Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

I must admit, I was rather apprehensive when I first heard of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies a few weeks back. I was also rather affronted. Who was this Seth Grahame-Smith and what had he done to my Jane's masterpiece? Therefore my initial impressions of Grahame-Smith and his work were less than favourable.

However, I find it impossible to hate a book which replaces Austen's classic aphorism with "it is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains." Genius.

And Grahame-Smith's work only gets better from thereon in. As any good book should do, it includes illustrations by Philip Smiley:

"Mr Darcy watched Elizabeth and her sisters work their way outward, beheading zombie after zombie as they went."

The portrayal of the Bennet sisters as hardened warriors adds an even deeper element to Elizabeth's pride, Jane's goodness of heart and Lydia's self-importance. The contrast between Mr Bennet's cynicism and Mrs Bennet's foolishness is further demonstrated by Mr Bennet's desire to keep his daughters alive and Mrs Bennet's desire to see them well married.

I do hold some criticism for Grahame-Smith's work though. I found myself tsk-tsking like an old women at the crass and tawdry humour of Mr Darcy's comments and was rather disappointed in Grahame-Smith for sinking as low as to insert a 'balls' joke into my beloved Austen. Whilst I am now quite satisfied that zombies do belong in Meryton, crude jokes should most certainly not be involved. Grahame-Smith's comedy was at times schoolboy in its language. Show some restraint and reverence Mr Grahame-Smith!

However, what I missed most from Austen's original was...the comma. Having studied Pride and Prejudice (without Zombies) in great depth, I fell in love with the comma, and have taken to using it liberally, AS IT SHOULD BE. This is what a comma looks like:

Surely they taught you that as a child, Seth?

Still, I find it hard to fault this man and his 'work' (although in reality the majority of the original text stands unchanged and as beautiful as always). Indeed, Grahame-Smith amendments almost serve to make the original text more wonderful than ever, high praised indeed from a die-hard Austenian like myself.