And Zombies

Part II to my latest post, is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. If you haven't read the last post or if you haven't read Pride and Prejudice yourself, this won't make a lot of sense. Enjoy!

Jane, Elizabeth, Lydia, Kitty and Mary are still the same characters they have always been. Jane is beautiful, Lizzy is smart, Lydia and Kitty are foolish and flirtatious, and Mary struggles to find herself. The predominant difference is that they are all trained to be zombie killing ninjas. Replace knowing how to play the piano or sing with hard core combat skills, and that sums up the book. Where Elizabeth is asked to play piano, she's now asked to demonstrate her ability to take on warriors.

What I have to admire about this book is how creative and inventive it is, without destroying the integrity of the original story. Charlotte, in the original book, gets married because she is 27 (ancient) and has no other options. Charlotte in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, gets married because she is stricken by the plague and had only a few months to live. Yes, the details are extremely different, but on the whole the emotion and plot stays the same.

To contrast however, there is a certain mismatched logic to the book. I get it. Zombies aren't real. In terms of immersion, it's pretty obscure that all of the daughters were trained in China. Or that the families were not racist towards the people of China. Let's be real it's the 18th century.

But, I didn't need this book to make perfect sense. I wanted to be able to read Pride and Prejudice again without reading the exact same book. It was clever, fun and I'm now convinced that I need to read Sense and Sensability, and follow it up with a few sea monsters.

Pride and Prejudice

As we speak, this movie is playing on TV. It, in every way, lives up to what I pictured the book to be. Keira Knightly? Yes. Scandalous 18th century dresses? It's Victorian-esque heaven. But let's get to the topic at hand.

Pride and Prejudice is a book about five daughters at that "marrying age". They love attending balls and giving their dad heart attacks. Elizabeth, the second oldest daughter, is the focus of the story. She is wickedly smart, caring towards her family and only exceeded in beauty by her older sister Jane. 

A young pair of fellows mosey into town and their family is in an uproar. When Elizabeth attends her first ball with the new aquaintances, things don't go quite according to plan. There's a reason that the book was originally titled "First Impressions".

I have a special place in my heart for this book. There are a lot of powerful lessons about love and what it means to be in a relationship. Some hard truths, some inspiring "power of love" messages. There's depth to the plot, without being overly complicated. It didn't feel campy. I was thrown off and tricked more than a few times. However, I'm not saying it's not a little predictable at times. Jane Austen still seems like she would be the present day Stephenie Meyer to me.

If you like Wuthering Heights or Little Women, try out Pride and Prejudice. I would say it's much more similar to the latter, but I'm reminded of the former because of all the classist talk. It recreates a similar story of being reproached because of status. But, there's a lot less death. And heart break. And revenge. You know what, come to think of it, I should probably post about Wuthering Heights soon.

I have an ulterior  motive for this post. I have always wanted to re-read this book, but never really had a reason. Then came along a perfectly hilarious parody, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I'm half way through and lovin' it. New post next week!