuff like Elizabeth’s father sleeping with Chinese prostitutes or the constant unnecessary references to vomit, but then there was the prolonged bit at the end where
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Ableism
Minor: Suicide
It’s a zombie book, with all the expected violence.
A secondary character commits suicide off-screen, with no one caring in the least.
A main character becomes disabled at the hands of another main character, something that is played for laughs. The disabled character’s lack of control of their bladder and bowels and his wife’s need to care for him then becomes a running joke.