Stumbling Toward Reading Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies! Oh, My!

It is true and no word of a lie: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a reworking of Jane Austen’s classic novel Pride and Prejudice by Seth Grahame-Smith, is slated to come out in May of this year. Austen’s original tale of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy’s fraught courtship apparently remains intact but is now fortified with scenes of ULTRAVIOLENT ZOMBIE MAYHEM!

This sometime troglodyte is not so much a fan of Austen’s work, and, as a result, I have suffered both shame and social humiliation due to my having tackled an English degree without once making it through a Jane Austen novel. Thanks to Mr. Grahame-Smith, though, this sad misfortune might soon be remedied.

There is something I love about zombies. I don’t mean that I am all enchanted with their poor hygiene and fixation on braaaaiiins. I mean that I am actually kind of fond of them. It seems as though, if you could slow down their violence-seeking a bit, they might be a little cuddly. They always look like they could use a good snuggle. I think it’s this that makes them seem so tragic. Their reflexive violence draws out my human sympathy. They can’t help themselves. They are our worst reflection, but devoid of all personal responsibility for their actions. Zombies are the idiot children of humanity’s worst and most base self, and so we are moved both to love them and to love to destroy them. Can it get any more cathartic than that?

At any rate, I think I could make it through the entirety of Pride and Prejudice if it was peppered with scenes of feasting on human flesh and violent head bludgeoning. I know that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is at best a crass marriage of classic literature and popular culture. I know that some will see this as an inexcusable abuse of Austen’s work that should be a punishable offence. I know that Jane Austen is an author I should probably read like a kid should probably just eat their peas already and stop kicking them down the heating duct.

I also know this:

ULTRAVIOLENT ZOMBIE MAYHEM CANNOT BE WRONG.

So, my future plans now include: 1) reading Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, 2) thoroughly feasting on zombie-fuelled horror with guilty glee, and 3) claiming ever after that, yes, I have read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Just what kind of person do you think I am?